Reasons to Check Your Travel Itinerary Before the Day of Travel
Every travel agent’s worse nightmare is the distraught phone call from the airport advising the wrong time, wrong date, wrong departure time, or wrong name has been booked on an airline ticket. Regardless of whose fault it is, a valuable lesson lies therein.
Travellers should never assume that the itinerary they get after they’ve booked their own travel reservations, or had a friend book their flights, or had their personal assistant book their flights, or had their travel agent book their flights, is going to be correct. The sooner one checks the confirmation they receive from the airline, the cheaper it will cost to fix any errors.
Wrong Name on the Travel Itinerary
You’d be forgiven for thinking that everyone knows their own passport name. However, if they’ve not travelled for a while, they may have forgotten that their passport is in their maiden name, married name, double-barrelled name, Chinese name, or any other name than what appears in their passport.
If you pick up name errors prior to the day of travel, the cost to fix the error should be less. For example, Pacific Blue between Australia and New Zealand have some fares that permit free name changes up to 48 hours prior to departure.
If you are only made aware of the name error when the airline can’t find your booking at check in, worst case scenario is that you may miss the flight. If it’s only a single letter that is incorrect, the airline may simply board you at their discretion. However, if the entire surname is incorrect, the airline may do worse and make you purchase a brand new ticket or get your existing ticket reissued at considerable cost to you.
Wrong Destination on the Travel Itinerary
The most common type of destination error is when the route gets booked back to front. For example instead of booking Auckland to Christchurch, one books Christchurch to Auckland.
Prior to the date of travel, one can fix this fairly easily. It might not even cost too much to fix if a fully flexible ticket has been purchased. However, as with most fares, the cost to travel grows more expensive as the date draws closer so the sooner one picks up this type of error, the less it will cost to fix.
Discovering the error at the check in counter is costly. Many cheap tickets can’t be changed on the day of travel so a new ticket will have to be purchased. More flexible tickets are usually flexible in relation to date only, not route.
Wrong Date on the Travel Itinerary
The most common type of booking error is wrong date. This is usually when people have looked at the wrong calendar month when booking their travel, or they’ve specified Friday 29th April, only to find out later that the 29th April is actually a Thursday, not a Friday.
Prior to the date of travel, the date errors can be changed easily enough. Many cheap tickets can be changed at least 24 hours prior to departure for a minimal cost. Fully flexible tickets can often be changed free of charge.
Reaching the airport only to find that you are booked for tomorrow, not today, can still be fixed if changes are permitted outside 24 hours from departure. However, a fare difference may be required to board the flight today if the flight is not already full.
If however, you were booked for yesterday instead of today, you may have to purchase a brand new ticket if you’ve been registered as a ‘no-show’ on the flight and the ticket forfeited. Even on fully flexible tickets, there is often a penalty for a ‘no-show’ although it shouldn’t render the ticket useless.
Wrong Departure Time on the Travel Itinerary
Sometimes the wrong departure time is booked. This can occur as easily as simply clicking the wrong line in a list of departure times, or from the fact that there are two of every hour in one day e.g. 6am is mistaken for 6pm.
This can be difficult to pick up on a travel itinerary that is not generated in 24 hour time. The only clue may be that the flights don’t appear to connect if you have more than one sector being travelled on any given day. If the error is picked up, this can usually be fixed cheaply enough at least 24 hours prior to departure.
If the error is not picked up until the day of departure and you’ve turned up for a 6pm flight, only to find that you were registered on a 6am flight, you would have been logged as a ‘no-show’. Your ticket will possibly have been forfeited depending on the fare purchased.
For example, Singapore airlines charge a $150 penalty for no-shows but still enable travellers to use their tickets. A further problem with no-shows on some longhaul international airlines, is that no-shows often prompt all following flight sectors to be cancelled. This can have serious consequences if you can’t get the seats reinstated.
Other reasons to check your travel itinerary prior to the day of departure include:
Meal requests. Most airlines won’t accept special meal requests 48 hours from departure. Any special meal requests are always shown on flight itineraries and confirmations,
Seat requests. Not all airlines permit pre-selection of seats. However, where possible, always request seating because if a flight is oversold, it’s the travellers without seat requests that are likely to get bumped,
Frequent flyer numbers. Frequent flyer numbers need to be entered prior to a flight in order to gain any points or status credits owed. Frequent flyer numbers can also mean better seating requests and upgrades. If frequent flyer numbers are not entered prior to departure, especially on partner airlines, points can only be accrued by sending the airline the physical boarding passes and electronic ticket information, which is inconvenient.
Check Your Travel Itinerary Before the Day of Travel
Behind every machine is a human, whether that be the travel agent, or the person who books their own flights online. To reduce the costs, time, and stress associated with getting the travel details wrong, be sure to check travel itineraries as soon as you receive them.