Before today’s update of portatour®, it was not possible to plan long-haul flights in portatour®. The reason for this was that portatour® always checks whether it is possible to drive the route between two appointments by car, which is seldom possible when routes are actually being travelled by plane.
Now, there is a trick on how to skip this check. If an appointment starts at 12:00 a.m., there will be no availability check for it. Likewise, when appointments end at 11:59 p.m., no drive home is scheduled. You can now use this state of affairs to plan flights. The following example provides an explanation.
Let’s say you fly from Chicago to Miami on Monday at 5:00 p.m., to set off the next day at 7:30 a.m. from your hotel in Miami to visit customers there and in the surrounding areas. To do this, create an appointment on Monday from 5:00 p.m to 11:59 p.m. with the address of the Chicago airport. This tells portatour® that the Monday route ends at Chicago airport. You then create an appointment on Tuesday from 12:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. at the address of the hotel in Miami. This lets portatour® know that your route will start at the hotel on Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. No route feasibility check between these two appointments takes place, thanks to the set times of 11:59 p.m. and 12:00 a.m.
Important: To enter these special times (12:00 a.m. or 11:59 p.m.), change the “Schedule” setting in the appointment to “All-/Multiday” and then adjust the appointment’s start time and end time accordingly (see screenshot above).
Notes:
- To create such appointments, for example, click a blank area of the desired day in the calendar and then select “at custom address” from the “New Appointment” context menu.
- If you are staying several days in Miami, you either create several additional overnight appointments at the desired hotels or enable overnight stays in the portatour® Options. You can optionally enter your favorite hotels in the region under “My Places”, so that they are automatically scheduled.
- For the return flight, create an appointment at Miami airport from, for example, 6:00 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. In this way, your route for the following day will begin from your home location.
- Currently, it is not possible to book a flight in the middle of the day, whereby you would visit customers before and after the flight.