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Thursday, June 14, 2007

Update and a nifty toy

Apologies for the lack of recent blog entries. Normally I don't let heavy travel slow me down, but for all sorts of reasons lately I've been offline more than normal. The past couple of months or so has been crazy, even by my standards.

Asia x6
Australia x5
Eastern Europe
North America x2
South Pacific x11
Western Europe x3

Anyway, enough excuses. I came across this nifty toy from Air New Zealand - how far can I go? Select the origin (unfortunately only main centres in New Zealand supported), and move the slider on the right hand side to see where you can go for a given fare. It seems to reference "live" fare information, even including today only sale fares. It is nice to play with the toy and dream of the next trip.

My two gripes? The toy only works on NZ fares, and why do they spend time making nifty toys like this when they have more important unresolved issues? Like multiple booking engines that don't have the features you'd like to use, problems crediting miles for partners, etc.

2 comments:

Liz Lewis said...

Hi Global Traveller,

love the interactive toy but sure is a shame it only works on NZ fares...

with all your recent travels can you tell me the quickest and easiest way to get from christchurch to madrid (without going through a another center like Heathrow).

Cheers,
Liz

The Global Traveller said...

Hi Liz

Assuming you want to stick with one airline or alliance all the way, we have just 3 reasonable options (ignoring air fare considerations and any side trips you might want to do).

From Star Alliance online flight lookup (select 7 day lookup for maximum options), there are several ways to fly from Christchurch to Madrid in 3 flights. Thai (via Auckland and Bangkok) or Singapore (via Singapore and Frankfurt) seem to be easiest and quickest.

The One World website has a similar tool (not as user friendly). The shortest routes are not as convenient, via Sydney and London (or Frankfurt).

Personally, I'd try to avoid connecting through London (especially), and even Frankfurt can be daunting due to its size and complexity (several different areas within the terminal means connections are not always obvious).