Decoding Air Travel: A Guide to Saving on Airfare and Flying in Luxury
Decoding Air Travel: A Guide tο Saving οn Airfare аnd Flying іn Luxury
Decoding Air Travel іѕ thе mοѕt comprehensive аnd insightful work tο date οn thе intricacies οf thе modern air travel system frοm a customer perspective, аnd thе mοѕt effective tool fοr mаkіng travel more affordable, convenient, comfortable аnd fun.
It’s thе οnlу book thаt саn teach уου hοw tο save hundreds — even thousands — οf dollars per ticket bу building уουr οwn airfare, hοw tο flу іn Business аnd First Class fοr thе price οf coach, аnd hοw tο еnјοу various travel luxuries аt nο additional cost.
Thе book hаѕ two goals: Improving уουr travel life аnd saving уου lots οf money. It seeks tο achieve those goals bу helping уου become a knowledgeable, empowered аnd sophisticated traveler whο hаѕ mastered аn increasingly complex аnd frustrating system аnd саn work іt tο hіѕ οr hеr advantage.
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The cost of this book will repay itself many times over on your first trip — and keep on paying off,
As noted by other reviewers, Nicholas Kralev was a diplomacy reporter for several years, and flew all over the world on the newspaper’s dime — but newspapers haven’t been the most thriving businesses over the past several years, so he had to make the most of a modest travel budget. And he doesn’t like flying coach. So he learned the ins and outs of airfares, frequent flyer programs, upgrades, bonuses, and began to think strategically and methodically as he planned out his travels. His travels also earned him a regular travel column in the Washington Times.
Kralev has left the Times and has been offering paid seminars at which he teaches techniques for getting the most out of travel for the least amount of money. And having been teaching these seminars for a year, he’s now written a book. It’s less expensive than a seminar, and this way it fits your schedule. You should buy it.
The book is broken down into three sections: booking tickets, the trip itself, and making the most of frequent flyer programs.
In section one, across six chapters, Kralev offers the best introduction to airfare construction and searching out the best airfares that I’ve ever read. And I write a popular travel blog that’s been recommended in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, so I’m no slouch on this stuff.
The book isn’t for everyone. You might be happy going to Kayak, Bing, or Hipmunk and booking whatever itinerary pops up and looks the cheapest. If that’s you, and you’re good, then the book may not be for you.
If you want to be more advanced than that, really understand how airfare and travel works and how to use that knowledge for your benefit, then it’s a worthwhile investment.
Kralev takes you completely through looking up the cheapest airfares, understanding the rules of the fare, and finding flights that (1) match those rules and (2) have inventory available at the lowest price. He explains concepts like same-day confirmed changes, standby, coach airfares that offer confirmed upgrades to first class, and married segments.
In walking you through how to use this information to book the best flights for you — whether that means the cheapest flights, the flights with upgrade availability, or the flights that will earn you the most miles — he gives great examples.
In the second section, the book takes you through buying your tickets, making changes to your reservation at the lowest cost, handling irregular operations (weather, mechanical, and other delays and cancellations), and obtaining compensation from an airline for your inconveniences.
The final five chapters are all about using frequent flyer programs: choosing the right program for you, making the most of airline alliances, obtaining elite status (by flying and by other means) and the benefits of status, the ins and outs of upgrades both domestic and international, finding airline award seats.
The book is a good read, a technical subject but written by an experienced journalist who has been there/done that and who has spent the last year teaching others to do it to through paid seminars. Frequent flyers looking to learn to get the lowest airfares and get the most for their money will find this book to be money well-spent.
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|Expert guide to beating the byzantine airline industry,
This book on navigating through the seemingly insane system for pricing and issuing airline tickets and getting the most out of your air travel experience is must reading for frequent travelers and illuminating for anyone who ever has to fly anywhere.
Nicholas Kralev, longtime diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Times and the Financial Times, has by his own reckoning logged some 2 million miles in the air. As he says in the foreword to this enlightening manual on beating the byzantine air travel industry, he hasn’t sat in economy class in 10 years thanks to his strategies in collecting and using reward miles.
As a former journalist, Kralev writes well and guides the reader painlessly through the arcane process of matching a myriad of possible fares with flight inventories to build your own ticket that could well come out cheaper than any issued by automated services like Expedia and Travelocity. He peppers his manual with anecdotes flying around the world to cover four U.S. secretaries of State. Because of the expertise in air travel that he developed in connection with his work – he also wrote an air travel column for the Washington times – Kralev now works as an independent travel consultant with his eponymous firm.
Kralev first tells you what all the fare codes mean and how they work for the various airlines. He then introduces you to Web sites that provide raw airline data – the same data that Expedia et al. work with. In this way, you can manufacture your own ticket more advantageously than the computers who do the work in the booking sites. The author modestly refers to this as the Kralev Method, but it is available to any reader willing to follow his step-by-step description.
As any user of the booking sites knows, this information is in constant flux and one of the overriding messages in Kralev’s book is to seize the moment – when you have a fare constellation you like, book it! It may not be there even minutes from now. But the author also tells you what days of the week you have a better chance of getting a good deal and what times of the year. He has reduced booking air travel to a science and he is sharing these hard-won laws of nature with the reader.
Beyond decoding the actual fares, Kralev describes the strengths and weaknesses of the various airlines and the global alliances they have formed. He discusses which airport lounges are desirable and the things he does to make his flight comfortable and enjoyable. He tells you how to predict flight cancellations and get ahead of the pack in making alternative arrangements, and how to get compensation from the airline when something goes wrong.
One of Kralev’s main messages, along with telling the reader how to get the best fare, is the importance of getting elite status. This is where the casual traveler parts ways with the frequent flier. For those who do fly often, on business or pleasure or both, Kralev argues that it’s important to focus your bookings on getting elite status in one of the alliances. Accumulating miles of course leads to free flights and upgrades, but the other advantages of elite status – preferred reservations, early check-in and boarding, free baggage, free change of itinerary, access to lounges, preference on upgrades, and so on and so on – are so significant that a frequent flier would be crazy not go for it and the rest of us can just stand by and watch with envy.
In general, both in booking and in awards programs, Kralev emphasizes the importance of focusing on the alliances – the Star Alliance with United, Lufthansa and numerous others; Oneworld with American, BA and others; and SkyTeam with Delta, Air France, and others. Booking on partner airlines is a way of getting the itinerary and fare you want, though it can be tricky, while, in general, award points won with any alliance airline is good for awards and elite status throughout the alliance.
Jet air travel is of course one of the wonders of our era, though it has become in many ways a bewildering and often frustrating experience for most of us. Kralev’s authoritative book shows you how, as he puts it in the introduction, “to change that reality and improve your travel life.”
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|The Kralev Method got me $550 + 5 1st class upgrades the 1st month!,
Nick Kralev has been running seminars on every facet of air travel. After all, he’s put in a couple decades of global flying to cover US government officials for the media.
Kralev’s written materials are MASTERFUL. When he coached me on how to handle United flight delays and unique techniques like how to plan to get bumped (including picking the right flights for this ahead of time) and how to identify flights through a specific website to better attain 1st class upgrades, I was all in on the brainpower of this true travel authority.
I got bumped off a flight and earned $400 in vouchers (plus free upgrade on the new flight 90 minutes later).
I received $150 for a flight delay (you’ll learn the circumstances when you can earn this).
I was upgraded to 1st class 5 times in my first 8 flights (and have since received this gift many, many more times).
Loads of tricks, techniques and insider information you can use immediately.
Every professional speaker and trainer, every sales pro who travels by air, every business pro who is getting on planes regularly needs to read this book!
If you book flights for you company, get ready to be a hero through applying the wisdom from this book. You’ll even want to attend some of his “On the Fly Seminars.”
MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
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