We all book flights online these days.
We’ve grown accustomed – inured even – to finding that the advertised £1! fare ends up being closer to £100 by the time you’ve been charged just for booking it, then actually paying for it, having baggage, wanting a seat, etc etc etc. But we all do it.
It seems more convenient – and often it is. You can do it at any hour of the day, and from almost anywhere. And usually it all goes well.
The pitfalls only become evident when something goes wrong. It goes wrong because you can’t ask questions – and answers to supposedly "Frequently Asked Questions" are usually so banal and so buttock-clenchingly unhelpful that none of us ever bothers to look at them any more.
As a result, some of the really important questions go unasked. You might not ask them because:
• you don’t realise you need to
• nobody tells you what might go wrong if you don’t get the answers to questions you never got a chance to ask in the first place!
Here are some of the Freqently Unasked Questions that could help you steer clear of a real headache...
Q: Once I’ve bought a flight to Lima, say, and I’m planning to travel onward in Peru, will I be able to buy cheap tickets while I’m there?
A: Not usually. In fact, it’s almost always better to do it all at once. For example, if you were to book a London to Lima return this May the cheapest fare would be £993. However, add in a few more flights: say, Lima to Puerto Maldonado (Amazon), Puerto Maldonado to Cusco, then a flight all the way back from La Paz in Bolivia to Lima, and surprisingly the fare is only £22 extra if you buy it all at the same time. In contrast those extra flights would be £350 if bought separately from us before you go – and would cost a whopping £645 in published fares if you bought them once you got to Peru.
Q: Is there more than one place (and airport) in the world called San Jose or Santiago?
A: Yes (two San Joses and three Santiagos). You can probably guess without my telling you what kind of mishap this can cause – and it’s an expensive mistake to make.
Q: I’m booking online with BA. So I’ll be travelling on a BA flight, won’t I?
A: Not necessarily. ‘Code sharing’ is a common practice amongst airlines, whereby they agree to share one another’s flights in order to benefit from an expanded network of routes. So you may book what looks like a British Airways flight online and find that the service is actually operated by Iberia, or may choose to fly with KLM and end up on an Air France flight via Paris.
Q: I’m planning to book my holiday with Journey Latin America, but I’ll do my flights online first. Nothing can go wrong, right?
A: Chances are everything will work out in the end. But please talk to us first – you may be missing out on alternative routes, or big savings. And there can be other pitfalls too, such as discovering you have 
unknowingly booked flights during a local holiday when hotels are expensive and/or full. The classic example is Rio Carnival: you don’t have to arrive on the first day of the celebrations, especially if the flights are much cheaper if you fly in on day 3. But since all hotels work on a minimum 4- or 5-night stay policy over the Carnival period, any saving on flights is lost on the extortionate rate for a 2-night stay.
Q: Direct means non-stop, doesn’t it?
A: Not in airline terminology. Non-stop means no scheduled touchdowns. Direct means one or more touchdowns, but no change of plane... usually. But, strangely, some "direct" Iberia flights to Central America involve a transit (ie a plane change) in Miami. And unfortunately the Land of the Free hasn’t really grasped the concept of transit. If the USA doesn’t like you for some reason, they’ll send you back where you came from, rather than where you’re going to – even though you had no intention of even stopping in Miami in the first place.
Q: If I buy an airline ticket and the airline goes bust before I fly (or before I fly back), the 
government, or the CAA, or someone like that will arrange for me to get my money (or myself) back, won’t they?
A: I'm afraid not. Airlines don’t have to have any consumer protection in place. Blame successive governments for allowing themselves to be lobbied and leant on. So if you’ve booked your flights directly through the airline and they go bust, you’re on your own – and you'd better find another way to get home.
BUT, if you book your flights through a tour operator as part of your holiday arrangements, it’s the tour operator’s responsibility to sort it out, and your money is fully protected.
Q : Some tropical countries recommend malaria tablets or yellow fever inoculations for visitors, but will they really not let me in if I haven’t taken them?
A: Only you can make the decision to take a gamble with your own health. But what doctors recommend and border officials demand are different things. For the most part you aren’t likely to be refused entry, but if you happen to be met by an over-zealous check-in clerk in, say, Peru who says you need a yellow fever certificate to fly to Costa Rica, you aren’t going to get on the plane without it.
Q: I’m Alan Christopher Parrott, but everyone calls me Chris, so I’ve booked myself as Chris Parrott. I can’t imagine this will be a problem, will it?
A: Dream on, sunshine. If your passport doesn’t exactly match the name on the ticket, you’ll be denied boarding. You may be given the option to buy a new ticket, but probably not at the fare you paid first time round.
And even if you spot the mismatch early on, you’re still not off the hook – changing the details of a flight booking after confirmation can prove extremely expensive.
This is a common problem because it’s a surprisingly easy mistake to make – maybe you simply mistyped your name, used a common nickname instead of your full name, or perhaps you’ve just got married and your passport is in one name and the booking in another. No matter: no amount of pleading will thaw the heart of Rosa Klebb at the check-in desk.
Over the years at Journey Latin America we’ve heard all the horror stories, and been able to help clients who’ve come to us after falling into these and many other unexpected traps – as well as preventing far more from happening in the first place. Unfortunately as online flights booking engines have become more popular, awareness of the intricacies of airline practice and border control has not seen an equivalent rise.
You aren’t obliged to book your flights through a tour operator – and the advice above is intended to forearm readers with the not-always-obvious insight needed to make the best decisions when booking independently. However if you do choose to contact us, you’ll get the chance to speak to dedicated flights experts, and, crucially, to ask questions.