Can you recommend the cheapest airline for flying in and out of Tokyo?

Q Can you recommend the cheapest airline for a two-week trip to Japan, flying in and out of Tokyo? Two of us are planning to go in early September. We are currently looking at flying out from London on 1 September but not tied to that date if we can get a better deal. What do you suggest?

Olivia C

A Until a year ago, my recommendation would be easy: Aeroflot via Moscow. The Russian airline offered excellent service and a fast connection to Tokyo. But Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine led to an immediate ban on Aeroflot in the UK and elsewhere in western Europe, and this is no longer viable.

The second usually reliable option is also currently unavailable: flying on a Chinese airline via one of the hubs in the People’s Republic. Beijing’s travel restrictions are being eased, but overseas leisure visitors are still not welcome into China, even for a connecting flight.

My advice is to wait and see if Air China, China Eastern and China Southern come back into the game. Once they do, fares will fall – including on other airlines due to the increased competition. Chinese carriers have one advantage over their rivals: they fly much more direct routes as they are not banned from Russian airspace. So you could find your indirect flight takes barely longer than nonstops on British Airways or Japan Airlines. Conversely, if China returns to pre-Covid rules, you might want to build in a visa-free stopover. I can strongly recommend 48 hours in Beijing (if you fly on Air China) or Shanghai (China Eastern).

Before you book, be aware of any Covid restrictions that apply to arrivals from China: at present Japan has mandatory tests for passengers arriving from the People’s Republic, with quarantine imposed for anyone who is positive for Covid-19.

The return of Chinese airlines at scale is hypothetical. If I am wrong and the flights do not come back, then one of the Gulf-based airlines (particularly Emirates or Qatar Airways) is likely to offer the cheapest deal.

open image in gallery

Q Are the “resort fees” in New York City hotels mandatory, or can I request not to pay them?

‘Damo101’

A Resort fees are extra charges added on top of the basic room rate by some hotels in the US – especially in New York City and Las Vegas, as well as Florida and California. They can often add $50 (£42) to the price of a room, and are understandably popular with hotel owners. They make accommodation look cheaper than it actually is, making comparisons difficult, and also reduce the commission payable to intermediaries.

The spurious justification for resort fees is that they entitle the guest to services such as wifi, the gym and outside phone calls. Yet if they were genuinely extras, it would be possible to avoid them. It is not.

While serving as US president, Donald Trump sought to bring resort fees to the UK and briefly applied them at his Turnberry Resort in southwest Scotland in 2018 before I challenged the practice and the property abandoned the plan. Pricing rules in the UK and many other countries require consumers to be given the full cost of a product in advance of a purchasing decision – rather than added on as a surprise right at the end of the transaction.

Trump’s successor as president, Joe Biden, now plans to end the pernicious charges. The White House says: “There is nothing wrong with a firm charging reasonable add-on fees for additional products or services. However, in recent years we’ve seen a proliferation of ‘junk fees’. By hiding the full price, this practice can lead consumers to pay more than they would otherwise.”

The Federal Trade Commission has been ordered to eliminate fees that are intended “to confuse or deceive consumers”. But that will not affect any bookings in the short term. At present, you have no choice but to pay. Yet attorney generals in many US states, including New York, recommend that guests claim the resort fee back after their stay. When I tried this at a Manhattan hotel where I paid an extra $30 per night, my requests were repeatedly declined. You may have more luck than me.

open image in gallery

Q We have booked a week’s package holiday to Tenerife through a travel agent, due to depart on 12 March 2023. Unfortunately, we cannot go and want to move it to later this year or next. The holiday company is saying that we will lose half the total holiday cost. It is for two adults and two children and therefore quite a lot of money is at stake. There doesn’t appear to be any flexibility from the holiday company. Would you have any advice for us?

Ronan B

A I imagine you have paid around £1,500 and therefore stand to lose about £750. It is standard practice for holiday companies to apply rising cancellation fees close to departure on the basis that the nearer the trip gets, the more difficult it will be to sell.

The reason you cannot travel may be relevant. If it is something to do with illness, medical treatment or unexpected family circumstances, the holiday company may choose to offer fee-free postponement (subject to any increase in cost for the new departure). This would be a voluntary move, not a legal obligation for the holiday company. Ask your travel agent to pursue it with the “exceptions” team. Should the firm decline, and the reason you cannot go is covered by travel insurance (for example, an unforeseen health issue), you can claim on your policy.

Perhaps, though, you need to postpone for something non-insurable such as a change of job. In that case, the easiest way to avoid high cancellation costs is to transfer the holiday to someone else. This is a legal entitlement. Your travel agent should have mentioned it. Family or friends could take over the booking for a fee of about £50 per person. If you pass on the trip for, say, £1,000, with the buyer paying the charge, they have got a bargain while you have limited your loss.

Should none of the above work, there is one final, slim possibility: challenge the holiday company to prove that it could not sell the trip. If you (or more likely your agent) discovers the package has been resold, you can ask for the proceeds. For future reference: for trips outside school holidays I recommend booking package holidays only a week or two before departure to minimise the chance of unexpected changes.

open image in gallery

Q You wrote about how Eurostar is leaving hundreds of seats empty on trains between London and Paris. Why not build larger stations/better border control facilities? Wasn’t there passport control before Brexit too?

Daniel T-N

A Yes, there certainly were passport checks for Eurostar travellers using Channel Tunnel passenger trains before Brexit. The UK, like Ireland, was always outside the Schengen frontier-free area. But the rule for any EU national going across the border between a Schengen and non-Schengen country was simply that they needed a passport or ID card. Frontier officials could only check that it was a valid travel document and that it belonged to the person who had presented it. That is still the case for EU nationals leaving the UK. It is a very quick transaction. It has been replaced by mandatory stamping of British passports by EU frontier police on outward and return journeys, as well as more significant checks for Europeans travelling to the UK.

The increase in transaction time means long queues. Bluntly, Eurostar was faced with the choice of letting the lines build up, which makes for a stressful passenger experience and delayed trains, or restricting the number of tickets sold. Yes, building bigger facilities and staffing them fully would solve the problem. But the Eurostar areas of London St Pancras International, Brussels Midi and Paris Nord are relatively small promotions of the total area. They were all constructed on the basis of light-touch, formalities, rather than the stringent checks that the UK requested after Brexit.

Expanding them within the confines of 19th-century stations (in the case of London and Paris) would require comprehensive remodelling of the whole station at a cost of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of pounds. Eurostar, which suffered financially more than almost any other travel company over the coronavirus pandemic, is addressing the problem to try to deliver a reasonable experience in difficult circumstances while seeking to speed up transactions.

Regrettably, in the short term the European Union Entry Exit System – requiring fingerprints and biometrics from all non-EU travellers – is on its way before the end of this year. The capacity problem will get worse before it improves.

Email your question to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder