Basis the previous two episodes, you now have a decent idea of how you want to cover Europe and where all you want to go. This will let you zero in on few cities between which you can book your flights. But there are few things to remember before booking flight to Europe – few smart tips you should be aware about. Without knowing these, you will end up delaying the entire process resulting in change of flight price and higher costs.
Hence, in this episode, we will focus on 16 smart things you should do before booking international flights. I will share my top tips for booking flights for a Europe trip, the best way to use search engines and aggregators and how to make best use of airline rewards programs for max benefit. Additionally, you will also get a bonus video for planning your Europe trip travel 🙂
So if you find the content useful, please remember to like, subscribe and share.
Sharing Youtube video below if you prefer watching this on Youtube. For those who like reading, scroll down to get started.
Smart Tips for Flight Booking
For your convenience, I have divided the episode into 3 chapters –
- Credit Card Based Tips
- Booking Preparations Tips
- Flight Selection Tips
You will also get a bonus tip towards end of the episode.
Credit Card based Tips
- Choose the right credit card basis Reward Return Ratio. This will help maximize the benefits from card and effectively lower the price.
- Explore Credit Card offers on Travel Websites. Various websites like Makemytrip, Yatra, Cleartrip etc keep running discount offers on variety of credit cards every day of the week. Find out which offer suits you best depending on the card you have. Basis that, book the tickets on that particular day.
- Understand minimum transaction value, maximum discount offered and whether it is flat offer or percentage discount.
- Enable Online spend and International spend on Credit Card before you sit for flight booking.
- Increase online spend limit on credit card and ensure it is well above the ticket price to avoid rejection at last step.
- Redeem existing Reward points for discounted / free flights.
Booking Preparations Tips
- Book only via trustworthy websites even if it is slightly higher in price. Do not fall prey to phising or fake websites just because it is offering flights at slightly cheaper price.
- Use local country website and make payments in local currency to save money on forex conversions.
- Keep all passenger details handy before starting the flight booking process. These include passport number, expiry date, date of issue, place of issue, date of birth, age, full name as per passport, meal preferences, frequent flyer number etc.
- Add passenger details in travel websites before hand to speed up booking and also to avoid typo mistakes later on.
- Book flight tickets as early as possible. And, do not repeatedly go and keep checking the airlines price frequently as it will result in increase of price.
Flight Selection Tips
- Prefer same airline if your trip has connecting flight.
- Try for flight having long layover (min 4 hrs) if connecting flight is of different airline.
- Prefer airlines which reach Europe in late afternoon or early evening. This will help you avoid jetlag.
- Check price for flights between same city vs different city arrival and departure
- Always book a refundable flight for Europe if you don’t have Schengen Visa
Now coming to Bonus section, I will show you step by step process on how you can book the best flights at cheapest price. Watch it out on this Youtube video link.
If you find the content useful, please remember to like, subscribe and share.
