Jun
Booking Flights: What’s Your Strategy?
Photo by El Fotopakismo
A common question we get asked is how we book flights…do we book RTW tickets or single trips? It’s a good question and an important one if money is an issue and you’re trying to keep your costs down.
Having spent upwards of 100 hours (at a rough guess) in the past couple of years researching, planning and booking flights and routes, here’s some of what we’ve learned…
Here’s what we’ve done…
In our first year as LIPs (location independent professionals), we shuttled around the Americas on single and return flights. Our flights went something like this:
- Birmingham (UK) to Panama via NYC (Return via the same route)
- Panama to Buenos Aires (Single)
- Buenos Aires to Toronto (Single)
- Toronto to Grenada, West Indies (Single)
- Grenada to NYC (Single)
- NYC to Birmingham (the final part of the first ticket we bought - we cancelled the 3rd Panama to NYC leg)
This year we’ve shuttled around Africa, the Middle East and Asia and our flight purchases look like this:
- Manchester to Johannesburg via Dubai (Return - but we cancelled the last leg back to Manchester and started a new route from Dubai)
- Dubai to Bangkok (Single)
- Bangkok to Phuket (Return, cheap airline)
- Bangkok to HK (Single)
- HK to Dubai to Johannesburg to Dubai to HK (Multi-stop ticket - business class)
- Dubai to London (Return - for our separate UK trip)
Here are some things we’ve learned…
- If you’re going in one direction, then a RTW ticket will be the most cost effective option; if you’re not, then it will severely limit you and any extra flights you book to create your ideal route will probably end up costing more than individually booked flights.
- It is worth joining the major airline loyalty programmes - it costs you nothing, can increase your chances of an upgrade, might let you select your seats at the time of booking instead of having to wait till check-in, often enables you to check in online and is definitely worth it, if you continue to fly with that airline multiple times.
- Sometimes it is better to book through the airline website directly rather than use an aggregator like Expedia - this is especially true if you’re looking at complex, multi-leg flights.
- If you’re trying to figure out which airline is the *best* one to use, Airline Quality is a useful website. The new Delaycast site may also help you once it gets more data (and expands beyond US airlines).
- Always try and check in online - not only does it save you time at the airport (and means you don’t have to get there quite so early), you can usually select your seats online if you haven’t done so already (and don’t forget to use Seatguru to guide you).
- You may find that adding in a stopover works out more cost effectively if it’s part of the scheduled route - our business class flights work out to be only around £100/$200 more per leg than an economy ticket would have cost, largely because the route we’ve picked.
- If you are on a tight budget, it’s worth reviewing the airline schedules to identify the most cost effective routes and then consider booking a cheap internal flight to get to your end destination.
I’m sure there are a few more things we’ve learned that I’ve forgotten to add here but as ever, we’re not the only ones who’ve ever booked flights!!…So what tips do you have to share to get the best deals, quickest routes and easiest booking process?
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After far too much time hunting for the most effective way to buy flights for our next year of travel, I gave up trying to find the cheapest route ever, and went for a RTW ticket with 8 months in Bangkok, so that I can use Thailand as a hub for exploring South East Asia on cheap local airlines.
The main three reasons I did things this way are:
(i) I’ve probably already lost $1000 of income from the otherwise billable time I lost to research already, and the law of diminishing returns kicked in a long time ago.
(ii) I didn’t lose too much flexibility with the long stopover in Bangkok.
(iii) Fuel surcharges are sure to destroy any savings I make by waiting until I arrive at each destination before booking the next leg, as the price of oil drives cost upwards. Paying for next years flights at this years prices seems like a good bet to me.
I’d like to spend next Summer in England to enjoy the music festivals and bike rallies with friends, and then leave again for another 9 months of travel in September. Since the airlines only seem to allow you to book 10 months or less ahead, then unless oil prices have peaked and are on there way back down again by then (yeah right!), I’m going to book my 2009-2010 flights as a RTW ticket in November 2008, as soon as the 10 month window has opened. I’m pretty sure that leaving everything until half way through my 5 week stay in Blighty this year, and effectively booking just 3 weeks ahead of time has cost me more than it would have done if I’d planned ahead as we were leaving last time…
Lea, I always look forward to your posts. I am not an LIP (yet) but devour every detail and every tip. Unlike others who may not be interested in your travel stories, I love reading about every detail.
I am learning so much and of course igniting my own wanderlust. I think the world is fascinating and what a kick in the pants to be out there experiencing it.
What’s an RTW ticket? Also love the website! I always enjoy reading it, fabulous tips!
Single flights are the way for me, rather an RTW tickets. The flexibility isn’t something I can put a price on. Not to spam your site, but I wrote a post detailing my flights to date and the total cost which might be an interesting read for anyone considering doing the same thing: http://www.nerdynomad.com/2008/05/13/planes-trains-and-er-actually-just-planes/
It’s not as cost effective as a RTW. I haven’t gotten very far but I have hopped around quite a bit, often at the last minute, and I’m willing to pay more for that.
Thanks Karen - it’s always so nice to get feedback. esp positive stuff!! Anything specific you’d like us to write about in the future?
@Melissa - RTW = round the world, one of those multi-leg tickets that often seems to give you very good value but doesn’t always go to the exact places you want to go to!!
@Kirsty - thanks for the link to your post and good luck with increasing your subscriber numbers
@Everyone…take a look at Kirsty’s site if you’re interested in earning an income by building and running websites with affiliate income/paid links and then travelling the world on your income - she’s doing it right now!
Thanks for the plug Lea!