Self Planned Three Weeks Trip to Europe - Bookings - Air Tickets

Initial Programme (Not being used)

We had initially made a programme which looked like this:-

Day	From	To	At	Mode/ Action
1	India Location	Budapest		Fly
2			Budapest
3			Budapest
4			Budapest
	Budapest	Vienna		Rail
5			Vienna
6			Vienna
7			Vienna
8			Vienna
9	Vienna	Salzburg	Via Hallstatt	Road
10			Salzburg
11			Salzburg
12	Salzburg	Prague	Via Cesky Krumlov	Road
13			Prague
14			Prague
15			Prague
	Prague	Amsterdam		Air (Or Prague to India)
16			Amsterdam
17			Amsterdam
18	Amsterdam	Paris	Paris	TGV (high speed train)
19	Thursday		Paris
20	Friday		Paris
21		Paris	Mumbai	Air

(Note – the Yellow shaded portion was our requirement. The central Europe circuit as we perceived gets over at Prague and one can return to India from Prague)

We have kept it in abeyance at the moment but I reproduced it for two reasons. Reason no I, it is an easily doable programme for anyone interested to go through that circuit.

Secondly, it is a ready-made itinerary on which we have devoted considerable time. We are not using it at the moment but if some one gets motivated to look at it and follow it, let it be useful to them.

Final Programme

Our distilled itinerary which was finalised after due analysis and for which we had to start bookings looked something like this:-

Day	From	To	Mode	Activity
0	Mumbai	Paris	Air
1		Paris
2		Paris
3	Paris	Ghent	Bus
4		Ghent
5	Ghent	Amsterdam	Bus
6		Amsterdam		Tulips & Windmills
7		Amsterdam
8	Amsterdam	Cologne	DB Train
9		Cologne
10	Cologne	Koblenz	Car	Rhine Valley Trip
11	drive	Frankfurt		Rhine Valley Trip
12	Frankfurt	Berlin	Loco more Train
13		Berlin
14		Berlin
15	Berlin	Dresden	Car / Bus
16		Dresden
17	Dresden	Prague	DB Train
18		Prague
19		Prague
20	Prague	Budapest	Bus
21		Budapest
22		Budapest
23	Budapest	Mumbai	Air

Air Travel Booking

Making of itinerary took time but tougher then that was bookings. Myriad options and lot of confusion. For flights as well as local stay and intercity transfer, what to choose, based on what criteria, etc became all confusing. Economy, the number 1 Indian reason for any selection (Remember, Indians always ask when they look at the best of the Car, “Kitana (mileage)  Deti Hai”) finally emerged as the main selection criteria though comfort, convenience, etc also were other criteria.

To search for our flight, we took initial help from Kayak.com, a booking website for all travel needs. There are many more such portal giving out similar information but it was selected for giving comprehensive information of the flights. Once few options were shortlisted and studies, we realised that those options are the best options. Once options are shortlisted, we do the booking through Airlines website.

Initial plan was to use Turkish Airline. What tilted the balance in favour of this airline? That is very interesting. If one flies Turkish and has a layover of 6 or more hours (upto 24 hrs) at Istanbul, which is hub of Turkish Airlines operation, that person (s) can do a city tour of Istanbul, an ancient and beautiful city complimentary, including suitable meal (whatever falls in the tour time, BF or Lunch). This tour is conducted by Touristanbul (istanbulinhours.com). The temptation of visiting Istanbul as a by-product of the trip was irresistible.

We decided to let go of this temptation for the simple reason that we were not sure how much energy we would be left with after a long tour of 6 nations and 10 destinations to go for Istanbul tour. We felt that we would do a blatant injustice to Istanbul, a city which deserves due respect, if we take the tour half-heartedly. This plan has been kept in reserve for future trip (s). I mentioned trip(s) in the last sentence because I am a rank optimist.

Once we got over the temptation of flying via Turkey, realism took charge of us and we zeroed down on Air France option to fly into Paris and fly out of Budapest to Mumbai via Paris. Why Air France? Because that was the best option available among the shortlisted options.

What emerged from all this research is, options are many. Some of the options may be even more cost effective (like Aeroflot or other airline). The point that must be taken into consideration is, the selected airline will always take you to its hub (say, St Peters burg or Moscow in Russia if one flies Aeroflot) and to your destination.

A fine balance between economy and time invested on the travel needs to be made. Traditionally, all airline generally operate in classical Hub and Spoke style (unless some airline specifically has a direct flight, generally very costly). They get all in-bound flights from take-off city to their operations hub and then send out out-bound flights to the their destination.

After all the Permutations, we booked our most optimum flight for the journey.