It's official

[lurkingknight]

we came out about equal on expedia, our hotel is farther from where we want to be, but given osaka's great rail system, it's only about an extra 10-15 minutes to get to where we want to be. Unfortunately to make a couple cancellations, for our other hotels there have been a couple cancellation fees. But it's small consolation as I pulled so far, 2200$ of our 3300$ worth of hotel bookings from agoda. 30 bucks in fees are a worthy sacrifice of our displeasure.

 

The sad thing is that they'll probably have sold our rooms in no time, so it doesn't hurt them any in the short term.

[katoftw]

The sad thing is that they'll probably have sold our rooms in no time, so it doesn't hurt them any in the short term.

They wouldn't be the only company seller hotel rooms.  Hope that another company sold them on.

[lurkingknight]

Here's a great story that follows a crappy story.

 

Our hotel in hiroshima was more expensive on expedia, however they have a price match guarantee. So I went ahead and booked the hotel at the higher rate. Free cancellation.. so no loss if I have to cancel. Claim had to be filed within 24 hours of booking I then took a screenshot (since it was required by the form for the pricematch) and compared the expedia price to the price we booked in october on agoda to the price at agoda at the time of the rebooking on expedia. Both prices were cheaper on agoda. 72 hour turnaround time on the claim. I sent it in.

 

A week passes. No reply.

 

So I emailed the pricematch email address on expedia. They replied that no request existed in the system with my itinerary number. Well crap.

 

I mentioned that I had sent the request in last week. Their reply was that they would extend the offer as long as my screenshot included the date, which it did since I took it of the whole desktop.

 

So a day later, they matched our price, and at the same time, I rebooked our initial 1 night in shinagawa (same hotel again and again 10$ cheaper) and cancelled both hotels on agoda. Leaving only the kyoto hotel that we can't replace.

 

See, that's how you customer service. expedia will be getting my business for almost 3000$ in bookings because agoda fucked up and refused to do anything to remedy the situation.

[katoftw]

You win some and you lose some. Good to see you are having more wins nowadays. I prefer Expedia also. They have better pricing and seems to cover more hotels.

[Kitayama]

I prefer to book directly with the hotel if the rates are the same. The booking sites charge the hotels huge fees (I've heard 30-40%).

I prefer to feed the hotel rather than the booking sites. In some cases, the hotel has better offers than the booking sites.

[katoftw]

I should've explained myself properly. I prefer to go direct to the same hotel also. But some dont have booking system available outside Japan, so using expedia allows the booking process. Of all the website booking companies, expedia for me has allows had better range of hotels and better pricing.

 

I normally do find though that going directly to the hotel is cheaper than expedia, which is why I prefer going directly to the hotel website. But sometime expedia is cheaper than the hotel on rare occassions.

 

I normally look on expedia first. Find a hotel I like. Then google them and check direct prices. sometimes googling only brings up Japanese website. So then pick whichever option allows the booking process to happen and whichever has the cheaper rates.

 

Last Japan trip was direct to hotel for tokyo. Expedia for Kyoto, (minimal options for direct bookings). And Hakata was a direct booking after originally finding the hotel on expedia.

 

The Hakata hotel for example for 2 double rooms for 4 nights is $788AUD on their website. If I go to the hotel directly, an average of 6000JPY per room per night, so 48,000JPY in total. So by the time my credit card converts to AUD and changes 2.5% conversion, it works out at around $534AUD. Only 33% cheaper direct to hotel. haha

 

The hotel charges 700JPY for breakfast (if you choose to eat in), and is 600m from the train station. And you pass 2 Family Marts on the way through. How can you go wrong? haha

Edited January 27, 2015 by katoftw

[spacecadet]

Kayak lists the hotel's own rates plus all the other major travel sites - I always use them. Recently I have found that the hotels themselves do usually have the lowest rate. It's getting to be like airlines. They're trying to compete against the travel agents and travel sites now, instead of working with them. They get 100% of the profit that way, I guess.

[lurkingknight]

kayak is also owned by priceline, so I'll not be using them in the future either lol.

 

one of the difficult things about booking abroad is that not all hotels have their own online booking system, on top of some of them being independent. It's different if we were to book all dormy inns or apa hotels as they have multinational booking sites run by the parent company, but what the travel sites give you is a dynamic map showing you where everything is in relation to each other and important things like food or shopping districts or transit.

 

OF course, if I in the future find the right hotel on a travel site, and then find the website has the same rooms cheaper, I will in fact, book direct with the hotel.

[lurkingknight]

does anyone know the dimensions of the overhead luggage rack on an n700?

 

My 44cm wide suitcase fit up there with a couple cm overhanging but I can't remember the height of it. My new suitcase is much taller when laying down so I'm wondering if it will fit up there.

[katoftw]

if it doesn't fit. it will behind the last seats in the cars.

[lurkingknight]

those spaces are generally all occupied when we get on.. I may try to book the seats in the back to try and hoard them.

[katoftw]

Never had a problem finding space, and never had the share the space except once between Shin-Osaka and Hakata. But I did only have a small window of data to work with. Oct 2014 for 2 weeks.

 

Found this:-

 

Luggage on transportation

 

On trains

 

There is little room for large suitcases on urban and long-distance trains especially during rush hours. One exception are the airport trains such as the Narita Express and Haruka, which have designated storage space for large luggage.

 

Overhead shelves on shinkansen trains are about 40cm high and 60cm deep and cannot accommodate large items. There is usually space for two to three large suitcases behind the last row of seats in each car on most long distance trains. Furthermore, on many shinkansen trains the leg room is large enough to place a suitcase in front of you, although this may not be the most comfortable solution.

 

According to JR regulations, each passenger may bring up to two pieces of luggage onto trains, not including smaller bags. Each piece of luggage may not weight more than 30kg and its three dimensions (length, width and depth) may not add up to more than 250cm, while its length may not exceed 200cm.

[spacecadet]

I've never had a problem finding space either in the 20 or so trips I've taken there. If you're that worried about it, though, then you can think about upgrading to a green car. They're basically never full. The upgrade cost is pretty reasonable, and you can think of it as kind of a "checked baggage" fee. But you do get more than just a better chance of the luggage space being free in the green cars, so I think the value's actually pretty good.

[lurkingknight]

well I'll find out soon enough lol.

 

green car pricing is not included in the JR pass, unless I pay more for the green car pass. I'll know in the first couple rides. I don't have an issue shipping the luggage either, it's not ideal but we'll be heading off to hiroshima and kyoto at the end for shorter stays vs the tokyo and osaka, so shipping might not make sense, I'm wondering if I'll be able to find some storage in shin osaka for 2-3 nights if it comes that that. Go to hiroshima without the luggage, pick it back up on the way to kyoto and then deal with hauling it back to shinagawa. The N'ex will not be an issue.

 

Our major shinkansen rides for the whole trip will be narita to shinagawa, then shinagawa to osaka, back to tokyo, to hiroshima and kyoto back to shinagawa and then narita.

 

It's not the most efficient travel path, but the new travel companion decided he wanted to see miyajima after we had already started to make plans in osaka and tokyo, so we could only put those 2 cities at the end of the trip.

 

So if it becomes an issue of lugging the fat case around, I can leave it in osaka before going to hiroshima.

 

I think the measurements of the bag are like 44x48x70cm

 

So it falls under the limit of the JR requirement which was a total of 250cm, that I found mentioned somewhere.

 

The other thing I could do is bring the old suitcase and if I do so much shopping that I have to overfill my bag, I can buy a duffel or whatever as a 2nd carry on.

Edited February 18, 2015 by lurkingknight

[lurkingknight]

and back.... another trip over :(

 

everything went off without a hitch on the hotel side, both my companions broke down with a stomach bug though during the first week. They soldiered on through it, though we were all pretty worn out when it hit.

 

Does anyone know where I can get a big poster map of the entire rail system of tokyo both JR and metro all in one? and one for osaka as well... The more chaotic the better. *snicker*

 

there are these:

 

http://static.wixstatic.com/media/fe4311_13db767f186446adb9a518a7e41cf5f7.jpg

 

http://static.wixstatic.com/media/fe4311_17d07cf9612547bbb34b4f889bbd1169.jpg

 

but they are a bit too organized and too pretty... though I might just order them cause they're awesome. Then again, coming from someone who has conquered the system more or less (except weekend schedules and the occasional misstep onto a train that will stop short) My perspective on the chaos in these images might be a bit skewed since I can make sense of them.