“When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” In this day and age of every airline in the world looking for ‘added value’, this quote could not be truer.

It’s coming into Northern Hemisphere high season and many people are either embarking on the overseas ‘trip of a lifetime’ or planning for that end of year skiing holiday or heading off to warmer Southern Hemisphere climes.

Gone are the days of only the Flying Springbok or the Union Jack taking you off to Europe. Now we have a bewildering array of foreign airlines touting for your hard earned cash.

Who do you choose? If you go to a travel agent, you may find that the person behind the computer knows the airline reservation system, but has very little actual travelling experience! Or, if you’re like us, you prefer to do it yourself online.

The airlines are slugging it out for your custom and reducing their fares accordingly. However, beware: to quote Michael O’Leary of Ryanair, “we’re only interested if our customers have a credit card and a pulse”. The pioneers of ‘added value” (that is, how much more can we get out of a passenger than the actual flight ticket), have now been copied by all the airlines.

Now we have a laundry list of added charges – baggage; additional bags; hand luggage; priority boarding; emergency exits; food; drinks; duty free you name it.

As the world’s most profitable airline Ryanair have it down to a fine art – they even tried to charge for using the toilet but were stopped by the International Aviation authorities (IATA). So, what do they do? They keep you trapped under your seat belt after takeoff to sell you drinks, food, scratch cards, duty free. This is spun out until 15 minutes before you start to descend. A quick quarter-hour to stretch and ‘maybe’ use the toilet, then its time to retreat to your seat belt for the descent. Solution – clean toilets, less cleaning, more money.

The message? When you book, check very carefully the baggage restrictions and charges; do NOT try and busk the hand luggage restrictions; arrive early; smile sweetly; do not argue with the check in chicks (we know of people being thrown off planes for swearing at the check-in, they’re now the people who board you as well!).

Get into a zone………. Fly well.

Next week, we’ll discuss the difference between the so-called Budget airlines and legacy carriers. 

If you want to read more of Simon Burrow, go to his site for all things Provençal – Living Stylishly Well.