Friday 20 September 2013

London-Tbilisi flight booked

I was dithering over what and "if" to book for the last few days. I
checked earlier tonight on my saved itinerary on expedia and the Warsaw
route (which I had pretty much decided in favour of anyway; I also did
some double checking earlier on ITA's matrix and really there were no
better flights, almost regardless of cost) was £250-ish. I just clicked
refresh (presumably after midnight made the difference) and it showed as
£209! Rather than wait around and see if the price went down any
further, I took that as kind of an omen and went ahead and booked it.
Oddly, it actually cost £206.30 in the end. (I may - the price is low
enough already that I'm not going to be getting too upset, and it would
perhaps be educational - try to check periodically to see how much the
flight costs as time goes on. I just checked on expedia and I could book
the same flight again for £209, though it says "only 2 tickets left at
this price".)

The flight details are:
Saturday 12 October
17:50 Heathrow - 21:20 Warsaw
22:40 Warsaw - 04:00 Tbilisi

I am thinking I might (as if I need to make an effort, really, barring
pre-trip nerves!) deliberately try to get up as late as I can on the
Saturday, so that I'm as fresh as possible to bear up on the
super-late-night involved in the flight.

I haven't booked a hotel in Tbilisi yet but I had a quick look on
expedia the other day and there are some cheapish hotels on there with
availability at around the £30-£40/night level (with free wi-fi, which
really is very important to me, given I use it to book onward
accommodation, not to mention e-mail/Skype), and there may be options on
hostelworld. I will try to book that in the next few days, but I feel
less worried about prices surging there (still don't want to hang around
of course). I need to decide how many nights I am staying in Tbilisi to
start with; my inclination is two or three. Given I will want to be back
in Tbilisi at the end of the trip if only as a buffer so I'm not stuck
halfway across the country the day before I have to fly out, I don't
want to overdo it at the start of the trip, which sort of makes me lean
towards two nights. On the other hand, after effectively staying up all
night on the Saturday and not going to bed until 9am-ish London time
(because of the flights), Sunday is going to be a bit scrappy even if I
do a bit of casual sightseeing and I might be feeling a bit fucked up
the next day (and my sleep cycle might be odd), which does half incline
me to make it three nights.

I also need to start thinking about booking the flight out of Tbilisi
soon-ish, perhaps this weekend I will get that and the first couple of
nights accommodation sorted out.

I will observe just briefly that my Uncle Bob died on Tuesday. However,
striking a purely practical note since it's really not what this blog is
about otherwise, speaking to my mother the funeral is probably going to
be early October, so it isn't a factor as far as the trip goes. I was
dithering about booking the flight on Tuesday before I found out and
then that did at least partly contribute to me holding off on the
booking, but I wouldn't like to say how big a factor it was. In any
case, the delay worked out in my favour anyway, since I've saved £40-50
on the flight.

I just checked on the LOT Polish website and my reservation is there and
my seating preference, as given to expedia, has been respected and I
have an aisle seat on both flights. Spiffing.

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