Non Rev\’s Deluxe.

Tuesday September 12th 2006, 11:51 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

We’re going to be traveling to Germany in another 10 days to experience our first Oktoberfest.

We’ve been to Oktoberfests before, well. Actually, let me qualify that statement.

The first “Oktoberfest” we went to together was “OctoberWEST” in Prescott, Arizona which, by the time I came back as an alumni, was more or less standing in line for beer and seeing people I really didn’t remember all that much in college.

The next “Oktoberfest” we went to was last year in Zurich, CH. Fairly small, very well behaved and played a far ’second’ to the crowds and importance of Switzerland’s “Expovina”. More on “Expovina” in a few months when (if?!) we go back.

Flying “Standby”, or as I like to call it “Strand By” (get it?) isn’t always as easy as meal listing yourself on a flight and enjoying all of the benefits of being in the airline business. Here’s a bitter pill to swallow. WHEN you really want to go somewhere for an event, chances are EVERYONE ELSE wants to go to, so flights are going to be fairly full, but not oversold, but we’re also competing with an entire continent of people to get the last few available hotels.

Forget about staying in Munich. Hell, considering the rates, forget about staying most places in Bavaria.

But here’s the skinny. Our pal in Zurich says that the Oktoberfest is actually better in Stuttgart.

Stuttgart is about two hours from Frankfurt, about two hours from Munich, close to Heidelberg for a quick spa and a couple hours from Cologne.

Looks like Stuttgart also has the last few remaining hotels too.

We couldn’t get a single hotel for our entire stay so we’re spending three nights in one and then transferring to another.

Also, Kritie had enough foresight to get us a couple of RailEurope passes so we can launch day trips out of the hauptbahnhof (main train station) and still experience festivities in Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich and even make a “wine run” up the Rhine river to her families ancestral hometown of Kaub in the Rhineland.

Hotels, here’s the important part. There are three things you’re looking at:

1. Directly calling the hotel to see if they have any “Travel Industry Rates” or “Airline Employee Rates”. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, but you can sometimes get very lucky with a low rate and a fantastic hotel like we did in Paris and Berlin. Pure effing nirvana as a cheapskate airline pilot.

2. Sites like Orbitz, Hotels.com or even my own site at nonrevcentral. Nonrevcentral uses the same reservations engine that hotels.com uses so the rates are the same if not lower because my site doesn’t charge any excess fees. Not that I can, but I like to say “I don’t”.

3. Crew hotels. I ALWAYS call the crew hotel in the city that my airline lays crews over at because often they offer fantastic discounts to employees on holiday to show a little appreciation for the long term business. Kind of like getting a oceanfront suite in Nice, France for a schmokin’ deal.

I’m at home sick so I had the opportunity to work on all of the above. So between broken German and a horribly sore throat, plus a little stressful bickering with Kristie today, we finally landed a couple of hotels.

They’re NOT cheap.

Lesson learned: Booking two weeks prior to your travel date for a big event is [u]too late[/u].

Book early…

Book often.

Sticker shock, but I think it’s going to be a great time.