Reserving a flight ticket can be realized in several different ways. You can book online on the operator’s website, through a travel agency or you can use one of the search sites specialized for tickets. Each of these have their pros and contras. I always decide which option to use after I know the purpose of my trip and depending on how much flexibility I have when travelling. Based on my experience I am sharing with you my little secrets and try to highlight the most important tricks.
The advance of the search websites is that these pages check the different airline companies at the same time and you can compare easily the prices, and also can book a separate service provider for the leaving and the returning flights if it has a better price. You can set different filters, if you are flexible with your travel dates for example you can set to see the previous and coming dates as well. Maybe you get a much lower price if you can afford to travel one or two days before planned. I use BRAVOFLY, but HOPPER, MOMONDO and SKYSCANNER are pretty much the same ones. Check those sites that are available in your native language it might be easier for you to use them. If you use these be very careful as the prices can go up very easily, and most of the time they do increase. For example you start your search for 2 persons and then it gives you the price for one, you only notice at the end that actually it is the double. The price shown on the site is only for hand luggage and you have to pay for the checked-in bag separately. My personal favourite is when finally I get to the payment part, and only because I would like to pay by debit card, or one type of debit card the price increases again, just to pay the ticket. And normally we wouldn’t expect any other cost at this point, so we do not even notice that the price – what is obviously hid in the upper part of the website – is higher again, so we only realize that we paid more when we receive our text notification from our bank.
As these sites are checking both the budget airlines and the ordinary ones too, we have to be careful to be aware of the budget airlines’ little tricks.
Using further located small airports can complicate and add a significant cost to our travel a lot. We can easily loose one day of our stay if our flight is early in the morning and there is no public transportation at that early time so we might have to go to the airport the previous night to catch our flight. If we calculate the extra travel costs, or if we added a checked-in baggage as well, maybe with some other small extra services we can easily get to the price of a big airline, so calculate everything in advance. A couple month ago I wanted to book a flight to Cologne and ended up in Dusseldorf, which is a 60 kms distance and missed my connecting flight because these sites are also checking other airports that are close to the preferred one.
It is also worthy to follow the offers of both the budget flight companies and the big airlines, because booking at the right time you can get really good discounts. And if you travel many times with one provider do not forget to sign up for their loyalty programme. After a couple of trips you can manage to check-in a bag for free or a premiere lounge coupon, and after years of trips maybe a free ticket as well. My fiancée is a professional soccer player in Poland now, so I travel almost every week to spend more time with him, and I am using my loyalty credit to wait for my flight in the lounge area. This is a separate waiting area where there is no crowd, it is very relaxing, usually they have basic food and snacks for free and also fast internet.
If I have to change flights during the trip then I prefer to book my ticket on the website of the airline, because it is much easier to reschedule my connecting flight in case of any delay, and what I appreciate is that they pay way more attention to their passengers. I have very positive experience with the Polish LOT, as I am travelling to Poland with connecting flights, and it happened in the past that a private bus was waiting for me at the stairs of the arrival flight to take me immediately to the departing one because I only had a couple minutes left till take-off. Definitely I would have missed my connection if I had had to run across the airport, and like this even my baggage made it with me.
Also check the offers of the travel agencies, because counting the accommodation and the flight they might have better offers than you can book separately. They do operate Charter flights which are not available for individual reservations.
My perfect tip for advanced travellers (who are devoted enough and speak languages) is to see all your options is the following: if you have your destination, check first the search sites. Here you also see which airlines are worthy to check on their own website and these two prices can be compared. My twist and third step is very unusual. I check the airport portal of my destination, and most of the time they have a list of airlines that are flying to that airport. And for some reason there are always local budget flight companies that I have never heard before and neither the search sites handle. So as soon as I find an unfamiliar airline I check their options as well, and sometimes with connecting flights you can get a really really good price. Like this you really have all your options and can select the best offer for yourself.
Whenever you start looking for flight tickets, don’t forget the ultimate rule, that ALWAYS use private windows for searching, because I have read on many places and experienced as well, that for some reason if you are looking for a specific destination, the prices are going up based on the search history.
Of course I have a story of missing my connecting flight, soon I am going to tell you the story in a vlog!
With paying attention to the details and knowing the secrets you can easily save time and money during your travels!
Let me know what are your tips, ideas and experiences while flying or booking a ticket!