Travel 2016
COMING SOON: Below is the information from 2015 to give you a sense of how our travel worked then. This stays fairly constant from year to year.
Good news: we’ve finalized the flight plans for the Summer 2015 trip. The current price is hovering around $1,400—not bad for London in late summer (and currently $200 cheaper than last year)!
In the following message, you will find (1) an explanation of our air travel plan, (2) details about the flights you should book, (3) instructions on ordering your tickets, (4) information about alternatives to these preferred flights, and (5) some additional flight-related suggestions.
Our Air Travel Plan
As we discussed at the information sessions, each participant will need to book his or her ticket individually. Although you will book your ticket individually, we’d like everyone to book the same flight from Charlotte to London, if possible. That way, we can arrange an airport shuttle to take the group in from the airport to our London lodging. Some exceptions can be made, of course (for instance, people who are going to be somewhere other than North Carolina in June might want to fly directly from that location rather than returning to ECU before departure). But if you book a flight that’s different from the booking provided below, you’ll have to take a train from the airport to the city, and very few train stations have escalators, which makes traveling with luggage rather frustrating. Aside from that practical matter, it’s just nicer to travel in a group!
To make it possible to travel together, we’ve selected flights for which there are still lots of open seats. Nevertheless, it’s important to book your flight soon; we have more than 20 travelers, and we want to grab all our seats before others take them! There’s no way to predict how long the space will remain available, and there’s also no way to know that the price will remain the same. (It looks very, very doubtful that the price would go down, but, as the flight fills up, it’s normal for the prices to go up.)
Flight details (a.k.a. “Book this itinerary!”)
Here’s a summary of the itinerary that you should book as soon as possible:
Outbound: Greenville to Charlotte to London-Heathrow
US Airways: US4768 (PGV-CLT)
Departs Greenville 3 July 2015 @ 2:21 pm
Arrive Charlotte 3 July 2015 @ 3:37 pmUS Airways: US730 (CLT-LHR)
Departs Charlotte 3 July 2015 @ 6:45 pm
Arrives London-Heathrow 4 July 2015 7:40 am
Inbound: London to Charlotte to Greenville
US Airways: US731 (LHR-CLT)
Departs London-Heathrow 26 July 2015 @ 11:00 am
Arrives Charlotte 26 July 2015 @ 2:53 pmUS Airways: US4797 (CLT-PGV)
Departs Charlotte 26 July 2015 @ 4:12 pm
Arrives Greenville 26 July 2015 @ 5:21 pm
If you want, you can join us in Charlotte (in Concourse D – International Concourse) and skip the PGV-CLT leg of the trip. At the moment, you’re not saving any money – it’s actually more expensive – but that may change.
How to Book Your Tickets
The best way to book your ticket is directly through USAirways website: http://www.usairways.com. You can go through Expedia or Orbitz or another reseller option, but the prices — at least at the moment — are not any better. In my experience, when you book with the airline directly, you get better service should something go wrong.
When you get to the USAirways site, you can search for the trip as such:
REMEMBER: the flight numbers are everything! Make sure those are correct with the flight you book. The times sometimes shift by up to 15 minutes, so don’t be surprised if your time if 5 minutes or 10 minutes different from when I took the screenshot. As long as the flight numbers are right, we’ll all be together on the same flight.
At the moment, it is $400 cheaper to fly from Washington DC to Charlotte to London – honestly, there is no logic here – than it is to fly from Greenville to Charlotte to London or even, believe it or not, to fly straight from London. I mention this because the exact same plane for all three of these goes to London (USAir Flight #730). So if Greenville isn’t the closest option, you might check around airports in the area where you have family or friends you might spend the night with. You might save yourself some money on the flight.
As you go through the process, you’ll see that you’re asked to enter your traveler information. This is very important: it MUST match what’s on your passport, so be sure you enter this information correctly.
Eventually, you may be asked to enter your Passport Number, so be sure to have it handy.
Send me an email at BANKSW [at] ECU [dot] EDU to say that you’ve booked your ticket and what your itinerary is (Group from Gville; Group from CLT; or On My Own). If you are traveling on your own, please send a copy of your itinerary so that we know where you are and how we might best make plans to meet you once we’re all in London. We instructors will be three bundles of stress between now and the time that every student has booked a ticket. Please settle our nerves by telling us when you’ve booked.
If you want to share a seat with someone you know from the program, then just book your flights at the same time and choose seats together.
Alternate Bookings
Some of you already have plans to travel on different days or from different airports. You might need to book flights different from those listed above for different reasons:
- You plan to be somewhere other than Greenville before our departure date, and you prefer to fly from where you are rather than coming back to Greenville to fly out with the group. If Charlotte is closer for you, you can just meet us at the gate in Charlotte (and of course book just that leg of the flight). But if you’re in eastern NC, there’s really no financial advantage to driving over to Charlotte. Just fly out of Greenville with the rest of us!
- You plan to stay in Europe for additional travel after the trip ends (lucky you!)
- You wait too long and there are no more available seats on the specified flights.
In each of these situations, the process of booking your flight remains the same, but, of course, the specific flights will differ. If you’re departing from an airport other than PGV (Greenville) (e.g., if you’re going to be in New York, Atlanta, Virginia Beach, or Peoria), you might want to search for the best fare from your location. If possible, try to get a booking in which you will be landing at London Heathrow Airport (LHR) before the group’s arrival time (7:50 am). If you do that, we might be able to meet up in the airport so you can take our private shuttle bus in to the city. The shuttle can’t wait if your flight is delayed, but don’t worry. You will have to get from the airport to the city on your own, but it’s not difficult, and I’ll give you the necessary instructions.
If you plan to travel in Europe (post-trip), note that you can book an “open jaw” flight (that is, a flight where you arrive in one airport, but return from a different airport—e.g., Greenville to London, then tour Europe by train, then Madrid to Greenville). The airline websites provide instructions for booking this type of flight. If you’re on the continent, an open-jaw booking may be cheaper than returning to London first. The exception is Paris; if you’re visiting Paris, it may be cheaper to return to London and fly out the next day.
This is important. If you plan to use an alternative booking, PLEASE let me know as soon as possible! I’ll keep a list of everyone’s booking status.
Additional Suggestions and Comments
Become a member of the USAirways “Dividend Miles” frequent flyer miles program! Now that USAirways and American Airlines are the same company, if you already have an AA frequent flyer account, you can connect it to USAirways and add these miles. It’s free, and this flight will give you almost 10,000 frequent flyer miles right from the start. (That’s almost halfway to a free domestic flight, and almost 1/3 of the way to a flight to the Caribbean!) You can book your ticket first, then sign up for the miles program; as long as you’re a member before you board the plane, you can count the miles.
Reminder: use the exact same name for your flight booking that you have on your passport. No nicknames! I’m talking to you, Richard “Muscles” Taylor.
Some of you may not be sure yet whether you’d like to travel after the program. It’s possible to book your tickets, arrive in London, decide that you’d like to stay longer, and change your return flight by paying a change fee. That fee is something like $200 plus any increase in the new booking. So it’s possible to be spontaneous, but if you know for sure that you’d like to stay longer, you’re better off booking the extended itinerary from the start.
That’s it for now! Please, please let Dr. Banks know when you’ve booked your ticket. We’ll sleep better knowing everyone’s successfully booked. Summer is a busy travel time for London, and the earlier we’re all booked, the more likely it is that we can travel together. This is especially true if you’re planning to fly out of Greenville, since it’s a smaller plane and there are fewer seats available. Book ASAP, okay?
Have questions or need help? Just ask. We’re going to have a great trip!
