Tuesday, April 20, 2010

How to Avoid Destination Wedding Travel Disasters

Words by Jennifer Stein

It’s a timely topic, right? I mean, let’s say you were scheduled to get married this weekend and a volcano just happened to erupt, spewing ash all over a continent and messing up air travel. Then what? Lots of people are facing that prospect right now, and the moral of the story is . . . don’t get married in Europe. No, wait, that’s not right. I think the moral is to just have patience.
There’s not much you can do when something like this happens, unless you want to get really creative, so just chalk it up to being a great story you can tell the grandkids one day. But how do you make the best of a bad situation? Stay on top of things and you might get out sooner than others. We’ve sent Cranky Concierge clients through places like Israel and Iceland with much luck so far. Here are some tips:

First off, follow your airline and airport on Twitter. These guys have been pumping out information via Twitter like rock stars, keeping people up to date. For example, I just received a tweet that Icelandair was adding a few flights tonight to Scotland. If you catch it before others, you might be able to grab yourself a seat.

Another tip: go standby. Though flights are jammed full for the foreseeable future, that doesn’t mean all seats will be filled. Many people will opt not to travel and others will get stuck on connections. If you see that flights are starting to leave, it might be worth it to go standby and see if you can get on an earlier flight.

Lastly, just be creative. If you’re willing, there are ways to get to Europe. It may involve flying to Africa or the Middle East and backtracking. It may involve trains, buses, and cars. It may take a long time, but you’ll get there.

No matter what, having patience is the best suggestion. It will make things much better for you while you’re waiting this out. Your “perfect” destination wedding may not work out as planned, but man, it’ll make for a much better story.