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Turkina
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Multi-city travel sites

Mon Oct 08, 2012 7:05 pm

I'm planning a trip to Australia around New Years, and looking at visiting a few different areas for about 3 - 4 days each (Sydney, Cairns, Melbourne), but it seems like all the common travel sites either don't offer multicity trips as an option, or (in the case of expedia) are annoyingly hard to use and giving me outlandish prices (like $15k/person outlandish). I'm basically looking for one place where I can book airfare and hotels together. Qantas (or maybe it was Virgin...) offers "prebuilt" vacation packages, but they aren't flexible, and they only leave on certain dates. The only site I found that makes it easy is called "tripmasters.com" (with quotes closer to $5k/person) which I hadn't heard of before. Anyone have experience with those guys? Does anyone have a recommendation of another site? I can't believe that what I'm trying to do is so outlandish, so what do other people do? Use a travel agent?
 
eternalmatt
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Re: Multi-city travel sites

Mon Oct 08, 2012 7:34 pm

I would start by using the Multi-city tab on http://www.hipmunk.com/ and doing some light research from there. Note that you can put comma's between airport codes (CLT,RDU,GSO) up to five in the airport box, and you can put +1 or +2 on the dates. I've found that doing this will sometimes limit results (at least when using multiple airports). Its either too much for Hipmunk to handle or I'm not measuring it right.

If you'd like to spend a quality $20+ by having someone else search for you, consider http://flightfox.com/. I haven't had a chance to use that site, but I am extremely curious about it (especially for int. travel). I've seen people save over $1000 on that Flightfox.
 
Turkina
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Re: Multi-city travel sites

Mon Oct 08, 2012 8:47 pm

Hmm those are 2 sites I would not have found otherwise. Hipmunk seems to be giving me about what I've seen before on bing/kayak, but flightfox is interesting. I may gamble the $40 (which would be the finder's fee for my itinerary) to see what they came come up with.
 
AMD Damo
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Re: Multi-city travel sites

Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:32 am

Don't bother coming here, this country is going down the dump.

Sydney is full of middle easterners causing trouble, daily shootings, Cairns is full of drunk yokels, hot/humid and prone to cyclones, Melbourne is an old **** hole with illusion of "character" which is just old graffiti'd buildings, with coffee places charging $5 for a cup of coffee full of wankers in skinny jeans and 80s sunglasses, or junkies pestering you for money at the train station.

In December/Jan its in the middle of summer so its going to be stupidly hot.

Melbourne/Sydney/Cairns are all easy to get to by flight, or you could drive Melbourne - Sydney, its about 800km.

Just fly over and go from there, don't worry about trying to pre-package things, get here first then decide what you will do.
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trackerben
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Re: Multi-city travel sites

Tue Oct 09, 2012 3:39 am

AMD Damo wrote:
Don't bother coming here, this country is going down the dump.

Sydney is full of middle easterners causing trouble, daily shootings, Cairns is full of drunk yokels, hot/humid and prone to cyclones, Melbourne is an old **** hole with illusion of "character" which is just old graffiti'd buildings, with coffee places charging $5 for a cup of coffee full of wankers in skinny jeans and 80s sunglasses, or junkies pestering you for money at the train station...


I've heard of troublesome muslims there and everywhere else but the way you put it, it's like Australia is going the way of socialized England. What about Brisbane? I know folks who like it there and are always egging us to come over and give it a try.
 
trackerben
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Re: Multi-city travel sites

Tue Oct 09, 2012 3:59 am

Turkina wrote:
I'm planning a trip to Australia around New Years, and looking at visiting a few different areas for about 3 - 4 days each (Sydney, Cairns, Melbourne), but it seems like all the common travel sites either don't offer multicity trips as an option, or (in the case of expedia) are annoyingly hard to use and giving me outlandish prices (like $15k/person outlandish). I'm basically looking for one place where I can book airfare and hotels together. Qantas (or maybe it was Virgin...) offers "prebuilt" vacation packages, but they aren't flexible, and they only leave on certain dates. The only site I found that makes it easy is called "tripmasters.com" (with quotes closer to $5k/person) which I hadn't heard of before. Anyone have experience with those guys? Does anyone have a recommendation of another site? I can't believe that what I'm trying to do is so outlandish, so what do other people do? Use a travel agent?


If you are keeping costs down you are probably better off booking flights and stays separately. If you can, plan your own itinerary by reading up postings on travel sites for ideas. Go to each airline's and hotel chain's sites (accorhotels.com has lots of AsiaPac specials now) where prices and terms are usually driven to the lowest. That said, if you have VISA you can try www.hotelclub.com/visa and may find better deals than at the usual agoda expedia asiatravel hotel_com.
 
AMD Damo
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Re: Multi-city travel sites

Tue Oct 09, 2012 4:57 am

trackerben wrote:
AMD Damo wrote:
Don't bother coming here, this country is going down the dump.

Sydney is full of middle easterners causing trouble, daily shootings, Cairns is full of drunk yokels, hot/humid and prone to cyclones, Melbourne is an old **** hole with illusion of "character" which is just old graffiti'd buildings, with coffee places charging $5 for a cup of coffee full of wankers in skinny jeans and 80s sunglasses, or junkies pestering you for money at the train station...


I've heard of troublesome muslims there and everywhere else but the way you put it, it's like Australia is going the way of socialized England. What about Brisbane? I know folks who like it there and are always egging us to come over and give it a try.


All the capital cities have their issues, Melbourne has a big issue with Sudanese migrants forming gangs and are highly involved in crime. A few months ago they jumped on the Williamstown line with machetes and robbed, beat up multiple people between a few stops and no one did anything or tried defending themselves, and they got away with it because Police are useless here.

Brisbane is alright, but it has a different set of problems. Its a smaller city than Melbourne and Sydney, roughly half/three quarters the population. It might be worth it if you have friends there.

Problem we have is all our people have been disarmed and self defence only covers "equal and opposite force", so you will land in serious **** if you give an attacker a beating or the person who breaks into your house.
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Turkina
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Re: Multi-city travel sites

Fri Oct 12, 2012 9:42 am

AMD Damo wrote:
Sydney is full of middle easterners causing trouble, daily shootings, Cairns is full of drunk yokels, hot/humid and prone to cyclones, Melbourne is an old **** hole with illusion of "character" which is just old graffiti'd buildings, with coffee places charging $5 for a cup of coffee full of wankers in skinny jeans and 80s sunglasses, or junkies pestering you for money at the train station.


I could say the same things about New York, Myrtle Beach, and Boston (all places I've lived). I'm sure I've lived in far more dangerous places (aside from the 3 cities listed, I also lived in Newark, NJ). So I am not a dumb/unprepared tourist, and will take appropriate precautions.

trackerben wrote:
If you are keeping costs down you are probably better off booking flights and stays separately. If you can, plan your own itinerary by reading up postings on travel sites for ideas. Go to each airline's and hotel chain's sites (accorhotels.com has lots of AsiaPac specials now) where prices and terms are usually driven to the lowest. That said, if you have VISA you can try http://www.hotelclub.com/visa and may find better deals than at the usual agoda expedia asiatravel hotel_com.


Hm - my experience was different - the bundle sites often had better hotel prices (and access to hotels that other sites were telling me were booked). The VISA hotel club is a good tip though - they seem to have better prices than the big travel sites.

I did end up booking on tripmasters, so let's see how that works out. I felt like I had to pull the trigger because I can see availability constricting (the direct flight I wanted from LAX to SYD booked, and the Holiday Inn I wanted had a major price hike).
 
yogibbear
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Re: Multi-city travel sites

Thu Nov 01, 2012 6:07 am

www.webjet.com.au

You can use that website to basically get a "search all" result on most intra-Australian flights and hotels.
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