Monday, March 26, 2012

Official Travel Package Disappointing

Almost as soon as we got back to the hotel from the Elite Eight win, we went to the Stanford Road to the Final Four site and clicked on Travel to see what package would offer.

Here's the official offer. Assuming double-occupancy, they offer a four-night hotel stay for $545 a person. In other words, for a couple sharing one room, about $270 per night. The price includes van transport to all events, a program, and a souvenir.

It does not include air transportation or transportation from the airport to the hotel.

There is no official air package. The agency offers to assist you in making your own air reservations.

Considering what a central hub Denver is, there should be a wide selection of flights SFO-DEN and SJC-DEN, and making a booking shouldn't be a problem. (Edit: that appears not to be so; in fact there seem to be rather few nonstops from the Bay Area to Denver.)

What we had expected, however, was that a large travel agency such as Anthony Travel would be able to offer discounted fares, priced below the short-term purchase options.

This appears not to be the case. The Anthony travel special online booking site, linked from the above offer page, first, seems to be overwhelmed even at this late hour. We did get through to it once and its first offer for SJC-DEN was a two-leg flight changing planes in SLC.

For $1375 per person.

If you have any better luck with this system, or any other thoughts, please add a comment to this posting.


We've booked with Southwest out of SFO, but there were not a lot of seats left.

There appears to be a United nonstop on Saturday AM from Oakland.