Airline Ticket Purchases - Easier Now Than Ever

Posted on February 10, 2008 - Filed Under Travel and Leisure

As you well may imagine, traveling takes a good bit if planning. You know rental cars, accommodations, trains, and, of course, flight reservations. As one who likes to have everything set early, it isn’t uncommon for me to have everything planned and booked before Christmas for a summer trip to Europe. So, 6 months in advance, I’m already to go. Saves a lot of worry, and, even more importantly, a lot of money. Particularly when it comes to making our airline ticket purchases.

For those of you that have been traveling quite awhile, remember the hassle there once was for getting tickets and booking vacations. It always required a trip to the travel agent and the whole hassle of driving there and parking, and… Well, you get the drift. And, what about if you wanted to try and do it yourself. Trying to get in contact with people in Europe with the time difference and language barrier made it darn near impossible. Now, the internet has the ability to make us all our own travel agent.

Heck, in the old days I felt almost as though I was at the mercy of the agent. She or he would tell me what my best deal was and I didn’t even get a peek at the other airline prices. Today, it’s so much different as anyone can make airline ticket purchases right from their home computer. And, now it is even more convenient that you can print your ticket right at home if you desire. God, I love this stuff!

Not that this all the easiest thing to do. It still takes time and persistence. If you are someone that doesn’t like to do their own research, then this method is not for you. I usually try and research the ticket prices over a period of several days and sometimes weeks. The rates can go up and down quite a bit and when I do happen to see a good deal, I try and grab it. Often times the airlines will release their special prices in the middle of the night. Our trip last summer, we got our tickets for $780 R/T, Seattle to Frankfurt. The tickets were only available for a few hours through British Air, so sometimes you must be diligent and ready to act quickly. The discount travel sites usually have the best prices on airline ticket purchases, but I’ve found that the airline websites are often a good place to find the deals if you want to filter through them all.

Beyond making your purchase online and then being able to print the ticket is how the tickets are presented. I’m sure you can remember the time when everyone had a huge paper ticket that you would have to present at the counter when checking in at the airport. The ticket had all the information the airline needed and those tickets were created during the time of the airline ticket purchases. You could usually request a certain seat, aisle or window, but you really didn’t have all the choices you have now.

Today, thanks to the computers and the internet, a person can log onto the website of any carrier, big or small. Heck, last summer for our return trip home, we need to get from Copenhagen to Frankfurt. The major airlines wanted to charge an arm and a leg, and the trains weren’t that much better. After a bit of searching on stumbled across Sterling Airlines, and book two seats for next to nothing. You can search for flights at the time of day you want, either morning, afternoon or evening. You can even pick exactly what seat you want to sit in for every leg of the trip, if you are early enough. In fact, after you’ve made my airline ticket purchases, you can easily change seats or even flights by using their website.

The conveniences continue. When you get to the airport you’ll find that the airlines are trying to make things more convenient, too. I know, I know! It sure doesn’t seem like it with all the lines. Many airlines offer their passengers the convenience of checking in online. You’ll receive a confirmation number whenever you make airline ticket purchases and this number replaces an actual paper ticket. You may also be able to use a self-serve kiosk at the airport to check-in. It’s much faster and you’ll get through to your gate in no time at all.

Well, that’s the plan anyway. There are always going to be things beyond our control. The only thing I can in this case is roll with the punches and try to have a good attitude.

Bon Voyage!

Arnie Jacobsen loves to share his love of travel at Easy European Travels.Com There you will find tips for planning a european vacation and tips and tricks for specific locations like Belgium for instance.

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