Whilst some travellers enjoy getting vouchers for free flights, most of us simply want to be on the flight on the date and time that we originally booked.

Some airlines have so many rules about the use of their vouchers that people actively avoid them.  For instance the complicated Ryanair voucher rules include the following:

• the name on the voucher must exactly match the name on your passport,
• if the voucher does not cover the full amount then you will have to pay the card fee when you pay the difference,
• the vouchers are only valid in the issuing currency,
• if the voucher is for more than the fare then you lose the excess portion,
• there is a fee for handling the vouchers,
• you cannot use more than four vouchers per flight,
• you can only redeem the voucher online, and
• they expire after six months.

Be there way before time

If you are on a domestic flight and the check in time is one hour and it’s a busy time, such as holiday season, be there two hours before departure,  If its an international flight and its two hours before departure, rather spend an extra hour at the airport, safe in the knowledge that you are on the plane than miss some important non-repeatable event such as a wedding or funeral, or a get-together or special family occasion.

Pre-seat

Airlines are increasingly getting on the bandwagon of squeezing more revenue from their customers by charging for pre-seating.  However it is still worthwhile to be pre-seated and actually have a seat number assigned to your name before check in.  Why?  It is much easier for the airline to bump someone with no seat number.  They can still do it, of course, but the likelihood is reduced.  (Over-booking is illegal in terms of consumer protection laws in some jurisdictions, but even that does not seem to give the airlines pause on the practice, since it is easy for them to obscure the fact.)

Online Check in

If your travel agent has warned you that flights are full for the time in which you are travelling, we strongly recommend online check-in.  Same rule applies as the pre-seating, in that you have an assigned seat number, but being checked in adds much more protection against being bumped than just pre-seating.

We have online check-in links for many major airlines here http://diytravelexpert.com/airline-check-in/  [There is also a permanent link from the top menu of this site]  This feature of DIY Travel Expert is now being copied by a number of travel agent’s sites, who first saw it here! (*)

(*) We saw the visits from their domains in the log files, then a few days later … a similar feature appeared on their site.  No credit given, unfortunately.

A320-200 seating configuration. Copyright United Airlines

One might instinctively phone one’s travel agent and insist on being seated in a favourable spot.  “The airline charges for that” we will be told. “What?  But I’ve already paid for my fare!…”

The good news is that one can often get that coveted pleasant seat with better leg-room, at no extra charge.  This can be done as a DIY Travel Expert, without having to use a travel agent, if you follow our guidance.

Loyalty programme

Firstly, sign up onto the loyalty programme of the airline you are flying with.  Yes, do it even if you anticipate that you will likely only fly with them just this once.  The reason is that in order to get you to sign up right away, frequent flyer programs often offer immediate benefits.

These may include:

• pre-seating at no extra cost
• a bigger luggage quota. e.g. Qatar Airways offers 10kg extra to their frequent flyer members.

Once you have signed up you can phone the carrier and bargain for favourable pre-seating. I recently did this for a passenger flying on Singapore Airlines and it worked wonders. This is not going to work every time, but is well worth the try.

Get the timing right

Then, there are some airlines, who although they don’t generally permit pre-seating on their so-called ‘entry level’ fares, will allow pre-seating twenty-four hours prior to departure. South African Airways is one of these.

Check-in online

The final and BIG pre-seating trick, especially on those nasty long-haul trips in economy is to check in on-line, as soon as it opens.

See our article on Online Check-in and use our Online check-in resource to go directly to the right online check-in page for major airlines.

Online check-in usually open twenty-four hours prior to departure.  On Singapore Airlines, and others it is forty-eight hours. It is very rare to find no decent seat available when you do an online check-in: Airlines always block an unspecified number of seats from being allocated before check-in.  For instance, in many cases, seats in the emergency exit row can normally only be booked at check-in.

The obvious boon is that you spend less time queuing, so at the airport you get to waft past those less-prepared, even if you are seated in “coach class” and they are in first-class.