Travel answers
The questions people actually ask us, answered properly. No padding, and nothing we can't stand behind.
- Flights
What is skiplagging?
The hidden city ticket explained — why the fare is cheaper, the four things that break it, what the courts have actually decided, and why we will not book one for you.
Read - Flights
How does flight price tracking work?
What a fare actually is, why the same search returns different numbers, and the clear line between what a price tracker can observe and what it is only guessing at.
Read - Flights
Bumped from a flight: what are you owed?
The exact US, UK and EU thresholds — what triggers payment, how much, and the difference between volunteering and being denied boarding, which decides everything else.
Read - Flights
Why do airlines overbook flights?
The no-show forecast behind it, how airlines decide who gets bumped, six things that keep you off that list, and the questions to ask before you volunteer.
Read - Planning
What is a red-eye flight, and which hotel night do you book?
Why an overnight flight quietly changes how many hotel nights your trip needs, which date to book on arrival, and what to do with the twelve hours after check-out on the way out.
Read - Flights
How does flying standby work?
Three different arrangements share the name, and only one of them gives you a fallback. How the list is ordered, what clears easily, and the three rules that stop the plan before it starts.
Read - Flights
What are open-jaw flights?
The trip shape that lets you fly into one city and home from another — how much it really saved on one journey we priced ourselves, and the four ways it quietly costs more than it looks.
Read - Payments
What are hotel incidentals?
What a hotel means by incidentals, why the hold on your card is not a charge, what decides its size, and when the money comes back.
Read - Booking
What are hotel check-in and check-out times?
The usual times and why they exist, what early check-in and late check-out really depend on, and the difference between what we can pass on and what only the front desk can decide.
Read - Booking
How do I find my booking?
Where your reservation lives, how to reach it if you booked as a guest without an account, and which of the two references to quote to whom.
Read - Planning
How do extended stay hotels work?
The kitchen, the weekly clean and the rate that falls with length — plus what we measured when we searched a month-long stay, and why almost nothing came back.
Read - Payments
How do I get a refund on a flight or hotel booking?
What comes back when you are the one cancelling, why a refund is a new credit rather than a reversal, and the two things people leave on the table on a non-refundable ticket.
Read - Flights
Do airlines compensate for delays?
The UK and EU pay fixed cash at three hours; the US pays nothing at all. What each one actually owes you, and the three details that decide a claim.
Read - Flights
When should you book Thanksgiving flights?
Thanksgiving 2026 is Thursday 26 November. Which days are structurally expensive, why no honest answer names a booking date, and what to do instead of predicting.
Read - Planning
Is it cheaper to book a flight and hotel together?
Not automatically, and we will not pretend otherwise. What booking as one trip actually buys you, what booking separately buys you, and the three levers that do move the price.
Read - Flights
Is it better to book flights direct with the airline?
Where booking direct genuinely wins, where an agent does, and the part that does not change either way — including an honest list of what we show you and what we do not.
Read - Flights
What does a flight actually cost?
The three things added together to make one number, why the passenger next to you paid something else, and what the fare stopped including about fifteen years ago.
Read - Planning
What are hotel day passes?
Amenity passes and day-use rooms are two different products people call the same thing. What each one gets you, roughly what they cost, and who actually sells them — because we do not.
Read - Planning
Is travel insurance worth it?
Insurance covers the loss that remains after your booking's own terms, the airline's obligations and your card have all paid out. Working out that remainder is the whole decision.
Read - Planning
How to choose a hotel near an airport
Distance in a listing is the wrong number. What decides it is whether the transfer runs at the hour your flight goes, and how long the walk actually takes with a suitcase.
Read - Flights
What happens if my flight is cancelled?
Who owes you what when an airline cancels, how refunds actually reach you, and what changes when the flight was booked as part of a trip.
Read - Booking
Who do I contact about my booking?
Whether to go to the hotel, the airline or us — and the one check that tells you the answer in about ten seconds.
Read - Booking
Does free cancellation actually mean free?
What the deadline really is, why the same hotel offers several different answers, and the two traps that turn a free-cancellation rate into a charge.
Read - Payments
Why was I charged twice for my booking?
The four things that look identical on a bank statement — a hold, a duplicate attempt, a two-part booking and an actual double charge — and how to tell which one you are looking at.
Read - Planning
When is the cheapest time to book a hotel?
Why the confident answers you have read are mostly wrong, what actually moves a hotel price, and the one strategy that works without needing to predict anything.
Read - Payments
What does “pay at property” actually mean?
What is taken now, what is taken later, why your card is still needed at booking, and the three things travellers most often get caught by.
Read - Planning
Do I need travel insurance for a hotel booking?
When a hotel booking is genuinely worth insuring, when free cancellation already does the same job for less, and what these policies typically will not pay for.
Read - Booking
What happens if the hotel doesn’t have my booking?
What to do at the desk when a reservation cannot be found, why it usually is not lost, and what the hotel owes you if it genuinely cannot accommodate you.
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