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runninggirl
Joined: 26 Jul 2009
Posts: 50
Location: Latin America
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 Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 7:40 am Post subject: Get yourStop Over at Hotel on Long Flights |
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If you are flying more than 10 hours be sure and insist on a hotel break. It is included in your allotment of money but you MUST ASK for it if they are insisting on buying the airline ticket. That is coming or going you have the right to have a stop over and get a whole night's sleep at a decent hotel.
The first time I went I thought that I had to do the two flights from the US back to back. It ended up with transfers and airport stays over 30 hours. I wasn't able to perform for days after arrival. Now I know better and if I let them buy the ticket I ALWAYS insist on a hotel stay after a 10 or 12 hour flight before getting on the next plane.
It is included in the money paid by the govt. and if you don't use it the recruiters pocket it. |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 3:22 pm Post subject: Re: Get yourStop Over at Hotel on Long Flights |
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I have never heard of this, but find a couple things odd.
| runninggirl wrote: |
| If you are flying more than 10 hours be sure and insist on a hotel break. |
First off, if you are flying from the states, to have only two flights would be unusual. I almost never had less than three plane changes from the Gulf, and the usual was 20-30 hours.
| runninggirl wrote: |
| It is included in your allotment of money but you MUST ASK for it if they are insisting on buying the airline ticket. |
If they are "insisting" on paying the ticket?? I would have never accepted any job in the Gulf where they didn't pay the ticket up front. To me that is part of a standard contract.
The only hotel stays were offered by the airlines if they were sticking you with a more than 8 hour layover between connections. I only took advantage of the option twice because it was just too much aggravation getting all of your luggage, dragging it to a hotel to just drag it back the next morning to check in again. Since those two things alone can take up 3-4+ hours including transport, you might as well stay in the airport. Plus I didn't find that it really made me any less exhausted upon arrival...
Dealing with Jet Lag is part of the realities of teaching overseas and traveling. I learned to control it. But I always came back from summer leave a week early to ease myself in...
VS |
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denise
Joined: 23 Apr 2003
Posts: 3419
Location: finally home-ish
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| Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 9:12 pm Post subject: Re: Get yourStop Over at Hotel on Long Flights |
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| veiledsentiments wrote: |
If they are "insisting" on paying the ticket?? I would have never accepted any job in the Gulf where they didn't pay the ticket up front. To me that is part of a standard contract.
VS |
There are different ways of getting your ticket. For me, having the school book my flight was the absolute LAST resort, because of the silly itineraries that they came up with--one of which included a 12-hour layover in Dubai. Had I known about the stopover hotel stay, I would have requested it. I likely would have been granted it--a friend of mine in the same situation got a nice stay at the hotel airport (no need to retrieve and re-check bags, since they would be checked through to the final destination), while I spent 12 hours in the Dubai airport looking for somewhere comfortable to sit. The difference between us? She knew about it & knew to ask for it; I did not. There is no way I would ever have chosen that itinerary for myself.
Another option is to select your own itinerary, submit it for approval, and get the school to pay for it. This worked quite well for me for every flight other than that first one, and I never had to shell out my own money and then wait to be reimbursed.
(This was all with SQU.)
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 10:56 pm Post subject: |
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I was never given an option on the first flight in for a new job. I guess I was just lucky that the connections weren't too horrible. The key is what city in North America is your start point. (best to start from the East Coast... worst is to start from an obscure place in somewhere like Nebraska...) Summer leave tickets were always a joke - with a half dozen plane changes each with a long layover, but I just went to the travel agency that they were listed with and changed them... paying any extra that was due... and there was always extra due as I was adding long stopovers.
VS |
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thegoodprofessor
Joined: 03 Sep 2009
Posts: 79
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| Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:18 am Post subject: |
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I did request a hotel mid-way and got it without grumbling. It is only reasonable. I get sick when I don't get sleep. I mean too sick to function.
My flight has thus far been 3 stops, the first being in San Francisco (which I didn't count previously because it's only 1.5 hours in the air) but thinking about it more, that is where I usually get stuck. Next stop is Frankfurt 4- 6 layover on the way there but more like 8 hours on the way back to the U.S. and a quick stop in Saudi before arriving in Oman around midnight.
It's exhausting to fly from the U.S. to the M.E. and it is 11 hours difference from my home.
The recruiters expect a person to jump into their agenda early the next morning. They have no understanding of what we just went through.
I know there will be a lot of first timers this year and I want them to know that they can insist on getting sleep and a hotel midpoint. It is only asking for fair human treatment.
One flight I was on, stopped in San Francisco two planes had mechanical failures. We were shuffled back and forth to lobbies then finally about 2 am they sent us to a hotel for 4 hours of sleep.
By the time we got to Oman I was really beat up and the recruiter expected me to run around to do all the medical tests early the next morning.
However, the incoming call didn't even wake me up and I'm a light sleeper! In the end it didn't matter as the recruiter had one of his girlfriends along and was in no hurry at all. |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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| thegoodprofessor wrote: |
| It's exhausting to fly from the U.S. to the M.E. and it is 11 hours difference from my home. |
It's the absolute pits... Since I retired, I have absolutely refused to even get on an airplane again. I was never able to sleep at all on a plane.
| thegoodprofessor wrote: |
| The recruiters expect a person to jump into their agenda early the next morning. They have no understanding of what we just went through. |
Actually the best way to overcome jet lag is to get right into the local time... no naps... at all... for the first 3-4 days. One might as well run around and do medical tests as they require no intellectual involvement.  So, you might as well do this to keep you from napping. It's all stuff that needs to be done and the sooner the better so you can get your labor card. It was never a long day normally just a few hours, and most places would also let you do a little shopping.
If they had expected me to immediately teach, I would have refused.
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thegoodprofessor
Joined: 03 Sep 2009
Posts: 79
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| Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:34 am Post subject: |
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Not me. If I don't sleep my stomach gets so upset that I cannot function without a bathroom hooked to me. Sorry to get gross but that is just the way it is.
I'm mad at united and Lufthansa because even though I have a ton of miles they don't upgrade if you don't keep up a certain amount of flying within their dates. I just missed out by a few weeks with my fly dates! I will pay for an upgrade if necessary.
ugh just thinking of that flight makes me want to sleep! |
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