Internet Bookings
In many companies staff make their own travel arrangements via the internet. But do these always work out cheaper? Well, everyone likes to think they’ve beaten the travel agent on price, and often they do, until you look at the overall cost of the booking such as wasted working time spent searching the internet, or additional travel cost and wasted working time travelling to an inconvenient airport. We list below some of the pros and cons.
Pros
· Good for point to point bookings
· You can keep track of your own bookings
· You can make your own changes i.e. you’re not going through a 3rd party.
Cons
· Not good for multi-sector journeys
· Travel web-sites don’t always reflect the cheapest fares, especially from regional airports
· Finding the best prices takes up valuable working time
· You must pay up-front. Press the button and the £’s gone! Getting it back is often difficult
· You must be aware of entry visa requirements and other foreign government requirements
· Not good for company staff tracking under duty of care
· Company travel expenditure statistics become fragmented or at worst, understated
· You have to keep track of any airline changes
· Agents make special ticketing arrangements for regular travellers to the same destination
Pros
· Basic ticket price – normally cheaper
Cons
· Price – cheap basic but what about the extras? – Ryanair charge £40 check in at airport, baggage charged £10 per item each way, use any card for payment and there is a charge of £5 per passenger per sector.
· You have to pay at time of booking
· Refunds are often very difficult and time consuming
· Many destinations often only have one flight each way per day
· If flight “goes tech” there is no obligation to get you there or home!
· Airport might be miles from city centre
· Often scheduled airline prices are not much dearer