Beginners Guide to Booking Airline Tickets Online

Yes, if you’ve never done it before it can be intimidating. Not to mention your friends are flaunting their fantastic travel deals in your face. But, don’t let the fact that you just learned how to check email stop you from booking airline tickets online. Booking airline tickets online is actually quite simple. Here are easy-to-use guidelines (plus some travel secrets) that will ease your fears and help you book airline tickets in minutes. You just might find travel discounts you can brag about too.

Tools You Need

Before getting started, there are things you will need to book airline tickets online. In fact, having the following items will not only enable you to book airline tickets online, but purchase just about anything on the internet.

Email Address: In order to book airline tickets online, the airline will need a place to email your confirmation and tickets. We’ll get more into this later.

Credit Card, Check/Debit Card with credit capabilities: Sorry, you can’t use a paper check or cash to pay for your airline tickets. Some debit cards have a daily limit, so check with your bank if you aren’t sure. Turn your card over and note the numbers on the signature line. Most airline ticket bookings will ask for the last three digits to confirm you have possession of the card itself.

Printer: Although optional, this is super helpful to print out your confirmation, airline ticket itinerary and boarding passes.

Where Do You Want to Go?

If you don’t know where you want to go, search online travel guides. There are tons of travel guides to give you the skinny on places, things to do, sites to see and traveler reviews. Travel guides are ideal for vacation planning before you’re ready to book airline tickets.

Once you know where you want to go, booking airline tickets online is a matter of answering simple questions. All travel booking websites ask the same questions a travel agent would ask when making airline tickets reservations:

Where you are traveling from?

Where are you traveling to?

One-way airline tickets or round trip airline tickets?

How many people are going?

Do you want nonstop airline tickets or are layovers ok?

MONEY-SAVING TIP:

If you’re looking to save money on booking airline tickets, consider flying in or out of a nearby airport. Most major cities have at least one alternate airport that offers cheap airline tickets. If you’re up to it, you can train or bus it the rest of the way.

When Do You Want to Travel?

Your travel dates are either flexible or inflexible. If your travel dates are flexible, and you can travel off-hours, midweek or include a Saturday night stay, you may be able to save big on booking airline tickets. But, if your travel dates are inflexible, or you’re booking airline tickets for major holidays, expect expensive fares, obscene departure times or a combination of the two.

MONEY-SAVING TIP:

Airline tickets go on sale up to a year in advance, so book early. Even if plans aren’t set in stone, purchase a fully-refundable airline ticket and keep shopping. You might find an airline ticket cheaper down the road.

Research buying two one-way airline tickets separately or purchasing cheap flights one leg at a time.

Willing to gamble? Last-minute airline tickets (i.e. traveling this weekend) can translate into substantial savings.

Flight Options

Once you book the airline tickets that best fit your needs (and wallet), the travel website will issue you a confirmation number for your transaction. Remember this number! Better yet, print it out. If you need to make changes, check flight status, get an upgrade or otherwise alter the airline tickets, your confirmation number will be needed.

At this point you will be offered several delivery options for your airline tickets:

Have paper airline tickets mailed to your home or work.

Paperless or E-Ticket options mean you can take your confirmation number and ID to the airline ticket counter on the day of travel and get your boarding passes.

If you select the paperless or e-ticket option, some airlines allow you to check in 24-hours prior to your flight via their website, select seats and print out your boarding passes. Some airlines even offer separate bag check for paperless airline ticket customers that have lines significantly smaller than the main check-in.

Congratulations! You just learned the basics of booking airline tickets online, and how to save some cash to boot. If you’re ready to try out your skills, book airline tickets, search hotel rates and make rental car reservations online today.