AskDong

I made my first trip to New York in almost over a year.  I’ve typically taken the Chinatown or Greyhound bus, but decided I wanted to try something different this time around.  The bus options have increased  since I first wrote about traveling to New York in 2007.

• Megabus: ~$30 Roundtrip*
• Bolt Bus: ~$40 Roundtrip*
• Chinatown Bus: $30 Roundtrip
• Standard Greyhoud Bus: $69 Roundtrip (Non-Refundable)
• Limoliner: $178 Roundtrip
• eFare Greyhound Bus: $38 Roundtrip
• Airline Shuttle: $165-$244 Roundtrip
• Amtrak: $144-$278, $278 is for the Acela
• Driving: $40 in Gas, and potentially anohter $40 for parking (though I usually manage to find street parking)

* Megabus and BoltBus have variable pricing for seats.  There’s are limited seats that can even be had for $1 if booked far enough in advance.

The bus routes in the northeast corridor have happily become more competitive.  Megabus and BoltBus both offer free wifi, and BoltBus offers power outlets as well (not in every seat, but enough).  The other advantage for both Megabus and Bolt over the chinatown buses is that seats are guaranteed.

BoltBus is actually owned by greyhound and peter pan and is basically their low cost carrier, kind of like the now defunct TED (United) and Song (Delta) airlines that were operating a few years back.   Megabus is subsidary of Coach USA.  While I have yet to take Megabus, I found the Boltbus lived up to advertisements.  I had more leg room than I typically have on a bus.  The wifi worked well.  I didn’t grab a seat with a powerplug as I’ve found that traveling with my iPhone to be enough.

I think one thing to keep in mind with all the discount bus carriers is that one need to plan their trip smartly.   The bus that is leaving is usually a bus that may have just arrived.  As a result, there are days when buses can be hours late because of traffic.  I would never for instance take the bus at 6pm on the Wednesday before thanksgiving.   I think taking the bus requires a certain willingness to be flexible.   I remeber a few years ago, I was taking the chinatown bus t New York.  I arrived a little late and had no seat.  I asked the woman if there were seats on the next bus, and she said yes.  As a result I decided to head out for a snack.  I came back with 15 minutes to spare, but the next bus was already full and a line had already formed for the next bus.   At that point, I demanded a refund and headed to train station and got myself an Amtrak ticket.

Many people will have a bus travel horror story to share when prompted.  Everyone has them.  Just as everyone has a airline horror story.  The train does seem to fare better than other modes of transportation - I can’t say I’ve ever had a bad train experience.   At the end of the day though, the bus is just leagues cheaper than either the train or the flying.  I found my ride on the BoltBus pretty good.

I booked a trip to Mexico for the 1st week of June two weeks ago.  I had decided on Mexico because of the the great deals being offered.  Mexico had been getting a great deal of bad press from drug related violence.  Given that I’m neither a drug dealer or violent, I thought it was great opportunity to take advantage of the negative press.   I like to “buy low.”

Two weeks later, all that violence is long forgotten.  Now, Mexico is at the epicenter of the swine flu pandemic (or atleast media pandemic).   And to think I thought I got a great deal two weeks ago?   Today I can pay $1800 for the same trip (all inclusive for two) that cost me $2600 two weeks ago.   Given the huge price difference, I decided it was in my best interest to cancel my trip.  

I’m not particularly concerned about the swine flu, but my girlfriend is.   I had also heard the airlines were waiving cancellation fees.  I called Expedia, and canceled as much as I could.  I was able to cancel my hotel reservation worth $2000.   I didn’t cancel my airline reservation as I learned that Delta had only waived fees for flights in the next 5 days.  I was not planning to travel for another month.   Canceling my Hotel early was the right thing to do as I could incur a cancellation charge the more I waited.  Given that the airline had not decided to waive cancellation fees for flights in June, I had no reason to cancel my flight now.   I have a free option to wait and see if Delta decides to extend the waivers.

Even if I were to absorb the complete cost of my flights, I could still book the same trip right now and save $200.   The more probable outcome is that I don’t get a waiver on the change flight fee, and end up with a $600 credit - $300 flight change fee = $300 credit on Delta.    But more importantly I have the option of waiting and seeing if things getter better in Mexico, or booking another trip.   The swine flu could dissappear and I could end up with a even better deal in two weeks…

I made a bit of boo boo on my trip to Europe with respect to my phone usage.  A mistake that might cost me as much as $24.95.   Before I left for Europe, I signed for AT&T Global Traveler Add On for my iPhone.  Data roaming internationally can be ridiculously expensive.   It’s not unheard of someone racking up a couple thousand dollars in charges because he or she doesn’t know better or isn’t careful.

AT&T normally charges  0.0195 $/kb for international data, while the data add on includes a base level of Megabytes (1024 kb to a megabyte), and lower overage rate of .005 $/kb.  Unless one uses less than 1281 kilobytes, an add on package will be markedly cheaper.  Below is comparison of the available data plans, and how the pricing works out.

On the chart, I’ve cut off the Y Axis at $2000, as seen on the table the charges for data can well exceed a couple thousand dollars.  I used about 10 MBs in the course of 9 days abroad.  Without the data plan, it would’ve cost me around $200.  Instead I paid $24.95.  It’s almost a no-brainer to get the data add on if one’s going to use data while traveling internationally.  Having used my iPhone in Europe, I cannot rave enough about how great it is to be able to access google and google maps abroad.  My phone got me out of jam more than once.

Sounds good so far.  I signed up for the data plan before leaving.  I picked the right plan, the smallest data package as I easily stayed under the data limit or so I thought.  The problems?  My billing cycle ended on January 2nd.  I left Europe the morning of January 4th, and I used my phone on January 3rd.  Nor is 20 MBs  always 20 MBs.

AT&T has a particular ways of charging it’s customers.   AT&T bills based on what packages are active at the time of producing the bill, not what packages may or may not be active at the time of the use.  While I believe I can cancel my add on package, the information I’ve found so far is vague enough to warrant some caution.  For travelers who traverse to more exotic locales, it’s a greater risk as it’s possible charges do not make it to AT&T until months later (as much as 3 months according to AT&T).  In addition to having crossed over into another billing cycle, I failed to sign up for the plan early enough.  AT&T prorates the megabytes in a plan according to the date that one signed up.  I signed up on 24th out 30 days in the billing cycle, and as a result I only got 6/30 or 1/5 of the total 20 MBs (4 MBs) free.  This last item, I didn’t realize until I did some research previous to writing this post.  In actuality, I was able to knock off those excess charges because I called customer service earlier today because I didn’t understand why I was getting charged.  The woman I spoke to was kind enough to make an adjustment to my bill.

I’m hardly the only one to be trapped in the quagmire of of AT&T billing, some have ended up with bills in the 5 figures.  International roaming is a cash cow for AT&T.  Individuals at least make an attempt to be careful (which I wasn’t careful enough), and call customer service after the fact if there is a problem.  Many users are corporate users who never ever see a bill.  These are the users that AT&T is likely making a killing off of.

I got back from Europe on Sunday.  Had a great time.   London was suprisingly “cheap.”   The British pound is very weak at the moment.   As a result this trip to London felt like a steal compared to the last time I went 4 years ago.   However as I look through my credit card bills, I still need to answer for my indulgences.  My bills are going to be hefty this month

I got back from Vacation in Costa Rica last week.   I didn’t go into the vacation with any expectations.   I was a passenger on this vacation, so I hadn’t done of the planning that went into it.   As a result, I set foot in Costa Rica barely knowing anything about the country or what the vacation would be like.   What I found was beautiful country with friendly people, all at very attractive prices.  Before I go anyt further I will breakdown what the cost of the trip was.   I’ve had to make some estimates as accomodation were provided by girlfriend’s mom who traded her timeshare for a week at Villas Sol.

These costs are quoted as per person costs.   I estimated the hotel cost as that was not actually paid directly.  I got a quote for 1 bedroom hotel room at the Villas Sol and divided that by two to get the person cost.   At Villas Sol they charged $50 for the all inclusive option.   This included all food and drinks.  Excursion consists of tours arranged through a tour operator, Swiss Travel.  The average daily cost of my trip at $310 per day is not low.   At the same tiem at $310/day is actually quite inexpensive given that there was really no effort on my part to minimize costs.  The single biggest line item was lodging, and that for me a was a given.   Given what I was I able to do, I have no complaints about the cost.  Below are some pictures, none of which include me, but does include my horse (or at least the one I rode to the spa).

Tomorrow, I’ll explore how I might have done this trip cheaper.