Booking Your Flight: A guide on How to be Safe Before you Travel
Many people like to go away for Pesach on their yearly vacation. The holidays are a great time to spend time with family and friends. So, if you are looking to book a flight, whether local or international, here are a few tips on booking flights I have recently just picked up.
While there are may deals you can get on airfare by booking through a travel agents website, like priceline.com or Kayak.com, you might want to reconsider, and book it direct with the airline, after reading the agents policies. What I mean is that, to start, if you were to book flights on priceline, then they control your tickets. The airline itself does not have the right to change your flights unless it is the same day and/or the airline themselves cancelled the flights.
Related: Passover International: A Quick Guide to Pesach Programs Worldwide
So, here are a few more tips to keep in mind. But before I begin there is one airline I highly recommend you stay away from. If you are thinking Spirit Airlines, you thought right. There so many problems that had happened to a friend, family member, myself, and many stories on the news, that a whole book could be written about it.
1. Book Straight with the Airline
When booking you may be tempted to buy from an online agent because they claim they have lowest fares. This is absolutely not correct most, if not all, of the time. Yes, there may be a small price difference of just $1-$2, but that should not be your reason why you book it through the agent. A good way to all airlines is to look at the agents website, but today Google has a flight search feature that searches all the airlines and they will then send you to the airlines site.
2. Book One Way tickets
Another problem I noticed when booking round trip flights is if you, for some reason do not show up at your departing flight, the airline can cancel the return flight as well and you will not get a refund! Every airline has their own rule on this, but for some, checking up which airline has this rule can be tedious. The price difference between on way and round trip are not that much, and most of the time it will be the same. Jetblue displays their prices as one way, even when searching a round trip; the same may very well be with other airlines.
3. Refundable Flights
Another way to play it safe is to buy refundable flights. In an event you need to change something, or need to cancel your trip altogether, you will get a full refund. The only thing is you may have to shell out an extra $200 or more. I know that in non-refundable flights, Jetblue has three “Blue” options and a “Mint” option depending on where you are flying. In the highest category of Blue, Blue Flex, there is no fee for changes or cancellations, but you will only receive credit if you cancel, (unless you purchased a refundable ticket). The cost difference for Blue Flex is only $100 more.
Other airlines don’t even have an option to change your flight on non-refundable tickets, even for a fee, for example Delta. Please check each airlines policy.
Also, many may know that priceline has a cancellation refund policy if your flight is cancelled by 11:59 PM after the day you book it, however, the airlines themselves have similar rules.
4. Travel Insurance
I highly recommend anyone who is traveling to get travel insurance. For domestic travel it will cost somewhere around just $30 and about $10 more for international travel. This will cover your trip if any unforeseen illness, injury, or lost baggage. There is so much that they will pay for that for just $40 or less it is a no brainer. You might not be convinced but trust me. When I went to Orlando for the first time I went to hospital for almost a day. The amount they charged for all the tests and procedures was way over $10,000. My Insurance did pay for some but I was still left with a hefty amount to pay out of pocket, and I have good private Insurance.
Well thats it for now. Hope you all have have a safe flight and an enjoyable vacation.
If you would like more articles about travel related let me know in the comments below.
*Pesachhotelreviews.com does not take responsibility for typographical errors or mistakes. All trademarks, including “Jetblue”, “delta”, “Blueflex’, and any others are owned by its parent companies. This article may not be copied, in part or all, without written permission from pesachhotelreviews.com and their publishers.
