How to Shop for Flights Online

Online travel really is taking off, with the huge array of websites offering great deals on flights you are guaranteed to get the flight you want for the price you want. People in the UK spent £14.7 billion online last year, a 35% increase on the previous year. It is the fastest rate of increase for six years, suggesting that the growth in web-based retailing is accelerating.

Get the flight of your choice:

New research has revealed that 1 in 4 of the British online population have booked a flight over the internet in the last 3 months. Research also showed that airline tickets represent the fourth most purchased item over the internet for online shoppers.

Coupon codes are used by online businesses to encourage sales by offering selected, limited time, deals. Travel coupon codes can be found for most of the major online travel agencies, which offer discounts on specific hotels, flights or even holiday packages.

When looking for flights you should start by searching the biggest, well known websites, such as travelocity.com or Expedia.com, which are considered the biggest travel booking sites. These sites might not list every airline available but they are however good at keeping up to date with the latest deals.

If you know of websites that offer great low price deals you could choose to visit the website directly. An advantage of booking directly from a site is that you won’t have to pay any booking fees like you would from any of the above flights, saving yourself around £10-£20 - within the current credit crunch every little helps.

The last two years have seen online flight bookings increase by 3% - a trend that is reflective of the fact that the internet is ideal for travel reservations due to the sheer amount of information constantly available.

Useful hints and tips:

Contrary to popular belief that buying tickets together could save you money, when buying flights online you could save money and take advantage of special offers and cheaper seats if you book individually. Seat booking is ruled by seat availability, which means that if there is only one cheap seat left and you are trying to buy two tickets for the same flight the airline will automatically exclude you from the cheaper offer.

During the current change in the economic climate you should be looking to save money on anything you can, as such joining ‘Frequent Traveler’s schemes will mean you accumulate air miles, which in the long run could get you a free ticket on a short flight somewhere. This is likely to come in handy during the recession as statistics show people are taking holidays closer to home due to long haul flight costs.

The growth in online check-in can be attributed to the fact that it offers mutual benefits for passengers and airlines. Travellers benefit from the option to check in online as it reduces the amount of time they need to spend waiting at the airport. It ultimately gives customer satisfaction a boost as people are not standing in long queues at check-in

Whilst certain areas of the travel industry were initially slow to utilise the benefits of the internet, it is now one of the undoubted success stories of online, playing an integral part in the arrangements and experience of today's traveller.