Time to Book Flights for Christmas?
Hurry to get any convenient flight for the Holiday season.
Is this the right time to book flights for Christmas? Wrong! Absolutely wrong! Now, in November, is the right time to look for flights in the Easter vacations. Best time to book flights for this Christmas was in February, March or April!
Save a bundle with early flight reservation
Booking flights early can save you a bundle, and you can secure seats for yourself and your loved ones on the best connections.
And, if you choose the right airline, you can still maintain your flexibility. Some airlines allow you to keep a reservation without issuing a ticket for many weeks. Air France for example demands a ticket number and payment only three months before departure. Many Airlines from the Gulf region are even more liberal.
Using this system, you have nothing to lose. You buy the ticket as soon as you can make a firm commitment. The worst what can happen to you at ticketing time is, that you have cancel the old reservation and look again. Then you are in the same position as someone who looks at that time for a flight.
Most travel agents demand immediate ticketing and payment
You will ask me: “What are you telling me here? If I go to any website or travel agency to book a flight, they ask me for money right away, and I get a ticket on the spot.”
And you are right. Most travel agents keep quiet about these opportunities for several reasons:
- The travel agent must manage those reservations without a ticket manually. Often it takes one or two days until the airline sends a note with the latest possible ticketing date. The agent must have an eye of these reservations and inform you of any messages of the airline. That is work and costs money.
- The general rule is: The price is only guaranteed if a ticket is issued. If the fuel surcharge is going up, or if the airline decides to change the price or schedule, it’s up to you to change your plans. And no travel agent likes to pick the phone to tell you, that the flight he offered you, is no longer available, or costs now much more.
- In most booking engines the whole process of looking for free seats, pricing, collecting the payment and issuing a ticket is fully automated. Everything else would be way too expensive for a travel agency competing solely on the price.
- Last but not least: If you paid the flight and have the ticket, you cannot change your mind and buy somewhere else.
The bottom line is: Travel agencies ask for immediate ticketing and payment. For the customer this is a pity. Many people would be much better off paying a higher fee to the travel agent and have him do the work which can be the difference of paying 800 or 1500 Euro for a flight from Frankfurt to Nairobi or Douala in the holiday season.
Sweet spot for our customers
To take care of this problem, we have done something sweet for you. We put up a booking engine which just makes a reservation for you, without issuing a ticket. Our fees are obviously a bit higher that the fees the 100% automated discount agencies offer. But I think you will like the idea to spend 20 Euros to save 200 Euros. (This is a hypothetical example. It is not possible to calculate today, what you would pay for a flight if you had made a reservation in February. But not hypothetical is the fact, that almost any travel agent who has access to the Sabre(TM) or Amadeus(TM) reservation system, uses that technique for his own travel needs.)
The engine offers fares which are available for sale in Germany. But you can book flights starting and ending in almost every country.
This engine is hidden at
http://engine.bestprice.travel
As you can cancel any reservation from this engine before a ticket is issued without a fee, we have taken the complete risk on our side.
Yours
for a better travel experience
PS:
Paying € 20 to save € 200 sums up to a saving of 180 Euro.
What’s so Special with the Bestprice.Travel Flight Booking Engine?
There are thousands of flight booking engines out in the internet. Why should there be another one from BestPrice.Travel?
Four reasons:
- With Bestprice.Travel you can create a reservation without immediately ordering a ticket. This they you can be sure that a flight will be available when you propose an appointment to your contact. And if you agree to a different appointment, you can change and cancel your reservation at no cost, as long as no ticket is issued.
- You can book flights in all countries and between all countries.
- We check the reservation before we issue a ticket. If we find an lower priced offer for the same flight, we show you that option before booking.
- You have one person taking care of your needs around the flight, be it changes, seat reservations, special meals, rail and fly offers etc.
This way you get the best of two worlds: immediate reservation, and professional service taking care of everything around your flight.
A330 System Malfunction Reported
Hi,
Just a link to a report from Jetstar in Australia, which could shed some light on the recent Air France crash off Brazil.
It is good to know that people are still searching for the reason of that crash, und do not just file it under “unsolved mysteries.”
I found that information first at
http://www.twitter.com/airsafe
For a better travel experience.
Johannes
How to Evaluate Flight Offers
Know the True Cost of Your FlightIn each and every airplane people are sitting next to one another, and most of them have paid a different price for the flight than his neighbour. This leaves room for a lot of ill feelings about ticket prices, many people just assuming, that they are regularily ripped off.
Here is a small video that shows you how to evaluate a flight offer in a systematic way. It walks you thru the different cost categories, and asks the right questions to find the true cost of a flight arrangement. You can get free access to a higher resolution video and the script used in the video at http://maxValue4Airfare.com
Secrets for Cheap Flights
Internet Improves Market Transparency
It seems to be simple to find cheap flights in the era of booking engines, which allow you to compare offers of all airlines in seconds. The internet reduces also the price differences between different agencies offering tickets. Everybody knows how to find the airline website, especially since airlines push every customer to their website for an online check in, which can reduce the time at the airport considerably. And it is true, online check in can save you a full hour if you travel only with carry on luggage.
Same Plane, Different Prices
But in one aspect, there is no change: In the same plane, especially in economy class, there are on each flights passengers who paid for their ticket twice as much as the passenger with the cheapest flight ticket. So one and the same flight can be an expensive flight, and at the same time a cheap flight. The question is now: We just want to leave the expensive part of the plane to somebody else! What do we need to do so that these flights are for us cheap flights?
Time is the Key to Inexpensive Airfares
The main keyword to get the a cheap airfare is “time”. It is the time, when you make your flight reservation, the time when you buy your ticket, and the time, when you fly. If you buy your ticket too early, you may miss some specials. Airlines bring their specials into the market, when they have an idea of the market conditions. For example, now. September 2009, airlines publish their specials for the coming winter, the travel season after Christmas. It would have been a mistake to buy a ticket for a flight coming February already this May. This is especially true if you travel in low season months. On the other hand it is much easier to get cheap flights for February or November, than for August or December.
On the other hand, If you know you need to travel from December 22 to January 5, it is better to get a reservation as early as possible. This means in late January of beginning of February. For a cheap air ticket in the summer vacations you may start to look in November. But if possible, keep your reservation open, and do not buy a ticket until January. In January, after the end of the Christmas travel season, specials for the summer vacations are usually published.
Minimum Stay and Maximum Stay Important for Ticket Prices
The other important time feature of cheap flights is a stay over a weekend in your destination country, and the maximum time your ticket is valid.
Ethnic Fares
Air France and KLM demand for their Visit Friends and Family offers even a minimum stay of 2 weeks. Other airlines have similiar programs. Since it is in Europe problematic to use the nationality of passengers to decide who can get these fares, other features are used to define this market segment. The fares of theses programs are sometimes only slightly lower than normal fares, but sometimes there may be stark price difference. And, what is equally important, the fare rules are more relaxed. Generally, cheap air tickets are not refundable, and often no change of the ticket is possible in any way. Ethnic fares target families who have roots in two or more countries, especially in Europe and in Africa, Asia or Latin America.
Ethnic fares and their cousins, like fares for military service people, are not offered in booking engines.
Cheap is not Enough
This brings another consideration on the table: We are not really looking for cheap flights. We want flights with well maintained planes, with an airline which will be still around when we want to travel home again, on a way as direct as possible, and that for a low price.
Add Hidden Cost into the Picture
You need to add to the ticket price some hidden cost, which are often forgotten. We have developed Maximum Value for Your Airfare to help you find and evaluate these less than obvious expenses. It includes a checklist, asking the right questions, and while you fill your answers in, it does the math for you. This way it is a real timesaver in itself.
