Airlines are in Trouble

The airlines face the following challenges in that situation:

• Keep the flights full
• Avoid price wars
• Retain high service standards
• Reduce fuel consumption

Reducing fuel consumption demands a lot of investment spending to buy new planes and to improve fuel efficiency of older planes. And this in times of weakened banks and severe problems in the credit markets. All in all, this is not a time where you want to be an airline executive. But what does that mean for expats and people who have family relationships on more than one continent?

If you have family overseas and if you want to keep the relationships going, you cannot afford not to travel. On the other hand, you cannot hope that business travelers and tourists will fit the bill for higher costs alone, especially in times of slowing growth, low job security and high unemployment. But there are still good chances to find reasonable offers if you do some things right.

Stay Away from Peak Travel Days

Avoid high seasons like Christmas and summer vacations, if at all possible.
If you need to travel during high season, book early enough, but not too early. Most airlines have changed their rules, and they require now a payment and ticketing only almost immediately after a reservation is made. But if you book at the right time, you can still save several hundreds of Euros, especially compared to the prices of high-season-tickets a few days before the flight.
January and February are good months for buying summer vacation flight tickets, and for the Christmas season are February and March, or late summer good times to buy tickets.

Look Beyond Public Booking Engines

You should be aware, that for some destinations, especially in Africa and Asia, airlines create specials adapted to the needs of people visiting their relatives overseas. These special offers contain often better luggage allowances and some extra flexibility, e.g. the opportunity to rebook a flight after ticketing instead of a “no change, no refund” policy. Please be aware that those offers are typically not featured in public flight booking engines. Only selected travel agents receive special contracts from airlines to sell these tickets. The airlines do not pay commissions to their resellers. So the travel agent fee can undo the price advantage. But in this case you have still improved terms and someone who can assist you to change a flight if needed, while you are far away from the next airline branch office. So my advice is: Look for a travel agent who specializes in air tickets and whom you can trust, then build a long-term relationship with him.

If you are based in Germany, you may try as well our TailorMade TravelPlan

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Change Penalty only After Ticketing
If the change occurs before a ticket is issued, the airline will not charge a penalty, although the travel agent working for you may ask for a service fee. If the change occurs after a ticket is issued, a change penalty as specified in the fare rules of the original ticket applies, if you are responsible for the change. If the airline is responsible for the need to rebook a flight, obviously no change penalty will apply.

Different Rules for Different Changes
There are different types of changes of a flight reservation and ticket. Important is the time of the change. There may be a change

• before departure
• after departure
• after no show

The scope of the change is also important. There may be a change of the

• flight date
• flight route

Change Before Departure
If you change your flight before the departure date, a new ticket will be issued according to prices and rules in place at the day of the change. All conditions for the new fares must be met, including advance purchase requirements, ticketing time limits etc. You will pay the price difference between the old fare and the new fare plus the change penalty specified in the old fare. If there are restrictions in the old fare rules regarding a refund in case of cancel, the nonrefundable amount of the original fare remains nonrefundable. The last flight of the new ticket must be completed within the maximum stay specified in the rules of the original ticket.
The change before departure is pretty complicated. For this reason carry many special airfares a rule saying “change before departure not allowed.” In this case the original ticket must be canceled completely, the fare minus the cancel penalty will be refunded and a new ticket will be purchased.

Change After Departure
If you rebook a flight after using a part of the ticket, the fare rules in place when the original ticket was issued will be used. If you do not change the routing and find space allowed with the original fare for your new flight, you pay only the change penalty and a possible service fee charged by the travel agency or airline help desk for their work with handling the change. If you need to use a more expensive fare for the return flight, or if you want to change the route of the return flight, and the new combination is allowed according to the original fare rules, you will pay the price difference between the original return flight and the new return flight plus the change fee. The fare for the already used part of the ticket will not be changed.

Change After No Show
If you did not show up for a flight on time, or if you could not use the flight because of reasons within your own responsibility, and you did not cancel the reservation before the plane started, a no show happened. Many airlines refuse to honor or refund a ticket after a no show. So, if you are stuck in a traffic jam on your way to the airport and you see that you cannot reach the plane, it is important to call the airline and/or your travel agent at least to cancel the reservation to avoid a no show.

Change Procedure
If there is a need to change a flight, two steps need to be done:

1. the reservation needs to be changed
2. the ticket needs to be changed

Sometimes you will not realize that two steps are done, because the travel agent or customer support representative reissues the ticket immediately after the change of the reservation. Many airlines demand in the fare rules that the ticket must be changed immediately after the flight is rebooked.
If you rebook a flight directly through the airline website, the ticket will be changed automatically.

Delayed Change of Ticket
Some airlines allow to change a reservation without immediately changing the ticket. This can be useful if you know that you cannot use the return flight as booked, but you are not yet sure which flight you will be able to use. Your travel agent could enter a return flight and wait with the change of the ticket until you are sure. But, again, this is not possible with all airlines and all airfares, and there may be a short time limit for adapting the ticket to the new schedule after you rebook a flight.

Insiders Remain Silent
Few airlines allow it, and less travel agencies and online booking portals talk about the opportunity. Everyone is looking for a sale, and a reservation is not yet a sale. But the travel agent has to take care for every reservation in his portfolio, whether he has issued a ticket or not yet. Early flight reservations mean work for the travel, with the hope for a payment, but no guarantee for it.

Better Access to Early Bird Airfares
But for you as customer, an early flight reservation means the chance to get the early birds fare, without an immediate firm commitment. This is important if you want to travel at peak days, around Christmas, Easter Holidays, summer vacations, or as far as Asia is concerned, the Chinese New Year season, or if you want to attend a big trade show like the Frankfurt Book Fare.

For Airlines it’s Yield Management
You may ask why the airlines allow these early flight reservations for often less than half the price you pay if you book your Christmas flight a few days before travel time. Do they have money to give away?
No. Airlines sell only a very limited number of seats for these low prices. And the cheap seats for the best timed flights are gone within a few hours after being available in the reservation systems. This helps the airlines to determine very early the really hot selling flights, and raise the prices for these specific connections early on. The aim of any airline is to receive as much revenue as possible for each movement of each plane. The industry term for that goal is yield management.

Only a few Airlines
I have to admit that not all airlines allow early flight reservations combined with late ticketing. An airline which is very closely connected to its home market will know the sensible flight dates without testing the water every year again. But airlines with a relatively small domestic market and a huge global network, like Emirates or Air France/KLM do offer such opportunities.
Price Not Guaranteed before Ticketing
I have to add one word of caution: The ticket price is only guaranteed, when a ticket is issued. Before the ticket is issued, the airline may change the schedule, add a so called fuel surcharge to the ticket price, or withdraw the fare in total. If that happens, you are back on square one, and you have to pay the price as offered on the day you buy the ticket. In most cases, airlines give an advance warning before they withdraw a fare. But at times there is no prior warning.

Relationship with Travel Agent
For this reason the best way for you to save on peak season flights is to try to use early flight reservations and back them up with a ticket order as soon as you are reasonably sure that you will travel. This requires a trustful relationship between you and your travel agent. He does not want to work for free, and he will not do that many times. But he will be happy to provide this service for you if he knows you as a good customer, booking tickets through him on a regular basis. It also is important and a sign of fairness to cancel any reservation as soon as you know that you will not use it.

Single Open Jaw
A simple example for a single open jaw would be a combination of flight from Frankfurt to Los Angeles with a return flight from San Diego to Frankfurt. It makes good sense to combine these air flights in one ticket. Otherwise you would have to travel on the road or railroad from San Diego to Los Angeles to get your return flight to Frankfurt, or you would have to buy two separate one way tickets.
Another variant of an open jaw flight would be an arrangement where you travel from Frankfurt to Los Angeles, and return from Los Angeles to Munich.

Double Open Jaw
This would be a combination of a flight from Hamburg to Los Angeles and a return flight from San Diego to Munich. You could buy two one way tickets, but you can save a bundle if you manage to combine these two flights into one ticket as an double open jaw flight.

How to Book an Open Jaw Flight?
Many flight booking engines have a link you can use to search for an open jaw flight, or a multi stop flight. If you click on such a button, you get a new input form, where you can ask for a flight from A to B plus from C to D, maybe even afterwards from E to F. You enter your travel plans, and with good luck, you get a reasonable offer. Reasonable is the half price of a return ticket from A to B, plus the half price of a return flight from C to D. If you find an airline is flying both routes, and B is in the same country as C, while A is in the same country as D, you should be able to get a ticket for this flight. But if you do not get a reasonable for this flight on a booking engine, you still have the chance to call your travel agent and ask him to look. The rules about open jaw flights are included in the rules text of the airfare.

Ask Your Travel Agent
Booking engines often sometimes unable to understand all fare rules, and if the engine does not understand the rule, it does not offer the fare. But a human travel agent should understand the rules text and thus be able to price an open jaw flight, even if each air segment of the journey is flown with another airline. This is often possible, if all airlines concerned belong to a single airline alliance.
Sometimes you get a reasonable offer in the fare listing of the booking engine, but when you press the purchase button, you get an error message with a new expensive price. In this case ask again your travel agent for a price quote. Chances are a travel agent can sell you the ticket for the lower price. If the booking engine cannot find it, the open jaw flight may still be available.

Not to Ask Means Not to Get It
An open Jaw flight may even be possible, if the airports concerned are located in different countries. One example would be a flight from Germany to Kilimanjaro, with a return flight from Mombasa to Germany. Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania, Mombasa in Kenya. But in this example you can still combine these flights in a single ticket. There are offers from KLM, Ethiopian Airways and Condor of Germany.

There are three general types of travel insurance you should consider, if you are planning a trip:

1. Health related insurances covering the risk of sickness or an accident on the road
2. Luggage Insurance
3. Insurance covering change or cancellation penalties

I want to make a few points for each category.

Travel Health Insurance
You want to have coverage of medical expenses at home. On the road you need it even more. The first step before buying special health coverage for your trip is a check of the policy of your existing health insurance. On the road you need treatment costs, including hospitals, and transport back home, to be covered. Very helpful is an emergency phone number, where you can reach somebody familiar with the country you are in. He may know the right doctors, have an idea which hospitals are good, and have a relationship with them. This may allow a settlement eliminating the need to pay the hospital before you are admitted.
But please check the fine print. Mental conditions are almost always excluded from coverage. If you have an address in the country you visit, or if you are a citizen of the country you visit, travel insurance coverage may also be declined.

Luggage Insurance
This type of travel insurance is straightforward. If your luggage gets damaged or lost during transportation, you will be refunded. But check the fine print for excluded items. Expensive gear, like computers, cameras, jewelry and obviously cash are excluded. There may be also provisions that you cannot leave your luggage in a car, or that some items need to be kept in a safe etc.

Insurance Covering Change Penalties
A classic form of travel insurance covers the costs of changing or cancelling a trip for a predetermined set of reasons. The triggers may include sickness, pregnancy, death of a family member, unexpected unemployment and more. Check the policy of any insurance for these triggers, because they are not always the same.
Before insuring against a change penalty you need to have a hard look, whether you really need it. The trick is that insurance premiums are determined by the price you pay for your ticket or vacation package. But, on the other hand, penalties for changing or cancelling a ticket are generally lower for higher priced flights and packages. This means, if you do not take care, you may pay 50 Dollars to cover a risk of 100 Dollars in case you need to cancel your travel project. This does not make sense.
But it is also possible, that a policy of no change allowed and no refund policy is connected to your ticket. In this case, you may lose the whole price you paid for your package, if you become sick a few days before you travel. Under such rules travel insurance covering change and cancel penalties make definitively sense.

Hidden expenses may be associated with

1. Luggage
2. Change or cancellation penalty
3. Expenses to reach the airport
4. Expenses for a hotel room needed because of early starting or late arriving flights
5. The cost of your time you spend on the road.

On top of these common expenses, some airlines charge you a fee for a credit card payment or a seat reservation. Mostly a fee for issuing the ticket is charged. This may or may not be included in the price tag of your air ticket. If you do not consider the hidden costs of your flight carefully, you may pay at the end of the day much more for your journey than necessary.

Leisure travelers often underestimate the value of their time, because they are not paid for their time, and family members drop them at the airport and pick them up again, without charging for time. But your time, and the time of your friends is still a valuable resource. Many successful people put even a higher value on time with their family time, than on time spent with customers or clients.
If you want to get the most for your resources spent on travel, you really need to acknowledge the value of time as part of the hidden costs of your flight. Otherwise you could end up believing that you save, while you are wasting your resources.

I am well aware that it can be a daunting task to calculate total costs of a flight, including the hidden ones. For this reason I included into the free membership area of http://www.MaxValue4Airfare.com a small script, that acts as a checklist for resources used to travel. While you fill the flight information into the form, it does the math in the background, adding the tickets price and the hidden costs of your flight. This way you get easily a meaningful price tag which is useful to compare your flight offers.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

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

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.