Since I registered in May for
Further Confusion '06 as part of my commitment to going, I've not really taken many steps towards actually doing it. My main reason for this is that I havn't got the money, I still don't. However, I'm now down to £700 credit debt (with £200 in savings account) and that should be paid off in 2 months. I spent much of the evening discussing our plans for FC with
arakinuk and
klepsydra such as flights and activities surrounding the con.
We've pretty much agreed to fly out to San Francisco on the 16th January, spend a few days there, get shopping done and maybe go to Alcatraz (if it's open that time of year) and then get a Greyhound coach to San Jose (which is a return journey cost of $10) for the con on the 19th. Then on the 24th, get bus back and fly back from San Francisco. This of course works out much cheaper and more convenient than flying to San Jose as San Jose isn't an international airport.
We spent a lot of time searching all the flight booking sites and it seems that the best offer I can get is £330 return with British Airways (plus £7 for an ITYC card) from
STA Travel (although could get flight for £327 with United Airways, but I think I'd prefer BA). Unfortunately, Arakin and Klepsie aren't under 26 so can't take advantage of STA's offer. The best offer we seemed to find anywhere was for £344 with United Airways from
Travelbag. No sign of a decent British Airways flight. The
BA site shows the tickets as being £153 each way but the site breaks before it can add on taxes. It seems that the taxes and fees come to around £60 so that would make a round flight approx £366.
This leads me to ask two questions if anyone can answer them; 1) Does anyone know of a magical site which gives lower prices than these (I'm certain I was getting prices more like £240 when I was searching in May... maybe those prices were without tax and now prices generally include tax... not sure) and 2) If we book flights seperately, can we still sit together if we check in together?