Destination Travel & Tours

People always ask us when is the good time to buy an airline ticket. We always say buy it as soon as possible due to frequent increases in taxes, surcharges, fuel, etc.

Well, it turns out, The New York Times wrote an article about this. Based on their research, consumers are better off buying an International plane ticket in 24 weeks in advance and 6 weeks in advance for a domestic plane ticket.   To read more, click here for the New York Times article.

In these days of Internet, people often think its better to buy on-line to get lower fare and faster service. The New York Times did a comparison of making travel plans on-line vs through a travel agent.  Here is what they found:

Nearly every time, travel agents bested the Internet big boys on both price (the objective part of the test) and service (what you might call the essay question). In other words, the agents suggested alternate routes, gave advice on visas and just generally acted, well, more human than their computer counterparts. (All research was all done in mid-January for trips in March.)
You can read more here.

We are going to share  tips that will make your calls to India more economical and simpler at the same time it will make it easy for you to receive calls to your US phone number when you are in India.

Here are some scenarios: 

Scenario  1) Let's say you want to call your favorite friends and family members in India from your cell phone.  How about making the whole process simpler such that you don't have to dial 20 digits, instead just press one of your favourite button/speed dial number on your phone?  No need to dial the special access number, PIN and so on....
 
Solution:  First, you need to open an account with  localphone.com .   Click on the  localphone link here and get a US phone number that maps to your frequently dialed number in India.  For example, they will give you one US phone number for your parents, one for your in-laws and so on.  Then just add these US phone numbers in your cfavorite/speed dial list.   You will be charged 2 cents/min or less to India or depending on the country you are calling.

2) Suppose you are visiting India or Europe or other popular places, and you want to receive calls to your US phone number during your visit.   One option is to get International roaming service from your US carrier.  This is fine but most of us don't like paying high roaming charges.   So, we have found a cheaper solution for you. Read on.

Solution:  Get an account in an Internet based VOIP service such as Vonage that provides unlimited calling to India.   Now follow these steps carefully.     
      Step 1) Before you leave the US, buy a SIM card that works in India with the help of your relatives/friends in India.   You will get a phone number in India that's assigned to that SIM card.  (let's call it "A").     You may want to get a SIM card such as those from Vodafone which has free incoming calls.    
      Step 2) Next, get a US phone number (let's call it "B").   Enable International Call Forwarding  by logging into Vonage portal and then go to "features"->"configure"->"enable call forwarding" and then enter the India SIM Card Number "A" from the above.   This way basically when someone from the US calls  your Vonage number, it will ring the India SIM card number "A".       
      Step 3) Now the next step is to set up call forwarding of your calls to your US Cell phone number  (let's call it "C").  Before you leave US (very important),  enable call forwarding on your US cell phone number.   Forward the calls to the US phone number "B" that was given by Vonage in the previous step.   Thus,  when someone calls  your US Cell Phone "C", it will be forwarded to the US Vonage number "B" which  then Vonage will forward to your India SIM card "A".   You will be charged based on your cell phone plan for  calls from "C" to "B" and the call from "B" to "A" will be free thanks to Vonage and Vodafone.   This is still better than paying high international roaming charges.

BTW, Vonage also has "simulatenous ringing" which you can use to ring multiple phones at the same time.    This way it can ring your Cell phone in India as well as another phone in US or India and you can have coverage while you are travelling or it's inconvinience due to time difference.

Let us know if you happen to use these tips.