How to Book Flight Tickets
Booking flight tickets used to be a matter of calling your travel agent and letting her do all of your travel arrangements. If you didn't use a travel agent, the airlines would be happy to book your flight on one of their scheduled routes. Online booking allows you to compare pricing and schedules across airlines. Some sites check other sites as well as the airline databases. With e-ticketing solutions, all you need to do is show up at the airport.
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Instructions
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Prepare yourself with your travel dates, times, departure and arrival airport codes before you start searching for flights. You will need to enter this information at each website. Have a credit card handy for purchasing a ticket.
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Use Kayak's simple interface to compare flight information from four different sites to the information Kayak returns. Sign up for weekly top-travel-deal emails if you're able to travel when fares change.
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Compare multiple airlines at Orbitz. Choosing the Quick Search option returns a selection of flights with the cost of each. Orbitz charges no extra fees for booking flights.
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Use Bing's Know When to Buy feature to predict if your ticket price is likely to increase or decrease in the future. Bing searches more than 100 travel websites and returns flight information for you to compare.
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Search over 140 travel sites with Booking Buddy and sign up for its travel-deals newsletter. Follow price reductions with Hotwire's Trip Watcher.
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Take advantage of price guarantees from Expedia and Travelocity. If you find a lower fare within 24 hours after booking with either company, it'll refund the difference and give you $50 off a future trip.
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Set your own price by bidding on tickets at Priceline if you're flexible about airlines and times. Priceline also offers a standard flight-search option.
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Look for inexpensive tickets at Cheapflights. If your dates are flexible, the site searches for deals. A search by date gives returns from eight other sites. Sign up for its weekly deals newsletter.
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Tips & Warnings
Use a flight-price-tracking service like Yapta that will inform you when the fare on a scheduled flight changes. Use several different websites and compare them to the airline's price before committing. Most travel sites offer options like cruises, hotel rooms and car rentals. Having flexible dates and times for travel can save money.
Check to see if tickets are refundable before you purchase. Read Priceline's terms before bidding on flights. You'll be making a commitment without knowing all of the details of your trip.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Hawaii Pacific University
