Booking Hints

#1 Plan ahead.

Unfortunately many people leave it to the last minute and as most of you probably no doubt know, booking flights is never easy. There are always obstacles in our way such as school holidays.

Most planes have a mixture of First, Business and Economy Class seats. Each class is represented in the booking and on the ticket by a letter, F, J and Y respectively. But to complicate matters, within each class there are sub-classes. For example economy class can have other letters such as S, M and L where each letter represents a different fare.

Qantas may have 10 fares to London all with different conditions such as minimum stay, maximum stay, number of stopovers and whether you go via the States or Asia. As you would expect, the cheaper more restrictive fares tend to sell first and some airlines don‘t allow waitlisting (see booking hint #2). Then we have Murphy’s law which states that if you book and pay for a fare now, some ‘special’ will come along later. Conversely if you wait for that elusive special, it may never happen and you end up paying a higher fare or compromising on your choice of airline.

And please note that a fare is never guaranteed until you pay in full.

#2 Waitlists

This is a travel agent’s nightmare! Many of you would hear us say that although the flight is empty, the class we need for the fare you want is not

available. So we put your name on a waiting list. We then back up this waitlisted flight with a confirmed one on a different date or with a different airline. Then we both sweat a little while looking into our crystal balls.

Many fares have payment deadlines which we have to adhere to. But the catch here is that we can’t issue tickets with a waitlisted flight. So it may be that you have to go with the alternative date or the alternative airline.

To avoid waitlists book early, be flexible with dates and airlines and don’t worry about those frequent flyer points. They are not always good value

#3 Insurance

Murphy’s law states that if you take out insurance you will not make a claim but if you don’t take it out you will lose your camera or be hit by that runaway car.

There are two issues here. The first issue is should you take out cover at all and if you do, when should you take it out. Whether you take out insurance or not is a personal choice but most of my clients take out sort of cover. Like any insurance cover the value is intangible but it will give you peace of mind. In my view it is one thing I would never leave home without.

There is no point in paying for insurance until you have a potential loss to cover. Why pay $300 with a $100 excess to cover a $400 deposit? The best time to pay for insurance is when you pay a substantial non-refundable amount. The premium paid is not included in any claim.