Trains & Ground
Overnight trains are accommodation, and should be priced that way
Comparing a berth to a seat is the wrong comparison. Compare it to a seat plus a hotel plus a transfer.
Ayaan Qureshi
Contributing writer, Suitcase Theory
Ayaan reviews places to sleep and judges them on the shower, the wifi and the walls.
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17 articles
Trains & Ground
Rail fares are set by three different systems at once
A train ticket may be priced like a commodity, like an airline seat, or like a public service, and the three behave nothing alike.
Trains & Ground
City transport passes are often worse than single fares
Tourist travel cards are priced against a pattern of use most visitors do not have, and the break-even is usually higher than it…
Trains & Ground
Land borders are a different queue from an airport
Crossing by road or rail involves different documents, different timing and different failure modes from arriving by air.
Booking & Money
Airline pricing is buckets of inventory, not a rising curve
Fares do not creep upward day by day. They step, because seats are sold in blocks and each block has its own price.
Booking & Money
The best time to book is a distribution, not a date
There is no magic weekday and no universal number of days ahead, but there are patterns you can actually use.
Booking & Money
Fare classes decide what happens when plans change
The letter attached to your ticket governs refunds, changes, upgrades and how you are treated during disruption.
Booking & Money
Unbundled fares are a pricing strategy you can audit
Stripping the fare down to a seat and selling everything else back is not a trick, but it does require you to add the pieces up…
Booking & Money
Chargebacks are a backstop with rules and deadlines
The card networks provide a dispute process that is powerful, time-limited and frequently misunderstood as a general refund button.
Booking & Money
Airline miles are a currency whose issuer sets the rate
Loyalty points are liabilities on an airline balance sheet, and the airline can change what they are worth at any time.
Booking & Money
Travel budgets fail on the fixed costs, not the daily spend
Most overspending happens before departure and on arrival days, not in restaurants, and budgets that only count daily expenses miss…
Trains & Ground
Driving abroad: the rules that change at the border
The car works the same everywhere. What changes is documentation, required equipment and enforcement, and none of it is visible…
Trains & Ground
Taxis and apps: the fare you agree before you move
Every dispute about a taxi fare is a dispute about what was agreed. Settling that before the wheels turn removes almost all of them.
Trains & Ground
Regional trains are a different product from intercity ones
The same network runs two kinds of train with opposite priorities. Treating them as interchangeable is how a journey takes twice as…
Booking & Money
Duty free is a tax rule, not a discount
Duty free removes specific taxes on specific goods leaving a tax area. Whether anything is actually cheaper depends on the retail…
Booking & Money
Seat fees are priced by scarcity, not by legroom
Airlines charge for seats because some are more wanted than others, not because they cost more to provide. Scarcity is the product.
Booking & Money
Error fares, mistake pricing and what happens next
A fare far below the market usually comes from a data error rather than a promotion. Whether it survives depends on law and on the…