Naples in August

[Capt BK]

Im going to NAC in August and have been looking at flights across the pond for a couple of days. I've come across a site offering Manchester to Miami (indirect) for £400 - the cheapest so far. I,ve never been to the US before so just wondering what anyone else thinks of this price. Is it worth waiting a bit longer or should I go ahead and book now? As you've probably guessed money is not in great abundance at the moment!

By the way if anyone else is going to NAC in August or thinking about it, feel free to drop me a line.

CBK

[Sensible]

Try:

http://www.cheapflights.co.uk/flights.html

There are deals out there especially if you are very flexible!!

Also, Sanford (SFB) is generally a cheaper destination cos you can get a charter flight which is generally always cheaper than scheduled. SFB is a a long way from Naples and unless you are renting a car, it is not an option. Tampa is an option though!

Check with Richard at Naples, he may have ideas to reduce your travel costs!!

[CAT3C AUTOLAND]

Captain BK,

I am also off to Naples, but at the end of May. I picked up a flight direct from LGW to Miami for just over 400 quid on Continental (Virgin code share). I found that the availablity of flights direct to Miami tended to be rescrited, so I booked up straight away.

Whilst visiting various travel agents it seemed you could pick up various deals if you were prepared to travel into Europe and then go direct to Miami, one offer was go to Zurich and fly from there, it worked out about £200 cheaper (which included the flight to Zurich), just a thought.

Just out of interest, what are you doing in NAC?

Cheers.

[monkeyboy]

Capt BK, I'm giving serious thought to hour building at Naples sometime this year. Can we get in touch over email?

[email protected]

Rgds

MB :)

[spitfire747]

I Used www.ebookers.com and found a good flight from LHR to MCO for £200 last November.

I hired one way car with Hertz for about £40 and a tankful of fuel cost £6 and it took about 5 hours to drive down, easy two huge roads all the way there.

If you can be flexible over exact days and times then you should find one cheaper.
Another good place to look is teletext page 224 - and look for a fly drive to florida.

Good Luck, Naplesis a beautiful place to fly around and NAC is a great FTO

Spitfire747 :) :)

[Sensible]

Talking of fly-drives, As a frequent renter of cars abroad, I have a deal with Nat West where I get full insurance for about £ 50 a year. Often, the cost of full insurance in the USA and some third world countries is equal to the cost of renting the car. I worked out that I was saving fortunes on insurance on any total rental over 2 weeks a year!

[Capt BK]

Thanks for the replies so far!

Still cant find anything to florida for less then £400 even giving myself upto 4 days either side of my preferred dates but the search continues...

Im going to pop into a few travel agents over the weekend if I get time to see if their contacts and 'knowledge' can help me.

CAT3C - I was originally going to go out there for three weeks and do loads but changed my mind to a little more relaxing 20hrs building and a JAA night over two weeks - should give me some time to turn my milk white skin to not so milky white skin!

monkeyboy - sure drop me a line [email protected], im at work at the moment but will drop you a line tommorow if you haven't already.

Sensibe - Is that with advantage gold? They've been bugging me to join that thing for months! I'll pay them a visit to probe further.

CBK

[Capt BK]

Just in case anyone is interested, i managed to get a flight with www.ebookers.com for £335 (£400 with Tax). Manchester to Washington to Miami with BMI and UA. Lots of places advertised less but when looking into them found out they either had no seats left or that they couldnt actually supply at the price advetised!

If anyone else is looking for flights as well its worth bearing in mind that the bigger websites like ebookers changes regulary. I had all but convinced myself I was going to have to pay £550 and go on different dates to the ones I wanted but up popped this flight which is all but perfect. I had been checking ebookers for a couple of weeks and this definately wasnt on there up until a few days ago.

IMHO travel agents are useless when it comes to flights only (well in Hull anyway!)

If anyone else is going across there in August feel free to drop me a line. I've just found out there's a Shuttle launch on 22nd - got to be a must!

CBK

[GoneWest]

Don't plan to fly to that shuttle launch - that doesn't happen anymore - though you may still be able to buy tickets from Nasa ( http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/carpass/carpass.htm )...and don't forget that August and September are the height of the hurricane season.

It may not go.

[captmav]

hi Capt BK,

thinking about NAC myself but probably a little earlier. Just wanted to ask what made you choose them ( apart from the obvious reccomendations ). Have spoken to them and they seem very well organised if not perhaps a little on the hard sell, which i suppose I can't really blame them for..!!

[Capt BK]

Captmav,

As you've already guessed I chose Naples mainly on reputation, a quick search of the forums proves they are held in the highest regard by ppruners. I also found the sales techniques a little hard but they were also one of the few schools that actually wanted by money and were prepared to give me advice. As I have never done anything like this before I wanted a school that was prepard to "hold my hand" as it were, but no night night kisses, I found Naples fitted the bill. I should point out that I havent actually been there so it may go horrible wrong!

When you get back let us know what you thought.

CBK

[cwatters]

Many airlines offer reduced rates to potential customers from outside their normal area. For example Air France fly from Paris but sometimes offer cheap(er) rates to people traveling from Brussels. (eg Plane+train is cheaper than plane alone). So even if Paris is your local airport it may just pay to check out the rates from Brussels as well.

If you use the web.... Sometimes the rates are different depending on which version of a companies web site you look at. (eg don't just check xyz.co.uk but also look at xyz.com, xyz.fr, xyz.be and xyz.de as well). Sometimes there are special offers on there targeted at locals only. Typically they require you to have a credit card address or ticket delivery address in that country before you can book via an overseas site. I've had tickets sent to relatives.

When you visit a companies web site it's possible for them to log your enquiry using cookies - Why is this interesting? Well it means that if you subsequently look at their site in another country (see above) then they know what they have already quoted you. I've not seen an airline act on this for real but I have seen it with a ferry crossing company. There are also interesting possibilities here for companies doing code shares. They _could_ check if you've had a quote from a partner carrier for the same flight and modify their response accordingly... but they wouldn't do that would they?

[Who's a Stick Shaker]

I think your price of £400 all in is about right for an indirect flight. I went out to Naples about the same time last year for a couple of months, flew Air France London - Paris - Miami and paid the same.

At the time I was a student with sft and was advised to call Surrey Uni's travel shop - which is who I used - ended up going indirect as it was about a hundred quid cheaper!!

I thoroughly enjoyed flying out of Naples....we were with Ambassador who I don't think are there anymore - NAC though did have a good reputation and wouldn't mind perhaps going back to do a few hours with them.

The tower humour was great.....quite amusing listening to the occasional sarcastic comments on peoples not quite so perfect flying ability.....they seem to fly the circuit pattern quite tight over there too- no B52 patterns allowed like those required over here!!

If you get the opportunity fly north up the coast to Venice....quite a cool WWII bar (don't remember the name) with great food - lost count of how many of my cross country trips took in that place on the way back!!!

Enjoy it.....wish it was me!!

:cool: