Travel Tips

Secrets of Comfortable Air Travel

Unless you travel first class, airline travel is crummy and annoying at best. I used to like it when I was younger. These days, I just put up with it.

Here are a few travel tips to make your flight comfortable.

1. How to Get a Good Seat

No one wants to sit in the middle seat of a row. How do you avoid it when you arrive late or check-in and all window and aisle seats are gone. Ask the agent to look for two people with the same last name on a row. Then, ask for the middle seat on that row. Chances are the family will stick together and let you have the aisle or the window seat.

2. How to try to get no one to take the middle seat (converse of 1)

If you are two people traveling, when you make seat reservations, ask for the aisle and window seats on the same row. No one wants to sit in the middle seat, and if the flight is not full, you will get your wish. Two people in a 3-seater.

3. How not to heave your carry-on through the crowded aisle on a plane

As soon as you enter the plane, store your carry-ons in the overhead bins after you cross the first-class section. They will be empty. This way, you won't have to carry the bag to your seat nor to the front when you disembark the plane. Use this when you have a bad back or are otherwise incapable of carrying your luggage.

4. Better Baggage Handling When Your Bag Contains Fragile Items

If your bag has a "First-class" tag on it, it will get priority handlling. You could ask for one. If you don't get it, go prepared with your own. Make one up that says, "FRAGILE: Handle With Care" and get it laminated (use a cheap laminator you can find at K-Mart). This way, the handlers will know.

Ideas For Free Air Travel (or Cheap Air Travel)

1. Become a tour escort -- I learned this from my great-uncle. He always brought tourists from England to visit USA. He never paid for his ticket. He would take them around N. California for a day, and that was it. He would then spend a few days with us and return.

2. Sometimes he would come packed so lightly that one would think that he was on a daytrip, not a transcontinental trip. He would travel for a nominal price on a courier plane. But, the downside was, you had to be ready to travel whenever the courier company called you, not the other way around. But, hey, the trip is free. Or almost.