Air Travel Tips for a Non-Expert, From a Non-Expert

You heard that right.  I am a travel advisor who is not an expert at air travel!  I can’t tell you off the top of my head which aircraft have lie flat business class seats, or which have the most leg room in coach.  But I have traveled enough to be a bit savvy on dealing with hiccups while traveling.

I’d like to share some air travel tips from friends’ and family experiences over the holidays:

1) Be proactive to get yourself rebooked  once you realize you are going to miss a connection due to a flight delay or cancellation. If you are already at the airport and are waiting in line for an agent, get on the phone and call the airline. They may be able to help you first. And also try sending a tweet to the airline. I have found they often reply in minutes and ask you to send a direct message with your reservation number.

2) Research other flight options available. If you don’t like what the airline offers, tell them what flight you want to be on. And don’t take the first “no.” You may have to call back to try to get a more helpful agent.

In the situation we had, the traveler (an inexperienced young adult) was rebooked on an evening flight, so there would have been a 6-7 hour layover and extremely late arrival for a 2 day trip! I called and explained the situation, and got him rebooked for a noon flight.

3) Get a good flight tracking app. I am very happy with FlightView because not only can I learn of delays before the airline notifies me (and sometimes before the gate agents know), but I can check the status of the aircraft’s previous flight.

Here’s an example of how that helped us:

A friend’s early afternoon flight was listed as on time.  Then I checked the status of the incoming aircraft.  It was delayed and not scheduled to arrive until AFTER the scheduled departure time for my friend. Clearly the flight was not going to depart on time, unless they got another aircraft, and the delay would certainly cause a missed connection.

I called the airline and told them what I saw. The agent chuckled and said “You’re right,” and then rebooked the traveler on a flight two hours earlier.

This leads to the final tip:

4) Start monitoring your flight early! We had to leave an hour earlier than planned for the airport, but we had enough of a buffer that it was not terribly stressful.

As I mentioned, I am not an air booking expert, in fact I don’t even book airline tickets for clients. I use the airline websites for most of my travel. However, if these tickets were booked through an air ticketing expert, which many of my Brownell Travel colleagues are, there would have been no need for me to call the airline to sort things out.

It’s always ok to call the airline for help no matter how you book your ticket.  But travelers who book through an air specialist have extra support, someone who has their back and knows the airline’s responsibility for delays and cancellations.    And in some cases, an air specialist sees the problem before you do, and fixes a problem you don’t even know you have!