Photo by Angela Sabas /CC
Written by Maak
I hear more and more stories of people making potentially very expensive mistakes when booking flights online. With complicated rules and regulations associated to air travel, mistakes, even simple mistakes, can be very costly or, worst case, will stop you from travelling at all.
Read on, and make sure you don’t repeat any of these errors when booking your next trip.
Putting the wrong name on the ticket
There was a time when airline travellers were valued customers and any name the vaguely related to the name in your passport would have been OK. Unfortunately, those days are long gone and today even the smallest variation between the name on your ticket and the name on your passport or identity paper can have you stuck at the airport.
Part of this is of course security considerations. The authorities want to make sure you are the person you say you are before boarding the plane. However, this is only part of the explanation. The airlines have also realised that there is additional revenue potential, being able to charge you a premium to change a name on your ticket – or even worse, force you to buy a new ticket.
Bottom-line, check, double check .... even triple check that all names match the names in your passports before hitting the reservation button.
Flying to the 'wrong' airport
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This is not as uncommon as you may think. We’ve all heard the stories of similar to the German couple expecting to fly to Sydney in Australia, but ending up in Sydney in Canada.
However, many cities have several airports, and there can be long distances between airports – even in the same city. Many years ago when my husband lived in England and I was travelling from Denmark to meet him, I landed in Gatwick, whilst he waited in Luton.
Then there are all the airports, typically used by the low cost carriers, that are named after the closest big city, but are miles and miles away.
Booking the wrong dates
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Let’s face it, not all booking sites are extremely user friendly, and picking the wrong date only needs a moment of inattention. I am a day person, in other words when I’ve selected a date to travel I like to see the day in the search display, so I can double check that the 11th I selected was a Wednesday!
I also see more and more web sites showing cheaper alternatives the day before or after the dates you have selected, and again, if you are not on top of things, it’s easy not to notice that the flight wasn’t on the day you’d searched.
If you do make this mistake, and you haven’t paid for a flexible ticket, it will be expensive to change the ticket.
Buying restricted tickets when you need flexibility
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Many business travellers need a degree of flexibility. The meeting may drag on and you need to rebook your return flight, or is cancelled and you need a refund on your ticket. However many of the online sites don’t make it particularly easy to find flexible fares. Many sites just show a fares (sorted cheapest first), without displaying the rules associated to the fare (and most airlines don’t publish rules in a very user-friendly fashion). Added to that, flexible fares are almost always more expensive than restricted fares, so often you have to dig deep and page through the site to find the flexible fares.
Unknowingly you could easily end up with a fare you thought was flexible, but when you try to change your travel dates, you find out it isn't flexible. I can’t think of any sites that allow you to search based on the degree of flexibility you need, instead of displaying results based on price.
Forgetting to factor in 'additional fees'
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As the airlines, not least the low cost carriers, become more and more creative, the actual fare is quickly becoming the cheapest part of an air ticket. Baggage fees, online check-in fees, priority seating fees and more, all push up the actual cost of the ticket. Then there is the fact that many airlines use airports well off the beaten track (as mentioned earlier) which means that we incur additional costs to get into the city.
In addition, if you are travelling with smaller children, some of the traditional airlines still offer cheaper children’s fares, if they are under 12 years old, whilst most of the low cost carriers charge full fare for under 12’s.
So before you jump at the 'free' ticket from Ryanair, make sure you are aware of what the total cost of taking a particular flight will be.
Booking too tight connections
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Most frequent travellers have experienced having to rush through the airport to make a connection – usually this is due to the incoming flight arriving late. Imagine you had to rush like that just to make a connection when the incoming flight is on time – imagine the stress with a short connection and you are stuck on the runway.
I often see flights with connections down to an hour at major international airports, even though my experience tells me that there isn’t a chance to make such a connection in many airports. Recently I flew to New York over Heathrow – I had the choice of a one and a three-hour connection. I took the three hour connection and almost missed it! The initial flight was delayed from Copenhagen, then we waited on the runway, I had to change terminals at Heathrow, which involved a new security check. Finally, at the terminal I had to check-in again with Virgin, as I couldn’t be checked all the way in Copenhagen. I made the gate with 10 minutes to spare.
And then, there’s US immigration – there’s little chance of making a tight connection if you have to go through US immigration when landing in e.g. New York.
To sum up, give yourself plenty of time at airports when making connections, an hour is an absolute minimum at most airports, longer if you know it’s a large airport and you’ll need to change terminals to make a connection.