It used to be a straight-forward process. You gave the travel agent a call with your requirements, and let them sift through the choices and come back to you with a few potential options. You would pick one, and the travel agent would sort out the booking.
The Internet age has turned the model upside down. Now a world of flights is there for the choosing online. With a few clicks of the mouse it is possible to arrange the most complex of itineraries without moving from the computer. The benefits are that all the possibilities are available for perusal, making the options much wider. And if you know what you are doing, booking travel online can be much simpler than liaising with a travel agent.
For a start, unlikely destinations and routes are just as easy to arrange as a quick flight between Geneva and Rome. The real potential of this first dawned on me a couple of years ago, when I was scouring the web for a flight from Spain to New Zealand. Now, Auckland is clearly not the most common destination for travellers from Madrid’s Barajas airport. But with a bit of sleuthing – searching for flights connecting in the main Asian or US hubs – it did not take me long to find good business class flights for a reasonable price and with an acceptable overall flight time.
Yet, part of me was hesitant about booking a long-haul flight without talking to a real person. So I popped into a local travel agency to enquire about my itinerary. The options the agent came up with – once we had clarified that I was going to Auckland, New Zealand, and not Oakland, California – were verging on the ridiculous. The agency’s computer spat out either hugely circuitous, lengthy routes or obscenely priced ones. A travel agent clearly has the edge on all-inclusive packages which combine flights, accommodation and car hire. But for just the flights on an unusual route, I felt I was better off online.
Of course, the downside of booking online can be knowing where to start. Type “business class ticket London-New York” into Google, and you will be assaulted by all manner of results. Airlines, discount flight websites, travel search engines, and blogs all come up. Should you start with Expedia, a travel search engine, or the Air France website? What about Lastminute to arrange flights to a conference tomorrow?
Using travel search engines can help to narrow down the choices; they will display carriers and timings for your route. Many automatically rank the options by the lowest price – but usually you can choose to prioritise the fastest or most direct routes instead. Once you have a good idea of the airlines that go where you want to go, you can have a peek at their websites to compare their services. Which has power plugs for your laptop? Can you make satellite calls on board? If you are going long-haul, how comfortable will it be to sleep?
If you have travelled the route before, booking online is by far the simplest way of arranging your travel. You will be familiar with the best operators – who to go for and who to avoid. Start by checking the options with your favourite airline, find the best time for your flights, and hey presto, you are on your way.
One thing to bear in mind, whether you are booking online for the first or the hundred and first time: take care with the details, and do not get too carried away with the simplicity. It is particularly important to keep a close eye on the dates you are reserving. Booking on a site that uses North American date format, when you had European format in mind, could be catastrophic.
Finally, if the mere thought of hunting down your flights on the internet makes your head hurt, there is one online trick which is a no-brainer. Flying inevitably involves queuing: waiting to be security scanned, waiting to board, waiting at the customs desk. You can cut one queue off your list by checking-in online before you leave the office. Many airlines let you register for your flight, pick your seat and print off your boarding card up to 24 hours ahead of the flight departure time.
The facility speeds up the airport dramas enormously. You can arrive later at the airport – just allowing enough time to clear security before you need to be at the gate. If it is a short trip often you can get away with just hand luggage, and avoid the rigmarole of checking in a bag and waiting endlessly at the other end.
