I’ll be spending this year’s vacation in the US again, including one week at WWDC in San Francisco. I will also spend some time on the east coast in Boston, New York and Washington to visit friends and do some sightseeing before returning home.
While researching my flight options online, I spent a *lot* of time on various travel sites selling airline tickets over the Internet. There were various issues with most of them. 1.) As outlined above, my itinerary is not a simple round-trip journey and most of the systems cannot handle complex queries well. Some don't even do one-way. 2.) Others have high prices and 3.) most of them will not allow me to book with a credit card whose billing address is non-US, even though it’s all strictly e-ticketing only. 4.) Many have used web coding stuff that does not work in Safari, or does not work in anything but Windows MSIE.
In the end I was very impressed by travelocity.com. They could handle my schedule of Zurich -> San Francisco -> Boston, and Washington -> Zurich without problems. They accept my Swiss credit card and their prices for domestic flights are the best I’ve seen anywhere.
I did find a better price for the transcontinental flight from a local site, globetrotter.ch, so I booked that part there.
I highly recommend both sites and if you know of a place that has even better deals, please post a comment :-)
Oh yeah, and if anyone can offer accommodation or has a good tip on cheap hotels in any of the places mentioned, but especially San Francisco, drop me a note :-)
http://www.1st-sanfranciscohotels.com/pages/hotels.htm Hmm, doesn't like the greater than - less than characters?
opodo.co.uk and expedia.co.uk usually have good deals
octopustravel.com has some of the cheapest hotel room prices
:)
Hotel Union Square has treated me very nicely, and I have spent a good deal of time at the Holiday Inn on Van Ness. I'd definitely recommend both of them. Just stay away from the one across the street and down a couple blocks from the Holiday Inn (Cathedral Hill Hotel), it really, really blows. No net access, completely shoddy rooms, bad service and costs too much.
No matter where you stay, make sure you get to some of the restaurants! I miss them incredibly since moving away. Some favorites: Golden Era, Axum (the one on Haight has lower prices, but no live music), Squat & Gobble (I prefer the one in the lower Haight to the others), Phuket (on Haight, but worth the trip for their peanut sauce). Osaka Sushi in the castro has decent sushi and excellent sake (their unfiltered really, really hits the spot). I could go on and on, but I'll spare you...
For inland flights it seems to me that jetblue is your best and cheapest bet.
Good luck, have fun and drop a line when you're in town.
Depends on how picky you are and what you are looking for. I hate corporate swank and touristy places so I often stay at the Canterbury in Union Square. Quaint - no high speed, or room service - but can be quite inexpensive, the rooms are clean and decent and it's in the middle of everything. The Triton has some specials also. I also like to stay in Berkeley - at the little known City club on Durant Avenue. I think it used to be some kind of womens' residence--there are a few holdovers still living there. No internet - but has a great pool, inner courtyard and has a past its prime grandness to the architectural space.
Nothing beats JetBlue. The crew is always nice - and the seats are comfortable. In Washington it's hard to find reasonable hotels. For being in the center of everything, I like the courthouse Marriott on Dupont Circle. The Tabard Inn (historic) is also located downtown and has great food. Don't know if they have internet--it's a place that people who live in Washington go to eat and drink.
In my opinion, Jet Blue is a Greyhound with wings.
http://www.statravel.de don'T have just good deals for students, but also handle complex travels with ease. frankfurt > santiago > panama > mexiko > frankfurt for the price of frankfurt > mexiko > frankfurt
complex travels = complex searches hehe :)
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Hope you find one you like. :)