Take off! How to navigate a travel website
Follow our guide to researching and booking your next trip online
By Charles Mandel
Keen to escape the confines of the city? Take a short holiday abroad? Visit some sunny Caribbean beaches? You may have heard about the benefits of booking online, but are unsure how to navigate through a travel web site. No worries. Getting around the online getaway guides is less arduous than boarding a plane — and procuring plane tickets via the Internet is fast becoming the preferred way.
When Julia Kuipers decided to travel home from Toronto to Nova Scotia for the holidays, she booked an airline ticket through AirCanada.com. "I just typed in the dates I wanted and asked for the best price and they came up with a number of options,'' says Kuipers, a senior editor at a women's magazine.
When it comes to online booking, Kuipers is not alone, according to a study from marketing and research firm the NFO CFgroup. One in three wired Canadians consult the Internet when they make travel plans, not only to book tickets, but to research weather conditions as well as travel destinations and costs. Some of the best known Canadian travel sites, according to NFO CFgroup's survey, are Air Canada, Travelocity.ca and Yahoo! Canada Travel.
Airline tickets
Online, travel falls into two basic categories: airline tickets and vacation packages. Major sites like Expedia.ca, Travelocity.ca and CanadaTravel.ca offer a variety of fares with different airline carriers, while more specialized sites such as AirCanada and WestJet.com only offer their own flights.
Duncan Macintosh, co-owner of Tripcentral.ca, says that although online travel sites will search out airline ticket deals for travellers, the Canadian market is fragmented enough that surfers should expect to research several sites. Some charter airlines such as CanJet may not be included on the major travel sites, and other carriers, such as Skyservice have their own sites.
Macintosh advises investigating a window of time when booking airline tickets. For example, if you're leaving on a Friday, check a couple of days before and after. You may get a better price if you're more flexible. Also, consider late-night flights, even with children. Such flights are inexpensive and have the added bonus that the kids will sleep on the plane.
"Try and stay away from picking the ideal times and finding the lowest fare. Go the other way: find the lowest fare and see if you can live with those times," he says.
Vacation packages
The most up-to-date information on all-in-one vacations comes from those who put the packages together. SearsTravel.ca, exitnow.ca and itravel2000.com give you an immediate price if you know when and where you want to go. Tripcentral.ca compares packages based on price, date and star ratings for accommodations.
But Macintosh says web operators need to generally include more information on their sites, such as beach conditions and whether hotels are kid-friendly. Usually you have to dig for most of this information beyond the initial star ratings.
Macintosh advises that if you do not see something in the pictures on the site, do not assume it will be part of the package. For example, if a package advertises a beach and a pool, but you can only see a picture of the pool, the beach may not be close to the hotel. Macintosh suggests booking with sites that employ travel agents instead of just customer service call centres. You can then call the number on the web site after doing your research and have a travel agent answer your questions in person.
Online payments and refunds
By and large, airline tickets are non-refundable, so the best policy is to purchase the cancellation insurance. You'll be happy you had the foresight to grab the insurance if your child contracts an ear infection just before the trip and is unable to fly.
You shouldn't have to worry about paying with a credit card when you are booking through well-established sites with online security. If you do use a credit card and don't get the service you purchased, you can decline the charges. This is also your only protection if you've booked online and the airline company goes bankrupt.
