That's My Story

APPLES TO APPLES

Originally Published in Western Outdoor News the Week of January 15, 2008

As I’m writing this, we’re in the cold, cloudy, rainy weather of the San Francisco Bay area. We just flew in from Baja where we were enjoying temperatures in the sunny 80’s and now we’re bundled up like French fur trappers from the great white north!

We just started our 2008 road show tour which will take us to a number of western cities over the next 3 months at all the major fishing/outdoor shows. We are here now at the ISE Show in San Mateo just outside of San Francisco. Thanks to so many of you that stopped to say hi and comment about the column. We’ll be in Sacramento followed by Denver, Portland, Seattle, Long Beach and Salt Lake City so come say howdy.

Obviously, the whole point of these show is getting info for your next fishing vacation so we’re hearing a lot of common questions from amigos planning their trips to Baja for 2008.

The biggest question is mostly about air flights. In particular the costs.

Baja is undoubtedly the new horizon for a lot of air carriers. Actually, most of the resort areas of Mexico are in the cross-hairs of all kinds of airlines. As a destination, Mexico is close; safe; relatively inexpensive compared to so many other areas and it’s pretty easy to get in and get out whether it’s for a vacation or you’re gonna retire or build or find a vacation spot for yourself.

However, like everything else, the danged fuel costs are taking it to everyone but especially airlines. (By the way, here in the Bay Area, we stopped at one gas station and regular gas was $4.05 for regular!).

Certainly airline costs affect everyone’s travel plans. Here’s a few thoughts if you’re trying to plan your vacation to Baja.

If your hair is not on fire to buy your tickets right now, wait. Historically, we see some nice sales that pop up between January and March. Several airlines fire some nice sales now and then, but you have to be ready to reserve as soon as you see them.

Check out the travel sections of the major papers for ads. The Sunday travel section is a good place to start.
Find out who flies to your prospective destination and bookmark that website. Pop onto it now and again to check for specials.

There are several websites that will compare all the flights schedules and prices for you so you don’t have to bounce between 20 different websites. They line them right up against each other and are great time savers. Personally, I use www.kayak.com among others.

The cool thing is that you can actually program the site to e-mail you automatically when the price of a flight drops below a certain rate or automatically sends you weekly updates. If you work with a travel agent, ask the agent to do the same things for you. It’s a bit more expensive, but there’s nothing like dealing with a live person who’s a professional at travel!

If you have a group, you can also call the airlines directly and ask for a group discount. We have found several that will give discounts for groups as small as 10.

Once you do have the airlines, do a bit of homework. It’s important to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

For instance, one airline might be just a tad cheaper than another. However, find out what about their weight limits. Can you bring 50 pounds or 70 pounds per luggage? One bag or two? How much do they charge for overweight pieces? Will they even allow overweight? (We found a few that hammer you pretty badly).

Remember too that hopefully, coming BACK from your Baja trip you will weigh more than when you arrrived because that ice chest is now packed full of frozen fillets. How much will that ice chest weigh? What happens to that fishing gear you packed in that ice chest which now has to be put in your suitcase or carried on?

There’s one airline out there that charges $100 bucks for rod tubes going down AND coming back. They also use very small planes.

Think about this, that plane can only carry “X” amount of weight. If that plane was full coming down to Baja and is now full coming back, every fisherman aboard now has an extra 50 pounds of fish. There’s a chance some of your luggage might not make the flight.

Seriously. One airline is notorious for that. More than once anglers already sitting in the plane were horrified to see their luggage being taken OFF the flight as they sat helplessly.

So, bottom line. Although one airline might seem cheaper than another, see if the extraneous costs don’t swamp you when you get the final bill.

That’s my story. If you ever want to reach me, my e-mail is riplipboy@aol.com.