First line of action

The first thing you need to do is run to the airline gate desk, because you know there is a whole plane load of passengers all heading there to make their complaint. Don’t be at the end of the queue, because the assistant is going to be your worst nightmare after they have dealt with everyone else.

As you are running phone the airlines customer service centre. You should save the number in your phone before you leave the house just in case. This way you are in line to be dealt with by two airline representatives, and can talk to whichever one becomes available first.

If you can, post some strong words about the airlines cancellation on Twitter. It’s a little known fact that some airlines actually monitor twitter to see what is being said about them so they can shut you up quickly. Unlike at the airline gate desk, you might actually get dealt with quickly if you say some nasty stuff about them.

You need to do whatever you can to get yourself on the next flight to your destination, so screaming kids and irritable grandparents can come in handy in trying to sway the airline representative’s decision about who goes first.

Know your rights

It’s worth knowing exactly where you stand when an airline cancels its flight. Of course you have rights, but different circumstances are dealt with in different ways by airlines. The best possible scenario is if your flight is cancelled because there is a mechanical problem with the plane. This way it is the sole responsibility of the airline, and they have to look after you. You can demand a hotel room to relax in, and you will be fed and watered all at the airlines expense. But just don’t expect to be staying at the Hilton. You can also get a full refund for you ticket if you want it.

On the other hand, if the cancellation is weather related you may not be so lucky. Different airlines have different policies for cancellations due to weather, so see what yours will do for you. If it’s absolutely nothing, which is what a lot or airlines graciously offer, you have to rely on your travel insurance to foot the bill, so make sure you’re covered.

But if you are flying with an EU airline company, and you are stranded in a foreign country because of a weather related cancellation, you’re in luck.  They are required by law to a put you up in a hotel and pay for your meals until they can get you home.

Take them for all their worth

Having your flight cancelled is by no means a nice way to start of finish your holiday, but work the situation to your advantage and it could end up being a lot less irritating than it seems. Make sure you pick up your food vouchers, which will entitle you to a free meal in the overpriced restaurants scattered around the airport. If you are taking a domestic flight in the United States that is cancelled due to non-weather related problems, the airline is obliged to get on the next flight, whether it is theirs or a competitors, thanks to Rule 240.

Having your flight cancelled is not the end of the world, so don’t let it ruin your holiday. A little preparation and remembering these steps will go a long way to making your flight cancellation a more enjoyable part of your holiday.

Everyone who agreed said aye.  Bring out the digestives and cue brainstorm.

Three days later, we were all in agreement.  An article offering advice on travelling with children would be our editorial offering of the week.  And this was very much one for yours truly.  As a father of three mad-eyed, dribbling, noise-polluting maniacs I am the perfect person to offer advice to parents considering travelling with young kids, and that advice is simply this: don’t. You’ll only end up killing someone.

So that, you would think, was that.  Apparently not, as I am reliably informed that there are some parents who actually care enough about there children to not leave them at home with the dog to fend for themselves.  Political correctness gone mad!  So, for the benefit of these weirdos, I offer this advice:

1. When travelling on a morning flight, under no circumstances should you keep the little folks awake all night on the assumption that they’ll then sleep on the plane.  The misguided tactic only ever results in Mr Jones from the seat in front spending the entire flight fighting the urge to stab your bundle of joy in the eye with a plastic dinner fork.

2. Be prepared.  Take snacks, but avoid anything capable on transforming into a liquid state at room temperature.  They’ll only wipe it on your clothes, the seats and the unfortunate passing toilet goers.

3. Be prepared 2.  Take something to entertain them.  A portable DVD for example.  DO NOT take anything that comes in parts.  If you thought leg room was limited in economy class, you want to try spending the entire flight in the foot-well looking for Mr Potato Head’s left arm.

4. Under no circumstances entrust your child with their own passport simply because they think it makes them appear all ‘grown up’.  They’re kids, they’ll lose it, and it’ll end in divorce.

5. NEVER let your child engage in conversation with a custom’s officer, this especially applies if you’re keen on said customs officer not learning about the funny smelling cigarettes in your rucksack.

6. Just because your clever little boy always does his business on the potty at home, this doesn’t mean that when on an aeroplane, train or in the car they will give you adequate warning of any imminent discharges.  They won’t. Put them in a nappy.  In fact, make them wear two.

7. Under no circumstances should you smack your child in a public place.  You’ll only attract the attention of professional super mums in the vicinity who’ll alert the authorities and spit at you while you’re carted off.  Instead, wait until you’re not in a public place and hit them then.

8. It is a given that at some point during the eye-poppingly expensive holiday you’ve spent all year saving for, that at least one of your children will declare the whole thing to be ‘rubbish’ and/or ‘boring’.  Prepare for this inevitability by ensuring there are no sharp objects within easy reach at any time.

9. Be aware of opportunities to offload your children on to other people.  When your child makes a friend do what you can to appear mean and miserable; enough so that the other child’s family take pity and babysit your child for the whole week.

10. Drink as much as you can as often as you can.  Either way you’ll end up a quivering wreck, so at least have some fun on the way.

Tipping, you would think, is a perfectly decent and normal way of showing your appreciation for good service.  Well, no, because one thing I have learnt from my extensive travels, is that trying to be decent and normal on foreign lands can often land you in a steaming hot pile of poop.

In order to avoid further diplomatic incidents, and as part of our campaign to equip travellers with as much useless information as their heads can carry, we give you the following (extremely) rough guide to international tipping etiquette.

Now, this list is by no means exhaustive, and is you’re seriously interested in the accepted tipping behaviour in Equatorial Guinea, then we can only suggest you jump on a plane, take your chances and find out for yourself.  But please, try not to get beaten around the head with a stick.

Australia

Australians don’t tip (that is according to a mad-eyed taxi driver I once encountered in London).  Of course they do, occasionally, but tipping is not expected in Australia. The temptation is to say don’t bother, but then again, tipping in a country where most people don’t tip will make you appear a good deal more generous than you actually are. Good for the ego, especially if the waitress is fit.

America

I once asked an American if he gave tips, he said, “Yes, don’t go to Canada”. Not quite what I was after, but noted nonetheless.  Tipping is commonplace in America.  A tip of around 15% – to 20% of the bill is normal. So normal, in fact, that it is often added to the bill.  Service charge my ass!  Any charge included in the bill itself ceases to be anything other than part of the bill surely? Go figure.

In bars there is usually a tip jar within reach, so chuck a dollar or two in there after every other drink and the bartender should be happy.  If settling you bill as you leave then a up to a dollar for every drink consumed and you’ll sent on your way with wave and a smile.

Taxi drivers are usually given around 10% – 20% of the fare depending on the service received (help carrying bags etc). Porters and such like are also left tips of around one to five dollars a bag (notes never coins).  If the service you receive is exceptional then feel free to tip more. Factor leaving tips into your spending budget when visiting the States.

Canada

I once asked a Canadian if he gave tips, he said, “Yes, don’t come to Canada”.  Again, you can calculate the size of your tips based on the level of tax (around 5%) so triple that and you’re on safe ground.  In hotels it is good manners to tip for the extras; for example the valet, room service or a member of staff arranging excursions. Bars and Coffee shops may have a tip jar but it is not expected to leave a tip for counter service. If you feel you need to leave a gesture of gratitude perhaps leave the coin change from your purchase and you would not be considered to be rude for not leaving a tip in this situation. As with most countries hospitality workers are not paid particularly well, so tips are relied upon to boost income. If the service received is poor don´t leave a tip.

China

Tipping in China is not expected and can sometimes cause offence, so much so that in some establishments they will instruct you not to leave a gratuity.  If you’re in any way uncomfortable with this, console yourself with the fact that the Government are already milking you for a bit extra simply because you are a foreigner!

Egypt

Tipping in Egypt is a way of life. Tipping happens everywhere, even when using the toilets a tip of around 1/2 to one Egyptian dollar is expected. Wages in Egypt are low so tip well and the recipient will be able to buy a house (joke). If taking a river tour or similar excursions you will usually be asked to tip the crew and the end of the trip.

France

Tipping in France is the law and is included in the prices displayed in bars and restaurants (damn those Frenchies for their excessive regulation!) It is not expected but usually people will leave any loose change after drinks or leave a small tip after a meal, typically no more than 2 or 3 euros.

Germany

German’s themselves are not regarded as generous tippers, nevertheless they do tend to leave something.  In Germany itself is is customary that a small tip is left for good service.  It is important to know that some places in Germany do not accept credit cards (only cash or debit cards) so check first. Often tips are added to the bill when paying by card.  Simply instruct the waiter to add the gratuity to the bill total (this is common across Europe now).

Hong Kong

In Hong Kong it is customary to round up to the nearest dollar when paying for services. Some restaurants will include a service charge of around 10% on the bill.

Italy

Generally speaking, tipping in Italy is not expected, but rounding up on a taxi journey or leaving the loose change after drinks or a light meal is always appreciated.

Japan

Never tip in Japan, it is considered the height of bad manners, as is checking you change (a quick glance will suffice if necessary). Manners and hygiene are extremely important issues to the Japanese, so try to remain as polite and discreet as possible at all times.

Spain

Tipping is not expected in Spain but it is seen to be polite to leave a small gesture of a couple of euros after a meal or the loose change after a drink. With Taxis most people will just round up. In hotels people will give a few euros for carrying bags or for help with arranging trips and excursions.

United Kingdom

In the UK you would not usually tip in a bar, and would instead simply offer to buy the bartender a drink. In coffee shops leave small change if you wish. In restaurants use your discretion and leave a tip if you feel the service warrants it.  There is no set amount (use 10% as a guide if you wish), but tips will vary hugely depending on the person leaving the tip. With taxis round up if you wish (this is standard etiquette). In hotels you might want to give porters a pound coin for room service etc. If no tip is left it will not usually cause any offence.

There are no easy answers to this question of course, and the answer can often simply be  ‘it depends’.  However, you can make savings, but first you need to have some understanding of how the industry works.

Explaining how the industry works is in itself a challenge, and the can of worms I’ve just opened are now busily wriggling all over my keyboard.  Nevertheless, I’ll give it a go, and to make the task easier we’ll create ourselves a scenario.

The scenario is this.  You are planning a summer family getaway for two weeks in July this year (if you’re in the southern hemisphere I trust you’ll make the necessary date adjustments); so, do you book now, wait until six weeks or so ahead of arrival or wait until the very last minute?

Hotels have various contractual arrangements with travel agencies and tour operators.  There are guarantee contracts; whereby a tour company will effectively reserve a specified number of rooms for a specified period of time and will pay for those rooms regardless of whether they fill them or not.  In these circumstances, the room rates are usually quite low and the tour operator has a great deal of room for movement as far as price is concerned.

Put simply, if a package tour operator has five rooms unsold in a hotel and they also have sufficient seats on the aircraft, then it automatically follows that as the date approaches they will reduce the cost in order that they simply fill a room that they are obliged to pay for anyway.  This is your classic ‘late deal’, travel companies selling holidays at a loss because they would lose even more by not selling them at all.

So, if you like your holidays all nicely packaged up, then there is a lot to be said for booking late; you’re almost certain to pick up a bargain holiday somewhere, providing of course you’re not too fussy about where you actually end up.

The problem of course is that package holiday companies are disappearing at an alarming rate, there are not many left in truth and thus the amount of choice and potential for late deals continues to diminish.  Not only that, travel with a package tour company these days and there is no guarantee it will exist by the time you come back.  A situation best avoided.

The internet killed package tour companies.  People like their pick’n'mix holidays, and are quite happy to book their hotel, flights and transfers independently; and bundling together those elements into a neat package and throwing in a rep for good measure was just about all these companies ever did.

So now we have ‘release contracts’ or often no contract at all (we’ll get onto that later).  A release contract is simply an arrangement between a hotel and booking agency that specifies the price at which rooms are sold to the agency. There is no ‘guarantee’ and agencies only pay for the rooms that they sell.  The prices are fixed and the agency are then free to mark-up the price of the rooms and sell them on to you the customer.

However, such is the enormous amount of competition online, booking agencies will rarely mark-up the price of a room by more than 10% above the price they paid for it, and often it is substantially less than that.  I have seen an occasion where a well established agency made just 8€ from a booking with a total value of 1800€.

The overall effect of this is that companies have very little room to play with prices and hence they will constantly canvass hotels for special discounts or preferential rates in order to set them apart from the competition; a policy that often succeeds as our price comparison service proves.

How all this relates to the question of when to book is difficult to say.  While the maximum price is stipulated in the contract, prices can be brought down by the hotels, and often are if they see that bookings for a particular week are slow, and they may issue this offer anything up to three months ahead of the week in question, and on occasion will withdraw it again should reservations pick up.

What it is true to say is that (using our July holiday scenario) during the late autumn and early part of the winter rooms will be sold at the contracted rates, but usually less a 10% early booking discount.  This is standard practice, where in the case of a hotel that opens from May to October, any bookings received up to the end of April are subject to a 10% discount.  That travel companies choose to pass that on to the customer is not guaranteed, however one suspects that in order to compete they have no choice.

Booking long in advance can therefore save you money, but by committing early you run the risk of missing out on any potential special offers.  The flip side of that is that owing to buoyant bookings your hotel of choice do not not bring prices down and instead actually INCREASE them.  They can do this because of the third type of relationship hotels have with booking agencies.  There are no contracts, and instead, often via a third-party agent or ‘label’, the hotels are distributed automatically via a GDS (Global Distribution System) and are sold through tens of thousands of travel agencies and websites.  The booking arrangement here often involves you paying the hotel on arrival and then the hotel paying the agent a commission after you have completed your stay.

Here, hotels have total control over price and will play with rates to suit themselves.  If, for example, for a chosen week the hotel are at 90% occupancy, then they might as that week approaches issue stop sales to all agencies with whom that have a contracted arrangement, and only sell through the GDS increasing the price in the process.  In this situation booking late is clearly of no advantage whatsoever.

So where does that leave us?  Confused?  Well yeah, but there are certain conclusions that can be drawn from all this.  Firstly, if you know way in advance the hotel you are looking to stay in, then the advice is to surely book early.  Arrange your flights, book you hotel and relax.  At the very least you probably will have benefited from an early booking discount. Perhaps the price will fall closer to the time, but equally there is scope for it to increase.  Play it safe and book it.

If however you have no specific plans, and have no particular preference for where you end up, except maybe for the country and class of hotel; then leaving it late will almost certainly pay dividends – particularly for package holidays.  Take that chance and save yourself some pennies.

As for the rest of us, well you take your chances.  It’s most certainly true that in a large city destinations there will always be bargain last minute deals available as hotels look to fill empty rooms.  Set your sights on a particular hotel however then waiting until the last minute could be costly.

What we can say with absolute certainty is that when you do choose to book, you always use a hotel price comparison site such as hotelpricescanner.com; but then you knew I was going to say that, didn’t you?