Zach1213

Damn I haven't heard those names in a long time.

Was hoping for Biman Bangladesh

Yup. While I was working on my PhD, I was also working for the University itself and they had a travel agent on hand for flights. We had to use them by contract. They were fine at actually booking flights, but I learned quickly that I needed to go to them with exactly the flights I wanted because they really had no idea what was going on. When the guy told me I should fly Aer Lingus to Saudi Arabia, I just kind of gave up all hope.

Hell they event fly to Asia and Europe in addition to the Caribbean and Central America. Definitely becoming an increasingly global airline. I only flew them once between Montreal and Calgary but that was a few years ago and I am not sure my experience is accurate anymore, but back then they were decent even for a four hour flight.

Technically a third party 😉 Airline = Party 1, Customer = Party 2, Mediocre Travel Agent = Party 3.

Is it back when Qantas used to do LAX-JFK on their own planes? They had a pretty easy setup for a while where an aircraft did SYD-LAX-JFK-LAX-SYD (was also BNE or AKL at times instead of SYD) and was able to collect passengers connecting to/from other QF flights (but only other QF flights, and only as part of a trip in or out of the US, i.e. you couldn't stop in LAX for two days and then continue to JFK on QF metal).

The thing is...I want to like JAL. I want to take JAL. I do occasionally end up on their metal longhaul because it's my only option. Their service is great, their food is really good. But I just find myself unable to get too comfortable on their planes. My wife had never flown JAL until a few years ago and I forgot to warn her. We hopped on a BKK-NRT flight and she was instantly miserably haha.

Even as a OneWorld loyalist, I avoid JAL like the plague for anything more than medium-haul flights because of the heat. I just can't sleep/relax when it's like that. I'll always pick Cathay Pacific instead when possible. I'll even choose AA over JAL for longhaul stuff because of that.

As an independent contractor, the perk is that I can pick any damn flight I want 🙂

Virgin is just fine. I wouldn't plan your trip around the (very) small chance that the flight is cancelled. Just do what's most convenient, which sounds like Boston. That being said...do you have a reason to restrict yourself to Virgin? There are a few airlines flying that route - Virgin, Delta, British Airways, Jetblue. If you're up for an early morning, British Airways has a particularly appealing morning departure that gets you to London by dinner time and sleep in a real bed that evening...I highly recommend daytime flights to London.

I would say DL via LAX or UA via SFO are pretty much "six in one, half dozen the other". If literally everything is the same, including layover times and cost, I would probably go Delta but I am not sure there will be much difference. I would rank Qantas economy slightly above Delta and United, plus the nonstop, but if that's really completely out for you then...yeah...either UA or DL will work fine.

I've ended up on Copa twice over the years, both in business class. Service is...fine. It's certainly a fairly basic product. They do have a pretty efficient hub setup at PTY which is nice. It's still a bit of zigging and zagging to go Brazil to Western Canada via both PTY and MIA.

Do cruiselines use Timatic like airlines do? Or do they have a separate system to verify passengers have proper documentation before boarding? That's great and all but Americans have it extremely easy when it comes to international travel. Most places Americans go either don't need a visa at all or can get a visa on arrival. The more complicated ones often result in having to work with an embassy/consulate (or a visa agency who works with said embassy/consulate on your behalf, which I highly recommend), but almost every country has one if not multiple missions in the US. Places like India, China and Brazil, while requiring visas for Americans in most cases, make it pretty easy and have multiple locations throughout the US. I have a Namibian passport. We only have like 30 embassies in Windhoek, but require visas for most countries in the world. It can be difficult to get them because of that. Luckily I also have an American passport, but I can relate to the difficulties of getting visas with a weaker passport strength.

Never heard of them, but they're probably like the myriad of other "cheap" sites...they'll probably get you your ticket, but if even the smallest hiccup happens along the way, you're going to be in a really bad position because I'm just going to make a guess that their customer service is as close to zero as humanly possible.

Honestly that's a pretty good itinerary. Lots of moving around, so you'll get a little taste of some really good cities. Oslo itself is...fine. I would say that's the weakest of all of those cities so if you wanted to cut one of the two Oslo days and apply it somewhere else, that's not a terrible idea. But Oslo is still great and you'll find plenty to do. Maybe adding a day to Madrid to hit either Toledo, Segovia or El Escorial would be nice.