• Figuring Out Where You Should Fly to join your trip.
• Buying Trans-Atlantic Air Tickets Through Us
• Our Air Fare Guarantee
• A link to our Air Ticket Questionnaire.

Where Should You Fly?

If you are on one of our cycle trips, follow this link to a list of start and end towns for each trip. Then click on the town’s name for a discussion of the closest airport or airports, and of travel between that airport city and your trip.

An editorial comment (code for, “you do not need to read past this point”): many of our trip start / end points are closer to local airports with only domestic (or interior European) service, than to the closest intercontinental airports. You must thus make an additional plane change to reach them. This comes naturally to New Worlders, who are used to flying to places like Peoria or Rockhampton, since ground transportation is relatively slow and distances can be long.

But a warning is in order, one that comes from bitter experience. Changing planes within Europe is usually more trouble than it is worth. It is usually wise to get as close as possible with a non-stop flight, and then continue the rest of the way on the ground. This is especially true if, even after a connecting flight, you would still have the hassle of a train trip, even a short one, to reach your destination. Save the extra flight, and make a longer train trip.

Why? The connecting flight implies a loss in comfort, reliability, and especially baggage. It is rarely compensated by any significant time or financial savings. You can show up hours or even a day late, the result of a missed connection. Bummer.

Worse: in an average year, about 10% of our incoming passengers arrive without their luggage. The vast majority of those made air connections. Being without your baggage is a hassle, especially on a bike trip. How does your luggage get to you, since you are moving every night? Where do you buy replacement bike clothes on a Sunday? How do you cycle in penny loafers?

In contrast to the horror in the skies, European trains are fast, frequent, on time, and luxurious. You can usually go first class for the cost of a space in the overhead bin on a plane. And, the scenery is a lot more interesting at ground level.



Buying Trans-Atlantic Air Tickets Through Us

Trans-Atlantic flights can be irritatingly expensive during the summer months, and finding the lowest available fare is a lot of labor-intensive work. We know the “bottom of the market,” and can get close to it for you if you have trouble (or don’t have the time to hunt around).

If you have a day to kill, and can spread that “day” across a couple of weeks (checking multiple sources several times during that span), you may be able to save 5% over our expert-but-sloppy attempt. But, by having us do it for you, you save time, and avoid the greater risk (and more common occurance) of paying 30% more than you need to for your ticket.

Editorial
Selling plane tickets is not a “profit center” for us. Nor, as far as we can tell, for anyone, including the airlines. They are a ton of work: it typically takes longer to identify and purchase the ticket than it takes to actually make the trip. And, through the magic of the internet, these hours of pre-purchase work have been transferred from travel agents, whom the airlines used to pay, to you, their customers. Great!

We do not generally sell intra-European tickets because, for one thing, we prefer the train, even when it theoretically takes longer to make the trip. This is because it actually goes where it says it is going to, when it says it will, comfortably, without eating your baggage or leaving a carbon footprint the size of Godzilla’s, and often passing through pretty scenery on the way. On top of that, it rarely ends up taking longer, if you factor in the ground time getting to and from the plane.

Indeed, we feel that the whole premise of short-distance flight is dishonest, and we don’t want you to blame us for the Kurtzian horror. 50% of the costs of flying are hidden outside the ticket: taxes, baggage charges, delays whose costs are borne by the passenger, travel to and from airports, and the medical treatment of the plague you contracted when the guy in 16B sneezed into the ventilation duct. And 80% of your “flight time” is spent on the ground, waiting in environments with the charm of a prison cafeteria. Pity the fool who says, “it’s just a one-hour flight.”

How It Works
If you would like us to find a trans-Atlantic air ticket for you, please fill out our Air Ticket Questionnaire to tell us your travel preferences. Return it to us, along with a $800 US or C air fare deposit. The funds are necessary so that we have funds on hand to grab – don’t worry, only with your advance approval – sometimes ephemeral discount seats.

Once we have both your questionnaire and your deposit, we’ll start hunting.

Our Service Guarantees
If you don’t like what we find at the price we quote, we return all but $50 (US or C) to you, or apply it to your trip, at your discretion. In other words, you pay a $50 fee for our research if you decide not to use it.

If the ticket you wind up buying instead...

1. ...corresponds to the choices you gave us...
2. ...costs at least $51 less than the one we proposed, and...
3. ...is bought within one week of our proposition...

...we refund the research fee, as well. We have never actually had to make good on this promise, but the market is so volatile that we are sure it will come up some day.

So, especially if you think you are priced out of the market, give us a shot. We actually wind up issuing the tickets for about 9/10ths of the people who ask us to hunt for them (and most of the rest buy the tickets we find on line, with our coaching, paying us the research fee). Indeed, we even offer an unusual guarantee, if you want it....



Our Airfare Guarantee

Interested in a trip, but afraid that the best high-season airfare you’ll be able to find will be stratospheric? Sign up for our air fare guarantee, which will cap the price you pay at an affordable maximum.

Maximum Prices
These guaranteed maximum prices include all taxes, fees, and agency charges (conditions apply, see below).
Shoulder-season and “lucky” fares are usually lower, and we will always offer the lowest fare we find — we have absolutely no reason to do otherwise, as we receive no commission on our fares.

$1,150 round-trip from the “coastal” northeast (Montréal, Boston, New York, Philadelphia or Washington).
$1,250 from other eastern gateways: Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta or Miami.
$1,350 from Texas, and the West Coast: Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, or Vancouver.

Add $100 to the appropriate geographical zone for less-well-served gateways, or for cities without intercontinental flights.

• Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and upstate New York fall in the “Coastal Northeast” zone.
• Ottawa, Cleveland and mid-western and south-eastern U.S. cities fall in the “Other Eastern Gateways” zone.
• Cities west of the Mississipi, including Denver, are attached to “Texas and the West Coast.”

Connections
We guarantee that you will have to change planes at most once more than the best service on the route.
Example: if the route is served by at least one non-stop flight, we guarantee that you will have to connect no more than once to benefit from our fare.

We guarantee that no connection will be overnight or longer than 6 hours (without your prior approval).

We guarantee that all connections of under 3 hours will be guaranteed by “interline” agreements, making the airlines responsible for missed connections except in the event of force majeur (circumstances out of their control, such as bad weather).

Terms and Conditions
To benefit from our guarantee, you must be willing to accept the following conditions.

• You must provide us with a 2-day band (in each direction) for your flight.
  We will make every effort to respect your first choice dates, and we almost always can. Of course, the more flexibility you provide us with, the more likely we are to be able to do so, and the lower fare we are likely to find.
  If we need to retreat to a 2nd choice date to respect the price guarantee, we will also offer you the lowest-priced flight that respects your first choice date(s), even if it does not meet the guaranteed price. You may then choose between them: it is up to you to decide whether you wish to spend the extra funds to travel on your preferred date. Or you may reject both: you only lose our usual research fee, and not even that if you find something objectively better.
• You must send your air fare deposit at the same time as your trip application, and send us your Air Ticket Questionnaire within one week of signing up for your trip (simultaneously with trip sign-up if you are signing up within 35 days of your trip start).
  While we can help you with airfare at any time, our Air Fare Guarantee only applies if you request our help when you first sign up for your trip, and respect these conditions.
  
• You must be willing to accept a flight on any North American or European airline.
  If you wish to accumulate frequent flyer miles with a particular alliance (Skyteam, Oneworld, or Star Alliance), we will try to honor your request. If we cannot find a flight that respects our guarantee and your choice of air alliance, we will offer a flight respecting our guarantee, and also offer you the lowest-priced flight that respects your first choice of alliance, even if it does not meet our guaranteed price. You may then choose between them: it is up to you to decide whether you wish to spend the extra funds to travel on your preferred alliance. Or you may reject both: you only lose our usual research fee, and not even that if you find something objectively better.
• We will find your flight no later than 14 days prior to your first choice departure date.
  We will try to offer you a flight soon after you tell us you want one, but in peak travel periods our ability to honor our guarantee depends on our ability to shop until close to your actual departure. Thus it is that you may find yourself without a flight until 2 weeks before your trip. Don’t worry! Our guarantee is just that, a guarantee. We will get you a flight. Of course, if this just makes you too nervous, you may cut your best deal at any time, either by buying a higher-priced ticket through us, or by buying a ticket elsewhere. In this latter case, we will will refund your airfare deposit (less our research charge), or apply it to your trip, at your discretion.
  If you wait it out, we guarantee that your patience will be rewarded with a flight at no more than our guaranteed price, even if we have to pay for part of your fare.
• Flights may or may not qualify for frequent flyer mile accumulation.
  Some promotional rate tickets qualify for no or for reduced miles. If we are aware of a frequent flyer angle, we will tell you the additional cost of a flight which lets you accumulate miles....
  
  
  

Want to Take Us Up On It?

Follow this link to our Air Ticket Questionnaire.