Flight booking rules, family visit trip planning, flight booking considerations, tips for travelling through airplane
In today’s fast life, travelling has a major role to play. Travelling via flight is the most preferred option when the travelling is aimed to shorten the travel time or it’s the only choice. With the increase in operators operating in the aviation industry worldwide and added touch of the internet, things are sounding very easy when it comes to booking travel itineraries, but guess what, the experience of purchasing and travelling through might not remain smooth and rather could turn bit daunting if due care wasn’t taken.
Here, I will help simplify the process by sharing the important strategies to keep in mind and prepare yourself for a booking process. Some points discussed are to be considered during the actual search process you will undertake to search for flights during the booking process.
1st two points discussed below suggest information needed to note down before booking and rest 3 points are to be considered during the actual search process you will undertake to search for flights during the booking process.
Final Destination: Does it have an Airport or Nearby cities?
Sometimes not all the destinations will have an airport and this will begin the quest for finding the nearest Airport. And perhaps, the nearest airport does not mean it is selected as the selection process depends on several things such as travelling nationally or overseas, direct connecting flights available or not. Below I listed some situations and in answer to them given tips on how you should derive your final destination.
While travelling internationally, if the destined city has an international airport, then that city becomes the answer for the ‘Going to’ selection in any booking system. Similarly, that city can be used in case of Domestic travel too.
Secondly, during international travel, if the airport isn’t available in your destined place, then the nearest city with an international airport should be preferred. You may also choose a city with a domestic airport as long as flight bookings are available covering mixed route (Domestic and International) options.
Whichever turns out to be the destination city from the above-shared situations that should be noted down separately and should be used during the actual flight booking process as a target city.
Data entry – Name, passport, DoB, email, frequent flyer and more
During a flight booking process, data entry is very important. As per experience, when you are in the process of booking a flight, the flight operators or third-party agent websites sometimes keep changing the fare on a real-time basis through some algorithms and they prompt you for the fare changes. This situation could lead to feeling a sense of urgency as a normal human nature and in the event of a single or more wrong data entry for passenger names or so, the booking details might look incorrect. And now, If you want to rectify it then depending on the flight booking website terms, you might have to pay a hefty amount to get it corrected and sometimes you might end up spending a lot of time to reach the customer service team and get things fixed.
Before you book the flight keep the following information ready in a separate notebook.
For International travel for all passengers:
- Given and Last name as per Passport
- Passport Number
- DOB
- Passport expiry
For Domestic Travel for all passengers:
- First and Last name as per any ID
- Drivers license number or any other national ID number
General details – Good to keep handy
- Email address
- Frequent flyer number (if applicable)
- Phone number
- Postal address and billing address
Flight operator: One or more to be selected?
Preferred options should always be that you have a single operator who takes you from source to destination.
The single operator-managed journeys will provide more ease most of the time because, most likely you will not need to collect check-in luggage at transit points and will not need new boarding passes issued at transit points.
When you are travelling long distances, sometimes you will not find source-to-destination flights from one single flight operator if you are booking from their direct websites. And at that time, you will have to book tickets from third-party booking agencies such as Expedia.com, yatra.com, and momondo.com which can search across multiple flight operators and provide mixed options by combining flights from different operators. In such cases, if flights are available from a single operator at a reasonable cost, then it should be preferred, however, if that’s not a choice and only a mixed option is available then go with that option.
Stops: direct or one or more stop journeys?
The answer to this depends on factors like cost, time of scheduled departure and total duration of a journey.
Direct flights to a destination should be the preferred option as long as they are within your budget.
The second choice should be given to a single-stop journey when your layover is only at one place and within your budget.
Very rarely, consideration should be given to the hold time at a layover airport and/or transit entry requirements specific to that place. This is because, during international travel depending on your citizenship country, some countries might have even more visa-specific requirements to enter the country just for transit purposes. Lastly, If you are travelling in a family with infants or toddlers then you should aim for finding direct or single-stop flights with less hold time and preference should be given to such options.
Luggage allowance
Luggage is considered Check-in or cabin baggage luggage. Check-in luggage is the luggage that does not stay with you while you are on a journey. Cabin luggage is the one that stays with you during the journey and you can place it into the overhead compartments above your seat.
Most of the time, the luggage allowances are always similar or the same for any given route for the majority of flight operators. For example, most flight options going to and from the USA will always have at least 2 pieces of checked-in baggage (23kg a bag means 1 piece) and 7 kg of cabin baggage for economy class. However, some variations in the allowed limit could be seen while you book your flight tickets, which could be linked to other factors such as active promotions and ticket class.
Anytime booking a flight, always remember to read the checked-in and cabin luggage allowance limits. In case the allowed luggage limit is lesser and you need extra carrying capacity then it’s good to check if your chosen flight has the option to pre-purchase extra luggage as that is sometimes cheaper than at the airport.
Thanks for reading and if you would like to know more information like this, keep visiting us at familyvoyagetips.com.