| I would like to put a protest
on record here. Why can't travel web programmers get it right?
Often, for example, they make you select your country, then
only offer information about flights from there (admittedly,
not as bad as when a local subsite is forced upon you automatically).
You might be in, let's say, Argentina, planning to start your
European trip by flying to London, but what interests you
at the moment are flights between Paris and Rome. Well, the
Argentina subsite of Air France will only let you see flights
from Buenos Aires. What is worse, that of Alitalia Argentina
shows you an error page for any query at all. It really isn't
good enough.
Links
to get you there:
Airlines
Charter Flights
Ferries
Flight Finders
International
Buses
Railways
Selected Links
Air
Europa
Air Europa has flights from London Gatwick, Paris Charles
de Gaulle and New York JFK to a good variety of destinations
in Spain and Portugal.
Air
France
Air France can be an option, if you do not mind changing planes
in Paris.
American
Airlines
American Airlines still offers flights to Madrid, but no longer
to Lisbon, Barcelona and Seville. On the positive side, its
site is more user friendly than before. I used to say, for
example, "Why can it not have a simple list of destinations
on its super-hi-tech site?" And now it does.
AllaboutSpain's
Travel Market
A search engine for tour operators and travel agents offering
travel to Spain, with links to a few from this page.
Avro
"The UK's leading charter-flight only company"
offers ridiculously priced flights from 11 UK airports to
14 destinations in Spain and Portugal, with an extra £10
discount for booking online.
British
Airways
You'll probably get a better deal at your local travel agent's,
but this site has a nice feel to it.
Brittany
Ferries
The ferry is an option to consider if you are coming from
Britain, especially if you want to take a car. Not cheap,
though - the Plymouth-Santander run is a "24 hour luxury
cruise," and a family of four taking a camper van there
and back in August will have to pay over £1100 if they
do not want to double up.
easyJet
The budget airline (and another lower-case case), easyJet
offers flights from Luton or Liverpool to Barcelona, Malaga
and Madrid, at incredibly low prices (and either I missed
it before, or they have added Palma, Majorca to their list
of destinations). It does this by not offering any catering
at all (who cares?) and by dispensing with actual tickets,
and have been rewarded by mass desertion from the traditional
airlines. Good for it.
Europebyair
Who are these people? Their "Company Information" talks about
a "group of airline executives," which is less than informative.
The Flight Finder seems to work well, though.
Eurail
For European train travel, various railway passes available
to non-residents only.
Euro
Railways
Another site offering rail passes.
Eurolines
Claims to be "Europe's largest regular coach network,"
and probably is, connecting "the whole of the continent,
including Morocco." Well, we know what they mean.
Europrail
For US backpackers.
Flights.com
This is a Germany-based concern, though now present worldwide,
which used to operate under the name of tiss.com. It specialises
in consolidator fares (bulk purchases originally intended
for travel agencies) and it and its rival TravelHub
(see further down the page) are both well worth looking at
before you buy.
Iberia
I have stopped saying rude things about Iberia for the time
being, it being a long time since I flew with them. I am told
standards have gone up, and their press office is always very
helpful. Their prices have become much more reasonable as
well, especially for trips within Spain - the air bridge between
Madrid and Barcelona is an attractive possibility compared
with the six or seven hours or so it would take you by car
or train, respectively.
Johnny
Jet
Mr Jet's site is the top resource on the Net for air transport
information and links. It is too comprehensive for me to even
think of listing all the topics it covers, but highlights
include interviews with celebrity travellers, travel humour
(much of it decidedly racy), and the drop-dead gorgeous SkyGirls
(note to self: start a Chicas section). For travellers, travel
planners, crew, travel professionals, pilots, would-be pilots...
Lufthansa
Lufthansa has flights from all over Germany to, e.g., Madrid,
Palma, Lisbon...
P&O
Portsmouth
The Portsmouth-Bilbao route is the relatively new alternative
to the long-established Plymouth-Santander ferry. Its prices
are similar, but it plays the "luxury-cruise" card
even more heavily, and could relieve you of quite a lot of
hard-earned in the 28 hours of the journey.
openjet
A search engine which queries these budget airlines: Easyjet,
MytravelLite, BMIbaby, Volareweb, Basiq Air, HLX and Germanwings.
Ryanair
The alternative to easyJet.
Spanair
As well as charter flights, Spanair has regular services between
Spain and a variety of European cities, Buenos Aires and Sao
Paolo and Washington D.C.
TAP
Air Portugal.
Travel
Hub
Like flights.com
(see previous page), Travel Hub specialises in consolidator
fares (these are tickets bought in bulk for sale to travel
agencies at very considerable discounts). Well worth taking
the trouble to investigate before you book your flight.
Travelprice.com
An online booking service. Their web page is comfortable to
use, if gaudy.
US
Airways
US Airways runs services to Madrid.
Virgin
Express
Virgin is a most economic option for getting to Spain from
other parts of Europe. This site used to be hard to use but
seems to have been improved recently. It offers, as you would
expect, timetables and online booking, with a little information
about the cities connected.
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