Trip Logistics and lessons learned
Jul. 26th, 2011 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamsharkThis is mostly for me, but other overseas travelers might find it useful. Much of it is specific to UK travel, but not all of it.
Credit Cards. Capitol One Mastercard is the only major credit card that does NOT charge a 3% fee for overseas use. I got the "World Mastercard" (no yearly fee). Mastercard was not accepted on some websites, including the one where I reserved my rail tickets. It is EXTREMELY important to bring the card used to make the reservation for train tickets - otherwise you cannot pick up the tickets! Some B&Bs take credit cards, but many do not (even when they ask you to provide a cc with advance reservations). I used 2 cards: Capitol One and my Amex Gold Delta card, and didn't have a problem with triggering fraud protections locks. I did call Customer Service before I went to alert them to my trip (but I understand that doesn't always work, so I brought spare credit cards). American credit cards do not have "chip and pin" which means they don't work in some UK ticket machines.
Cash. Amber had an ATM card from a bank that was associated with Barkeley's (a big London bank) so she was able to take out cash without overseas fees. Other options for fee-free cash: open a cash account with Capitol One. Purchase a prepaid ATM card that works overseas (I saw ads in the tube for those).
iPhone4 overseas. If phone is unlocked you can buy a SIM card in the UK that gives you a month's worth of data access and prepaid voice calls. Got my SIM at Carphone Warehouse, which offers multiple services but only carried MicroSIMs for O2. O2 turned out to be a good service. Prepaid voice is expensive ($.40/minute!) and does not include calls to USA. However, data service is cheap: 500MB for 10 pounds (lasts 30 days). Some difficulty getting APN setting configured correctly - they had to call O2 to get the right setting. The 1st tech didn't know how to do it and insisted my phone was broken. This should get better as unlocked iPhones become more common.
O2 had good coverage in England/Scotland: 3G in cities but something much slower in rural area. iPhone was all we needed anyplace for checking email and weather. Google Maps would not download reliably on slow data service, but it turned out we really only needed to use Maps in cities, and 3G service was always available there. I used Maps constantly in London and Edinburgh, and still didn't exceed 100MB in 10 days. Some B&Bs had wireless, some didn't. When they didn't we relied on the iPhone.
IPhone App of the Trip. Clock Light, a free app that turns your iPhone into an LED clock. I disabled "Allow Sleep", plugged it in to a charger near my bed, and propped it up with the little standup case I have. Bingo - our hotel room had a clock!
iPhone4 as camera. It was all the camera I needed once I downloaded apps allowing better on-camera photo management (Photosort, Camera+, EXIFwizard). Main problem is extracting photos from the phone. I was constantly reviewing, pruning and sorting my photos so I never had too many to manage. I also had a Netbook and iPod cable, which I used to back up all my pictures. Other fun things you can do with iPhone pics: email them, upload to photo sites or blogs, and attach pics to entries in travel diary app (I used Daily Tracker). Picture quality is amazingly good, especially low-light pictures. I never used the flash - not ONCE.
Gadget Charging. We only had two electronic gadgets that needed charging - iPhone and Netbook. The UK adapter I brought with me didn't work, so I had to buy a new one in London. Luggage store didn't carry them. Found one in an electronics/computer store. Should have bought an outlet multiplexer, as some B&Bs had just one accessible outlet in the room. If there was only one outlet I plugged in Netbook and connected iPhone to the USB port to charge both. Using iPhone for so much, the battery life was an issue. I had brought a car charger, but it did not work in our UK rental car. The cheap portable charger I brought was essential in keeping charged throughout the day. It's very lightweight and holds about one full charge, recharges at night the same way you charge the iPhone. This turned out to be enough juice.
Car Rental. A USA driver's license is honored in the UK, no need to get an International License. To my surprise, my car insurance (Farmers) does not cover overseas rental, and neither did Amber's. I added the surprisingly cheap "primary insurance coverage" option to my Amex Gold Delta card (just $25 per rental) and used it to rent a car from Hertz. Once you add that option to the card, it takes effect automatically on all car rentals, so I need to remember NOT to use that card for domestic rental. Got a 5-speed manual Ford Focus. The only option available with an automatic transmission was a huge Volvo - much too big for back roads and would have cost an additional 125 GBP. Amber did all the driving and had no trouble with the left-handed gearshift. We liked the Focus - just the right size. Petrol was unimaginably expensive - even in that little car a full tank was about $100! The lady at the Hertz office in Carlisle was lovely - no pressure to get unneeded insurance, and she admitted that the "prepaid gas" option was a total ripoff. It certainly was: 149 POUNDS! That would have been $238 - almost as much as the car rental itself!
Booking online - lessons learned. Use a card that doesn't charge overseas fees for all online bookings (e.g., Capitol One). NEVER book rooms through booking.com, even if the only website you can find for a hotel sends you there; they charge a 10% surcharge. If you can't book online directly with the hotel, call them on the phone or find a different hotel. Trip Advisor is excellent for finding hotels but has the huge drawback of shunting you directly to booking.com - BOO!!! UK trains - may be cheaper if you book ahead, but very difficult to figure out, especially for overseas bookings. Unlike US, there is not one fixed fare for a particular trip: fares vary enormously depending on time/date/type and on when you book them. "Advance fare" does not simply mean you are booking in advance. It refers to a small pool of deeply discounted tickets that are snapped up quickly when they become available, which is about 12 weeks in advance! This site is a good resource..
Senior discounts. 60 is the cutoff age in Britain, so I was eligible. Discounts are available for almost all tourist admissions, referred to as "concession" tickets. There is also a Senior Railcard, for which there is an upfront charge but a very large discount (40% on most rail travel. But NOT, unfortunately, on the Caledonian sleeper train).
London Transit options . Never pay cash for a fare - it's extremely expensive. Get an Oyster card, available at Heathrow Airport. Wait in line to buy it at the window - American credit cards don't work in the machines. You pay 5 pounds deposit for the card, but you can turn it in on the way home and get the deposit back, plus whatever balance is left on the card. A daily Railcard is another option, but there is only one reason to buy that: the 2-4-1 discount book (valid only with the paper rail card). The best deal in this book is a 2-for-1 admission to the Tower, worth 20 pounds. Railcard cannot be purchased at Heathrow, only at train stations (such as Paddington). Again, get in line and buy it at the window unless you are sure you have a "chip and pin" credit card.
VAT rebate. Save all receipts that have a value >0 for VAT. You can get a VAT rebate at the airport at the way home. This involves listing all the VAT amounts on a form, adding them up, and waiting in line, but if you get to the airport with time to spare it might be worth doing. We didn't have time, as it turned out. And since we stayed in B&Bs and guesthouses that are exempt from the VAT, we had only a small amount that we could have claimed. If you stay in larger hotels there is a 20% VAT tax, which adds up to a lot of money!
Credit Cards. Capitol One Mastercard is the only major credit card that does NOT charge a 3% fee for overseas use. I got the "World Mastercard" (no yearly fee). Mastercard was not accepted on some websites, including the one where I reserved my rail tickets. It is EXTREMELY important to bring the card used to make the reservation for train tickets - otherwise you cannot pick up the tickets! Some B&Bs take credit cards, but many do not (even when they ask you to provide a cc with advance reservations). I used 2 cards: Capitol One and my Amex Gold Delta card, and didn't have a problem with triggering fraud protections locks. I did call Customer Service before I went to alert them to my trip (but I understand that doesn't always work, so I brought spare credit cards). American credit cards do not have "chip and pin" which means they don't work in some UK ticket machines.
Cash. Amber had an ATM card from a bank that was associated with Barkeley's (a big London bank) so she was able to take out cash without overseas fees. Other options for fee-free cash: open a cash account with Capitol One. Purchase a prepaid ATM card that works overseas (I saw ads in the tube for those).
iPhone4 overseas. If phone is unlocked you can buy a SIM card in the UK that gives you a month's worth of data access and prepaid voice calls. Got my SIM at Carphone Warehouse, which offers multiple services but only carried MicroSIMs for O2. O2 turned out to be a good service. Prepaid voice is expensive ($.40/minute!) and does not include calls to USA. However, data service is cheap: 500MB for 10 pounds (lasts 30 days). Some difficulty getting APN setting configured correctly - they had to call O2 to get the right setting. The 1st tech didn't know how to do it and insisted my phone was broken. This should get better as unlocked iPhones become more common.
O2 had good coverage in England/Scotland: 3G in cities but something much slower in rural area. iPhone was all we needed anyplace for checking email and weather. Google Maps would not download reliably on slow data service, but it turned out we really only needed to use Maps in cities, and 3G service was always available there. I used Maps constantly in London and Edinburgh, and still didn't exceed 100MB in 10 days. Some B&Bs had wireless, some didn't. When they didn't we relied on the iPhone.
IPhone App of the Trip. Clock Light, a free app that turns your iPhone into an LED clock. I disabled "Allow Sleep", plugged it in to a charger near my bed, and propped it up with the little standup case I have. Bingo - our hotel room had a clock!
iPhone4 as camera. It was all the camera I needed once I downloaded apps allowing better on-camera photo management (Photosort, Camera+, EXIFwizard). Main problem is extracting photos from the phone. I was constantly reviewing, pruning and sorting my photos so I never had too many to manage. I also had a Netbook and iPod cable, which I used to back up all my pictures. Other fun things you can do with iPhone pics: email them, upload to photo sites or blogs, and attach pics to entries in travel diary app (I used Daily Tracker). Picture quality is amazingly good, especially low-light pictures. I never used the flash - not ONCE.
Gadget Charging. We only had two electronic gadgets that needed charging - iPhone and Netbook. The UK adapter I brought with me didn't work, so I had to buy a new one in London. Luggage store didn't carry them. Found one in an electronics/computer store. Should have bought an outlet multiplexer, as some B&Bs had just one accessible outlet in the room. If there was only one outlet I plugged in Netbook and connected iPhone to the USB port to charge both. Using iPhone for so much, the battery life was an issue. I had brought a car charger, but it did not work in our UK rental car. The cheap portable charger I brought was essential in keeping charged throughout the day. It's very lightweight and holds about one full charge, recharges at night the same way you charge the iPhone. This turned out to be enough juice.
Car Rental. A USA driver's license is honored in the UK, no need to get an International License. To my surprise, my car insurance (Farmers) does not cover overseas rental, and neither did Amber's. I added the surprisingly cheap "primary insurance coverage" option to my Amex Gold Delta card (just $25 per rental) and used it to rent a car from Hertz. Once you add that option to the card, it takes effect automatically on all car rentals, so I need to remember NOT to use that card for domestic rental. Got a 5-speed manual Ford Focus. The only option available with an automatic transmission was a huge Volvo - much too big for back roads and would have cost an additional 125 GBP. Amber did all the driving and had no trouble with the left-handed gearshift. We liked the Focus - just the right size. Petrol was unimaginably expensive - even in that little car a full tank was about $100! The lady at the Hertz office in Carlisle was lovely - no pressure to get unneeded insurance, and she admitted that the "prepaid gas" option was a total ripoff. It certainly was: 149 POUNDS! That would have been $238 - almost as much as the car rental itself!
Booking online - lessons learned. Use a card that doesn't charge overseas fees for all online bookings (e.g., Capitol One). NEVER book rooms through booking.com, even if the only website you can find for a hotel sends you there; they charge a 10% surcharge. If you can't book online directly with the hotel, call them on the phone or find a different hotel. Trip Advisor is excellent for finding hotels but has the huge drawback of shunting you directly to booking.com - BOO!!! UK trains - may be cheaper if you book ahead, but very difficult to figure out, especially for overseas bookings. Unlike US, there is not one fixed fare for a particular trip: fares vary enormously depending on time/date/type and on when you book them. "Advance fare" does not simply mean you are booking in advance. It refers to a small pool of deeply discounted tickets that are snapped up quickly when they become available, which is about 12 weeks in advance! This site is a good resource..
Senior discounts. 60 is the cutoff age in Britain, so I was eligible. Discounts are available for almost all tourist admissions, referred to as "concession" tickets. There is also a Senior Railcard, for which there is an upfront charge but a very large discount (40% on most rail travel. But NOT, unfortunately, on the Caledonian sleeper train).
London Transit options . Never pay cash for a fare - it's extremely expensive. Get an Oyster card, available at Heathrow Airport. Wait in line to buy it at the window - American credit cards don't work in the machines. You pay 5 pounds deposit for the card, but you can turn it in on the way home and get the deposit back, plus whatever balance is left on the card. A daily Railcard is another option, but there is only one reason to buy that: the 2-4-1 discount book (valid only with the paper rail card). The best deal in this book is a 2-for-1 admission to the Tower, worth 20 pounds. Railcard cannot be purchased at Heathrow, only at train stations (such as Paddington). Again, get in line and buy it at the window unless you are sure you have a "chip and pin" credit card.
VAT rebate. Save all receipts that have a value >0 for VAT. You can get a VAT rebate at the airport at the way home. This involves listing all the VAT amounts on a form, adding them up, and waiting in line, but if you get to the airport with time to spare it might be worth doing. We didn't have time, as it turned out. And since we stayed in B&Bs and guesthouses that are exempt from the VAT, we had only a small amount that we could have claimed. If you stay in larger hotels there is a 20% VAT tax, which adds up to a lot of money!
