Haversham and Baker Golfing Expeditions

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Airline Travel Tips and Techniques

Many of us are old enough to recall fondly the days when transatlantic flight was a haven of luxury and service. How far we have fallen! Nowadays finding a helpful representative of your airline in a London airport is often a bit more challenging than Stanley finding Livingston. Knowing you may be on your own should plans go awry, I share with you the knowledge I have acquired over the years. At times it has proven even more valuable than the Swiss Army knife now banned from my hand luggage.

Major Basil Haversham, OBE

Checking luggage
When you check in at your local airport to begin your tour of Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales or another European country, , have your luggage checked all the way through to your final destination so you will not be forced to schlep your bags through some unfamiliar airport. Be insistent on this service even if the check in clerk resists. It is one of the few rights you have left as an airline passenger! And remember, you do not have to retrieve or touch your checked luggage until you reach your final destination. When you arrive at your first airport "in country", merely pass through immigration then proceed through customs with your hand luggage.

What to do if you miss a connecting flight on your tour.
The airlines set minimum connecting times between flights for all airports based on a mysterious formula that considers distance to gates, type of flight, baggage transfer, the thickness of carpeting in the terminal, etc. Your connecting time, however, may not be sufficient if your transatlantic flight arrives later than scheduled. If this happens, consult with a representative of your inbound airline immediately upon arrival. (Begin with the first person you see when you exit the aircraft and keep asking until you find someone who will help.) This agent should give you alternate schedules to your final destination. You may have to be a bit persistent. If the agent tells you there are no flights from the airport at which you presently find yourself (e.g. Gatwick) to your final destination for several hours, ask him/her to look into the possibility of flights via other carriers or even alternate airports in the area (e.g. Heathrow). A look in the computer and a telephone call should get you back on your merry way. Once you have rescheduled yourself, please ring your tour driver/escort or your car rental agency to advise them of your new arrival.

Lost baggage
The airlines never admit that baggage is "lost". In their terminology, it is merely "delayed". I, for example, have a bag that has been delayed since I left Suez in the fifties. If your baggage does not arrive at your final destination at the same time you do, go immediately to the baggage office of your inbound airline and fill out a Delayed Baggage Report. As you may be changing hotels frequently, give the baggage agent the names of your hotels for at least the first four nights of your stay so that your bags can be delivered without further delay.

Should you have to rent golf clubs or purchase a minimum of essentials prior to regaining your baggage, be certain to save the receipts, a copy of your Delayed Baggage Report and the passenger receipt of your ticket. The airlines demand all of these (and a copy of your parents' marriage license) in order to determine your proper compensation (as if "delaying" your baggage were not pain enough).

Once you return home, rent an old film showing passengers being shamelessly pampered on a Pan Am Clipper flight. Then remember that Joseph Goebbels was the Pan Am publicist before he became the Nazi propaganda minister.

So the most important tip is: contact Haversham & Baker Golfing Expeditions. We are purveyors of the finest golf travel experiences to Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Wales and England. Why the finest? Your arrangements will be custom-planned to your precise requirements from the widest array of choices by the most knowledgeable golf tour and travel planners in the industry. You'll receive unlimited consultation and service from your first conversation until long after your expedition is over. The result? You and your friends will enjoy an experience with memories that last a lifetime.