From: Bayline Editor (bayline_editor@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Apr 17 2005 - 14:28:51 PDT
Message-ID: <20050417212851.68103.qmail@web54208.mail.yahoo.com> Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 14:28:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Bayline Editor <bayline_editor@yahoo.com> Subject: Travel Tips for the upcoming SLA Conference
Bayline Newsletter is proud to pre-publish an article
by David Grossman for your use. David has compiled all
sorts of money saving tips for your use in planning
your trip to the annual SLA Conference this year in
Toronto Canada. Enjoy this email and remember that you
can always find this information again when the
May/June issue of Bayline is published on the SF-SLA
website (http://www.sla.org/chapter/csfo/csfo.html).
Editorially yours,
Dunn Miller
A Free Trip to Niagara Falls and Other Travel Tips for
Annual Conference Attendees
By David Grossman
March 29, 2005
How would you like to visit Niagara Falls for free on
your way to the SLA annual conference in Toronto? If
you follow some of the tips in this article, you can!
All prices were current as of March 29, 2005 and are
quoted in U.S. dollars.
Airfares. The SLA discount for a non-stop flight from
San Francisco to Toronto on Air Canada only saved $1
off the regular $486 airfare. However, you could save
$35 by making a connection along the way from any of
the three Bay Area airports on America West, Delta, or
Westjet, which is the Canadian version of a discount
airline. To really save money, fly into Buffalo
instead. Buffalo is about 100 miles from Toronto and I
found airfares as low as $266 from San Jose, $300 from
San Francisco, and $356 from Oakland. All flights are
connections. There are no non-stop flights from the
Bay Area to Buffalo, but you can save about $200 by
flying into Buffalo.
Another airfare saver is to book on Hotwire.com or
Priceline.com. Hotwire’s fare from San Francisco to
Toronto was $344 departing Saturday, June 4th
returning Thursday, June 9th. The fare to Buffalo was
$253 for the same dates. Hotwire and Priceline sell
seats at a discount that airlines do not expect to
fill. Unlike regular airfares that rise as the travel
date approaches, the prices on Hotwire and Priceline
may drop, as airlines become more desperate to sell
the remaining empty seats. But that is a gamble that
can go either way. The other drawback of Hotwire or
Priceline is that you have less control over departure
times, the airline, and the routing, and you will not
earn any miles. You are not told the name of the
airline you will be flying until you have paid for
your non-refundable ticket. Hotwire gives you a price
up front, while you must bid for a Priceline flight.
Priceline addicts often go to Hotwire first to check
out their lowest prices. They then go to Priceline and
successfully bid a slightly lower price. If you are
squeamish about bidding, go to biddingfortravel.com or
betterbidding.com, where users post successful bids,
offer tips, and help you decode the cloaked offerings
on Hotwire and Priceline.
If you fly to Buffalo you will need a car for the
drive to Toronto. If you rent a compact car from
Alamo (the cheapest I could find), it will cost $131
for the duration of the conference. Gasoline and tolls
should run about $20, but you will save the $20 bus
fare or $70 taxi cost of the round trip from the
Toronto Airport to your hotel.
Parking rates at the Fairmont Royal York are about
$26/night. But, according to the concierge, public
parking is available on Bay Street near the hotel for
only $8.20/day. If you travel with a colleague and
split your shared costs, your savings will increase
even more. All in all, flying through Buffalo would
cost about the same as flying directly to Toronto. But
you can visit Niagara Falls at no additional cost.
Hotels. Only two hotels on SLA’s web site, the
Sheraton and the Westin, offered continuous
availability from June 4th through June 9th -- at a
whopping rate of $225 and $235 respectively. But I
found many rooms available at the Sheraton Centre for
only $200/night on Kayak.com and Sidestep.com.
Sidestep and Kayak search dozens of web sites
simultaneously to find the lowest available price for
each airline, hotel, or car rental company.
Kayak and/or Sidestep also displayed available rooms
at the Fairmont Royal York for $203/night, the
Intercontinental for $172/night, and the Renaissance
Hotel at Skydome for $182 even though these hotels
were “sold out” on SLA’s web site. In addition to the
hotels where SLA has negotiated rates for the
conference, Kayak and Sidestep displayed scores of
other hotels in all different categories and price
ranges that have available rooms for the duration of
the conference. For those on a tight budget, Hotwire
was offering a 3.5 star hotel with a pool, a fitness
center, and a spa for only $65/night, which may well
be the Sheraton Centre according to the posts I read
on betterbidding.com.
The cold but budget-friendly fact is that because SLA
is a small conference and Toronto is a large city, SLA
has very limited clout to negotiate low rates compared
with giant retailers like Hotels.com, Expedia.com,
Orbitz.com and Travelocity.com, which negotiate their
own discounts. Several thousand librarians don’t even
come close to filling up all hotels in downtown
Toronto. So lots of rooms and lower rates will
continue to be available if you look in the right
places, which includes all of the web sites mentioned
in this article as well as the hotel chain web sites.
SLA has vowed to make more hotel rooms available, but
I would still recommend some comparison-shopping
before you book through SLA. If you are unsure of the
quality of a hotel check the AAA book or go to
TripAdvisor.com and read user reviews.
Rental Cars. I have two words about rental cars in
Toronto: Don’t bother. Unless you are doing the
Buffalo drive or want to do other sightseeing outside
the city, a car is totally unnecessary in Toronto.
Toronto has terrific public transportation including a
wonderful subway system. If you do drive, my advice is
to park the car for $8.20/day and leave it there until
you are ready to go home again.
By the time you have read this article, all of the
fares and prices cited above will have changed. But if
you follow these travel tips and check out the web
sites mentioned here, you should save some money. And
if you decide to go the Buffalo route, we might just
meet at the Falls.
About the author
David Grossman recently relocated from Arlington, VA,
to Emeryville, but is a longstanding member of the
library/information community. David currently writes
a column on Business Travel for USA Today.com that can
be found at:
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/columnist/grossman/index.htm.
David earned his MLS at the University of Michigan and
has worked in a variety of special libraries and
nontraditional information-related positions over the
years.
As a database publisher, David put the Marquis Who's
Who database on Dialog (File 234) and also built a
variety of online systems and databases for mapmaker
and publisher Rand McNally. Prior to his position with
USA Today, David worked for library automation system
provider Cuadra Associates and previously ran US
Airways' Web site and electronic commerce operation.
David also developed and marketed consumer online
travel-booking products for a variety of airlines,
including British Airways, KLM, United Airlines, and
US Airways. He can be contacted at
dggrossman@comcast.net.
Dunn Miller
bayline_editor@yahoo.com
415.398.3050
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