How do you actually book flights?

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vt

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Mar 9, 2006
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Hi all,

I am trying to book the following itinery for 2. MEL-SGN-HKG-MEL.

I have found some good fares at BestFlights.

I am wondering how I actually book the flights I want?

How do I book different carriers?

Seems the various online websites only allow point to point and return bookings but not multi city bookings.

Thanks for your help
 
Hi Dave,

That is an option also. I will not discount that.

What I would like to know is there any sites that allow multi stop bookings and different carriers.

Sort of like the AA site which allows you to enter multi-stops and alliance carriers. Tried my itinery on AA and came back with ~$4600 USD :shock: .

As I keep reading on here the various booking combinations, I was wondering if I had missed something.
 
You could try webjet.com.au but if you found the fares on bestflights, you're going to have trouble finding them in other places.
 
I think I have worked it out...although very limited.

When you do an International Fare search from the bottom of the bestflight page, you can enter Origin, Destination, StopOver 1 and StopOver2.

Once you have found your fare and select the Book option, it will allow you to place the sector dates.

So for me, I put:
Origin - MEL
Destination - SGN
StopOver 1 - blank
StopOver2 - HKG

Dont know if this works or not, but it allowed me to enter the dates to submit a booking.
 
vt said:
So for me, I put:
Origin - MEL
Destination - SGN
StopOver 1 - blank
StopOver2 - HKG

Dont know if this works or not, but it allowed me to enter the dates to submit a booking.
Sorry to point this out and I may be wrong.

I would have thought that wanting to go MEL-SGN-HKG-MEL then your origin would be MEL your destination would be HKG and either of the stopover1 or 2 would be SGN.

Did you also try origin as MEL and destinaton as MEL and stopover1 as SGN and stopover2 as HKG?

You could also try calling Bestflights and book this routing over the phone!
 
I think (but could be wrong) that bestflights uses soft bookings on the web.

IE, you tell them where you want to go, and get a callback from a consultant.

There needs to be more multiple destination online booking sites. Travel for complicated itineraries should be getting easier to book, not remaining hard.
 
JohnK
Dont know...did not take that request fully as I wasnt ready to book. Just thought the way I specified may work. My itinery looks like this:
MEL-SGN 09/09
SGN-HKG 19/09
HKG-MEL 29/09

That is why I put origin as MEL and destination as SGN and second stopover as HKG. If I placed Stopover 1 as HKG, it actually changes my routing to MEL-HKG-SGN-MEL.

confused:confused: ...mett too:mrgreen:

Mal
Definitely Mal! Considering I can see these fares online, it would be great to be able to book online also.

I have called BestFlights about this, but only for enquiries so no itineries or flights have been held for me.
 
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I think the preceding debate ilustrates the main issue with pricing multi-stop and/or multi-carrier itineraries - they are extremely complex. Websites are increasing their level of sophistication to be able to deal with this sort of request but the millions of options and combinations of route/price/booking class availability etc make for huge computing challenges.

For the itinerary below your best chance to get it to auto-price would be MEL-HKG on VN. That should give you via SGN fares where stopovers may be permitted. This would result in a transit on the return via SGN of course but it will give you a discount fare.....once you get into airline combinations on that sort of itinerary you will end up with an IATA YY fare like the AA.com example.

There is no hard and fast rule but Bestflights and others are making developments in this area using a combination of smarter search tools, better automated fares and more friendly user interface. There will however always be some itineraries that can't be auto-priced online.....whoever builds one that can do everything will potentially make a lot of money!
 
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