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OK, I'im a total newbie to doing this. I'm going to Melb in Feb and I'm going to fly, so how does buying tickets online work? Do they send them out to you prior to your trip or do you have to pick them up somewhere? And is it cheaper to buy online or go to an agent these days? Last time I flew anywhere the agent did it all for us. Thanks!
They send the confirmation via email as soon as you pay. It think it depends on the company you fly with, some email boarding passes, some you just take the confirmation letter with the number when you check in on the day. It's very easy.
Eta - In my experience on line is cheapest.
Thanks for that Ausgirl!
We generally fly qantas and buy our tickets online - they email you a confirmation letter that will have a boarding code on it. You need to print this off and either give it to the person at check in or enter it into the automated check in stations. You will then receive your boarding passes and can check in your luggage. It's all pretty easy and a lot cheaper than going to an agent :)
I always buy flights online. I shop around alot. Type in what you want eg: Sydney to Melbourne flights and you will get alot of pages come up.
Usually Jetstar or Virgin are the cheapest and Tiger.
They will email you your travel itinerary and receipt as soon as you have paid online.
You can also check in online before you leave. In some cases you can pick your seats while you book.
It is so much easier and cheaper, once you have done it once, there is no going back :)
We use Virgin, and we always get emailed an itinerary straight away with all the relevant numbers. Then we do the online check-in, which you can do up to 24 hrs before departure, and they email you your boarding passes. Then all you hafta do at the airport is drop your luggage and flash your pass!
You going Rex Trill?
They just email you a thingo that you take to the check-in counter. No biggie. If you sign up with them they send you emails of specials but generally most charge you a bit extra at the agents these days.
Yep, going Rex Kim. Thanks for that info. I'm going from Wagga to Melb and if I go qantas, it's an hour or more stopover, if I go rex I'm there in under 2 hours. Thanks for replying everyone :)
I fly with Rex regularly and always book online. Confirmation of booking comes via email. At check-in, they usually ask for photo ID or just ask my name and check it off their list. I have never had to show my confirmation email or state my booking number.
Have a great trip.
Same, as *Ash* ... I fly with REX all the time as well :) best thing bout flying with them?
THERE IS NEVER A LINE !!! gotta love that!
Oh, but now they count the weight of ALL baggage! so yr carry on luggage comes into the weight allowance :) so make sure you take that into consideration when you pack yr suitcases!
Man, now I wanna go somewhere!
The only thing I have found is to watch out for the booking fees.. I noticed not that long ago that the booking fees had gone up which made some agent booking fees cheaper. So now I make sure I check out all the booking fees before committing to one website.
To check all available flights, I use the Webjet website to check the costs of all of the available flights then go to the airlines website to book tickets.
You can check all of the prices in one place before making a decision.
Its super easy to buy online, they email you and then you just print it off. Sometimes when you take the printed version in, they will reprint and give you an old school boarding ticket. Although that may have been when we checked back in on another flight via the iphone.
Qantas doesn't give you a boarding pass anymore if you have a smart phone. They email you a link and you open it and it has one of those square boxy/barcodey thingies and you hand your phone over and they scan the thingy and send you through.
Actually Qantas was the one who gave us the actual boarding pass when we used the iphone to check in. Might have just been specific to that airport.