Tips for Booking Travel Online

Gone are the days when having a qualified travel agent help you plan your trip and make your bookings was the norm. Today, most people plan their own trips and book their own flights, hotels, activities, and rental cars themselves. But making your own travel bookings online has its pitfalls.

This guide from moneyland.ch gives you useful tips for cutting the cost of travel and avoiding mistakes when booking your own trips online.

Tip 1: Stay flexible

One of the easiest ways to save on travel is to stay flexible. Thanks to travel booking portals and the online booking functions offered by airlines, hotels, and rental car companies, flexible travel planning has become a lot easier.

• Compare travel destinations: Prices in travel destinations are affected by supply and demand. Traveling to locations that are currently popular or hyped up can be many times more costly than traveling to similar destinations that are not on the current tourist trail. Unless there is a special reason for you to go to a specific destination, you can save a lot of money by looking at multiple destinations with similar features, and then traveling to the one that is currently the cheapest. 
• Compare airports: While flying from the nearest airport may be convenient, you can often save a lot of money by flying from a different airport. In addition to looking at flights from all Swiss international airports (Basel, Geneva, Zurich), it can also be worth looking at airports across the border. Depending on where in Switzerland you live, it can be worth looking at flights from Friedrichshafen (Germany), Lyon (France), and Milan (Italy), among others.
• Be flexible with timing: Travel is a seasonal industry. By traveling outside of the high season, you can avoid crowds and cues, enjoy a larger selection of hotel rooms, and save a lot of money on all or most of your bookings.
• Be flexible with travel routes: Many people are in a rush to get to their final travel destination. But if you plan your itinerary right, layovers can both save you money, and give you the opportunity to see new and interesting places. It can also be worth checking whether using a different route for your return trip is cheaper than returning by the same route.
• Be flexible with service providers: Sticking to airlines, hotels, or rental car companies that you are familiar with may be more comfortable. But by being open to trying new airlines, you can take advantage of the cheapest available options. In some cases, it can be cheaper to break up the trip into smaller segments, and use different airlines for different legs of the journey. That is especially true when you travel to far-away or less-popular travel destinations.
• Be flexible with accommodations: Prices for hotels and other accommodations generally get higher the closer you get to the main tourist attractions. But if you are willing to stay some distance away from the main hotspots, then it is worth checking the prices of travel accommodations within a reasonable distance of the seaside, tourist hub, or other areas you want to be near to. Often, staying just 30 minutes away from the seaside or the main tourist centers can lower the cost of accommodations by up to 50 percent – or even more in some cases.

Tip 2: Get informed about your travel destination

Understanding the local conditions at your destination makes it much easier to plan and to book the correct accommodations. 

• Learn about your destination: Get a basic overview of the local geography, and where different towns are in relation to the main tourist spots. If you are going to a country where crime is an issuer, it can also be helpful to research crime rates in different areas.
• Check legal requirements for your destination: Being turned away at the airport because you do not have the correct visas or vaccination certificates can be a disappointing and costly experience. Before you even begin booking your flights, take time to research the legal requirements for traveling to a country.
• Use the right travel money: Although not directly related to booking online, knowing how much your Swiss francs are currently worth in the local currency will help you to better plan your holiday budget and to avoid money changing ripoffs. It is also beneficial to look into which payment methods are widely accepted at your travel destination. You should also check which card networks are used, which ATMs have the lowest ATM fees for cash withdrawals, and if it is customary for stores to add surcharges for card-based payments. Get informed about dynamic currency conversion for card payments and withdrawals. You should also check the fees and currency exchange rates charged by your Swiss bank or card issuer when you use your debit card or credit card to pay and make withdrawals in foreign countries.

Tip 3: Avoid mistakes

Being your own travel agent is practical, but it also means you are responsible for your own mistakes. There are a number of common mistakes that you will want to avoid.

• Beware of fraudulent offers: Be aware that fraudsters sometimes abuse popular booking platforms to steal from unsuspecting travelers. You can find more information in the guide to common travel scams.
• Look at pictures carefully and check reviews: In some cases, the pictures and descriptions used to advertise accommodations or activities do not accurately reflect the reality of what is being offered. Take a moment to check reviews and ratings from other travelers. If you have friends or acquaintances that have been to your destination recently, ask them for recommendations. Sticking to locations with word-of-mouth recommendations or at least good online reviews goes a long way in helping you understand what you are getting.
• Double check dates, airports, flights, and passenger details: Before finalizing the booking, check all the information to make sure it is correct. A simple typo in a name or an incorrect date of birth can, in the worst case, result in your not being able to use a booking. Dates may reset when you make changes to your search, so it is important to double-check the dates as well. Making corrections to a booking once it is made often incurs high rebooking fees.
• Prepare for the worst: No matter how well you plan your trip, there is always a risk that illness, an accident, or some other unexpected hazard will prevent you from taking it. While buying the more expensive refundable tickets or getting travel insurance may add an extra cost, it can end up saving you a lot of money if things do not go as planned.

Tip 4: Avoid unnecessary costs

For many people, costs are one of the most important factors, if not the most important. There are simple, proven steps you can take to lower the cost when making online travel bookings.

• Book early: The easiest way to minimize the cost of travel bookings is to make your reservations as early as possible. This applies to flights, activities, rental cars, as well as hotels and other travel accommodations. While discounts vary between service providers and destinations, there are cases where booking several months in advance can cut the cost of a trip in half.
• Use price alerts: Some booking platforms and airlines let you opt in to receiving price alerts for a certain route. You receive an email, text message, or push notification if and when tickets fall below a certain price threshold.
• Book different items individually: Many travel booking platforms and travel agencies, as well as some airlines, offer bundled packages that may include flights, hotels, and rental cars, among other things. While these packages are convenient, booking each item individually often works out cheaper because platforms typically charge a markup for bundled offers. Booking things separately also gives you more flexibility for choosing the flight, hotel, and rental car that best fits your needs.
• Avoid dynamic pricing: Prices for online travel offers are not normally standardized. Travel merchants set their prices based on many different factors. Some of these factors are general, such as overall supply and demand of flights or accommodations for a given location. Others are personalized. For example, merchants may raise prices based on where you live, which offers you look at, your age, and other information they gather about you.

While there is no sure cure for dynamic pricing, it is generally helpful to compare prices charged by Swiss service providers with those charged by foreign providers. For example, railways in neighboring countries often charge much less for the same ticket than the SBB/CFF does. The same often applies to airlines and travel platforms as well.

If you have a VPN service, it can be beneficial to use it when making online bookings with foreign travel merchants because some will automatically charge higher prices for customers in Switzerland. Blocking cookies and emptying your web browser’s cache can also result in price changes. If you have both a personal computer and a phone, it can be worth search for the same travel booking on both and comparing the prices. In some cases, the prices shown on mobile devices can differ from those shown on desktops.

• Use a low-cost payment method: If you make bookings directly with foreign airlines, hotels, or rental car companies, then it is important to check the foreign transaction fees and exchange rates which apply to your debit card or credit card. The same holds true when you make bookings using foreign travel booking platforms, including platforms that have a “.ch” extension but do not process payments in Switzerland. Using a payment card with a favorable currency exchange rate and no foreign transaction fee can save you an amount equal to as much as five percent of the cost of your bookings.
• Don’t get unnecessary insurance: For many travelers, buying the travel insurance offered by airlines or booking platforms, and the waivers offered by rental car companies, is simply a matter of course. But if you will use a credit card to pay, take time to check if these insurances are already included in your credit card insurance benefits. There are also debit cards with travel insurance benefits. Depending on how often you travel, and how many people you are, getting long-term travel insurance can be cheaper than getting separate insurance for every trip. You can find more information in the guide to travel insurance and the guide to saving on rental car insurance.
• Compare flights with included luggage: Many airlines now offer tickets without any checked baggage. If you need checked baggage, you have to pay a separate fee. In some cases, getting a more expensive ticket that includes checked luggage can be cheaper than paying for the ticket and luggage separately.
• Check airlines and hotels that are not on booking platforms: There are airlines and hotels that do not partner with popular travel booking platforms. For example, the budget airlines Easyjet and Ryanair – which often have the cheapest flights for certain routes – are not present on many online booking platforms. There are also hotels and other travel accommodation providers that are not listed on platforms like Ebookers and Booking.com, but let you book directly through their websites. Including these in your comparisons is generally a smart move.
• Compare booking platforms with direct bookings: It is always beneficial to compare the prices offered on travel booking platforms with those charged for booking directly with the airline, hotel, or rental car company itself. In some cases, booking platforms have better deals. In other cases, you can save money by booking directly with the travel service provider.
• Compare one-way flights with returns: Often, getting a return ticket with the same airline is the cheapest option. But there are cases in which you can save a lot of money by using one-way tickets, different airlines, or even completely different routes, for different legs of the journey. There are websites (like Momondo, Rome2Rio, and Skyscanner) that combine different airlines or even different modes of transportation when comparing prices.
• Use discounts, vouchers, miles, and cash back: Before paying for your bookings, run a quick online search for vouchers or discount codes for the online booking platform, travel agency, airline, hotel, or rental car company in question. It can also be worth checking cash back platforms (Poinz and Rabattcorner, for example). If you often use the same airlines or hotel chains, joining frequent flyer clubs or hotel reward programs can shave a few francs off your travel expenses. It is also worth checking if your credit card entitles you to rental car discounts, or rewards you with airline miles or points that can be redeemed for travel discounts.

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