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| FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS |
| Below is a compiled list of
FAQ's. Click on the topic to see the related questions. If
your question is not answered below please feel free to email and/or call
us. |
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AIRLINES |
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AIRPORTS and DESTINATIONS |
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CHECK
MY TRIP |
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CONTACT US |
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ERROR MESSAGES |
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FARES |
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GENERAL |
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PAYMENTS |
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PRICING and
FEES |
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RESERVATIONS |
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ROUTING |
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TICKETING and SHIPPING |
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TERMS and CONDITIONS |
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| AIRLINES |
:: How can I find out which airline
is it when it says "Major U.S. Airline," or "Major German
Airline," or "Major (Something) Airline?
This type of fare is not a "published fare," but a specially
negotiated discount fare, airlines tell our discounters and consolidators not to
make the fare openly visible to the public. It is mainly meant to be visible to
travel agencies that have been granted special access to the fare.
At the
same time, discounters we have partnered with would like to streamline the way
we, as agents, offer their fares to the public. They compromise by showing
"major U.S. airline," "major Italian airline," etc., in place of the actual
airline's name. Almost without exception, major German airline means Lufthansa,
major Canadian airline means Air Canada, major Dutch airline is KLM, major
French airline is Air France, and major Italian airline means Alitalia.
There is much more uncertainty for "major U.S. airline" or
"major British airline." After you submit credit card information, the actual
airline's identity will be revealed on the next screen you see. The only way to
tell beforehand is to look at the flight number and the flight time for one
segment of your trip. To this end, you use our main web site, Airfare Discount to do a very narrow schedule-sensitive search of that
segment (+/- one hour), and you may see a higher published fare come up for that
same flight, which would reveal the identity of the airline to you. After you
have booked, if you confirm
your flights,
the actual airline will also be revealed to you there, as will the airline's own
reference number for your reservation.
:: Do you have a updated list of
airline numbers ?
To call the
airlines, check the following regularly updated list of airline
numbers. Be sure to understand airline reservation
codes before you call.
:: How do I only search one
particular airline's flights? And does the booking system cover all possible
airlines and flights?
You do not have the option to select
a particular airline on the quick search but if you click on
advanced search options you will be able to select a particular airline.
Regarding the second
question, as far as we know, there is no source for ticketing all possible
flights around the world. However, we have been far more successful than most
travel providers, in that we offer airfares from many hundreds of world
airlines, including many minor airlines you probably have never heard of.
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| AIRPORTS and DESTINATIONS |
:: Where can I get a list of airports to the city I wish to travel ?
Please find your city name in our
list that provides airport code for
cities in United States, Canada and International countries.
:: Why does the air search engine does not recognize or gives incorrect information for a city or airport that I have entered ?
This could occur if you have entered an incorrect city or airport or you have misspelled it.
Please use our list that provides airport codes for cities in United States, Canada and International
countries.
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| CHECK
MY TRIP |
::How do I use CheckMyTrip?
For
most fares, you can always confirm your space on the plane by going to CheckMyTrip, where
you will input a passenger's last name and the six-digit number/letter code that
we email you automatically after you enter a reservation. For a few fares, you
may find you need to call the
airline for confirmation. The code you are given is an Amadeus code
not the airline's own reference number for you. There are no ones or zeroes in
our reference codes, but there are sometimes it's, L's, and o's. If you instead
get a seven-digit code, made only of numbers, then you have received a failed
booking message. If you see "ticket issued" and "electronic ticket"
in the information, you will want to print out a copy of your itinerary so you
can pick up your tickets when you check-in at the airport on the day of your
flight. The normal page you see when you are looking at your flights at CheckMyTrip
is too wide for most printers. So, before printing what you see,
please click the "Print Itinerary" link. This will bring up a more printable
format. You will need a print-out to show to the airport check-in with your
proper government-issued photo ID in order to board the plane. For international
flights, your ID should be a passport. Make sure you have appropriate travel
visas, if any, for any places you visit or airports you stop at during
international flights. This is your own responsibility.
CheckMyTrip
initially will only confirm that space on the plane is currently reserved and initially will not say tickets have been issued. Confirmation of space is
likely within one hour of placing the reservation. Later on, CheckMyTrip
will say "Ticket Issued;" it will give ticket numbers for each passenger; and it
will say whether the tickets are "Electronic
Tickets" or "Paper
Tickets." Ticketing
happens only after your credit
card is run by the airline for the base fare and taxes. Later, one of our
partner agencies, that is offering the particular fare you are booking, will
charge the fees separately. Fares are not guaranteed until ticketed and until
after processing fees are charged after ticketing. For timing of ticketing,
shipping, and receiving, please see our Ticketing
& Shipping section.
:: CheckMyTrip does not show my
reservation? How do I confirm it?
If your reservation does not show
up in CheckMyTrip, the problem could be one of many reasons, as
follows: (1) you may be thinking what is really an 'I' or an 'o' is
instead a 'one' or a 'zero.' Ones and zeroes are not used. (2) Or
you have a failed reservation (which has a seven-digit number instead of a
six-digit code). (3) Or you may have a double last name or
hyphenated last name and are typing it in differently at CheckMyTrip
than you did when you initially created your reservation. You should try
all combinations -- with or without a hyphen, with or without a space in
between, or typing just one part of your double or hyphenated last name. (4) On a rare occasion, your last name may be too long to fit in
the system, so we may have had to abbreviate it. (5) Or your names
may be reverse on the reservation (a problem you should bring to our
attention). (6) Or, we may have sent you a notice saying the fare
could not be booked, but you did not receive it, and therefore you find no
reservation. If you have not received any emails after placing
your booking, then please email us.
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| CONTACT
US |
:: How do I get in touch with
a travel agent?
For
"bargain fares" ONLY, call 1-877-600-7474 or email us at help@flyorient.com is FlyOrient.com
much preferred, since our agents check phone messages only remotely, about
once a day.
If the fare you booked was denied and you received a
notice saying your booking failed, then you should tell our ticketing agency
that the reason you are calling is because you have an "X-Booking" or a "failed
booking" at an Airfare Discount web site. Tell them you want as close to the
same flights and prices as possible. If you give your last name, the agent
should be able to look up your attempted reservation in the computer and either
re-try the flights or find something very similar for you in route and hopefully
in price.
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| ERROR MESSAGES |
:: When I submitted information to
make a booking I received an error message ?
Our system uses high technology but the way the Internet works, there are occasional errors in connection where you
receive an error message. Please email
us this problem so we can fix it right away. If you try it again and
this still happens, then we suggest waiting several hours or until the next day,
because at times the "available special fares" portion of our available flights,
also known as published fares, switches itself off.
:: Why does the result show "NO
FARES FOUND" when I search for a fare ?
If you are certain you have selected a proper
destination, then the problem may be too many users are searching fares at once
or, more likely, because there is a system-wide outage. If you try searching IAD
to LHR (Washington D.C. to London) and still find no fares, then obviously the
system is down. Please email us if this
happens, so we can put an end to the problem as soon as possible, to help many
users. If there is no general outage, then sometimes failure to find fares is
due to either misspelling a destination name or choosing a small airport that
has limited scheduling. You can check our list of airport
and destination codes.
We encourage you to try again.
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| FARES |
:: What is the difference between
"available special fares" and "bargain
fares"?
Available special fares are flight combinations, using one
or more airlines. They are the lowest available published fares our sensitive
probe can find out of 100's of airlines. They are labeled as "available special
fares" on the results page of a fare search. These fares
includes excellent coverage of "interlined" flights, where part of your
itinerary is on one airline while the rest of it is divided among one or more
additional airlines. Many of these fares you cannot find on an airline's own web
site, even if you check each airline.
Bargain fares
are offered by our partner whose fares are
included in our site. This partner negotiates special discount rates with the
airlines. They offer fares only to
special retailers such as ourselves and not directly to the public. Our partnering wholesale agency buys
tickets in bulk from airlines for reduced rates, so they can turn around and
offer a bargain to the thrifty flyer.
:: If I have already made a booking
then how do I tell what type of fare I was offered ?
If the flights are just within the
US/Canada and they are not US Airways, then you definitely booked an available
special fare. If your email itinerary confirmation, that you receive after
booking, shows actual fee amounts for some cancellations or changes to flights,
and not just a statement "Not Allowed" for ALL choices, then you booked a
bargain fare. Aside from the quick trick mentioned above, there is another way.
If you remember clicking on a fare that said "Major U.S. airline," "Major German
airline," or that sort, then you definitely booked a bargain fare. If your
reservation is successful according to the email we send you after you book,
then you may check your reservation at CheckMyTrip.
:: Fares are NOT truly guaranteed until ticketed AND your credit
card is successfully charged both the base fare/tax (by the airline) and the
shipping/processing and automation fees (by our ticketing agency).
You the
customer are also responsible for reconfirming your flights 24-48 hours before
the flight date, since airlines make their own changes. Airfare Discount is
not responsible for the airline canceling flights, overbooking, bumping
customers, etc., and will not issue refunds in these matters, which are between
the customer and the airline.
Paper Tickets: If your tickets are
not e-ticketed, then you will receive paper tickets.
Time for Tickets
to be Shipped & Received: This depends on whether you book an "available
special fare" or a "bargain fare."
Available Special Fares as Paper Tickets:
Some available
special fares become paper tickets. Since these are ticketed within
about 48 hours (often much less), then shipped, you should anticipate
receiving them by mail within 10 days of booking (or earlier if your
flights leave very soon). Please email us if you do not receive these
tickets on time or if CheckMyTrip
does not show "Ticket Issued" after 48 hours. If your flight date is very
near in the future, you may need to check with us more quickly on shipping
information. This is your responsibility.
Bargain Fares as
Paper Tickets: Some bargain
fares are paper tickets. These may take up to five business days to be
ticketed, if the discounter is running behind and your flight is not
leaving immediately. These fares cannot change overnight. They are usually
good for a week or more, and the discounter is well aware when these
deadlines come up. Shipping is by Airborne, UPS, or Federal Express, so
the actual shipping takes very few business days. However, these mailing
services do not mail to a PO Box, so we may ask you for an alternate
shipping address after you place your reservation. If you do not receive
tickets within two weeks of shipping or if your flight time is coming up
very soon, you should email us.
And earlier, within one week, you should know the fare has been ticketed
by using CheckMyTrip
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| GENERAL |
:: Why didn't I receive an email from a
travel agent ?
You may have misspelled your email address (happens often). Or, some customers'
Hotmail email accounts, among others, are set to treat a lot of mail as junk
mail and will file it where you will not see it or will even destroy it. In
these cases, we don't usually receive a "Return to Sender" email, so we do not
know you have not received notice from us. Or your email server may be full.
Also, your email server may not be operating for a time and thus our email will
not get through. You will want to use CheckMyTrip
to see if your reservation has been confirmed,
or if it says "Ticket Issued" yet, or if it was canceled, or if it has been
converted into e-tickets.
We also send emails if your credit
card is declined, so you need to be careful to check up on your tickets.
:: Find Me the Cheapest Fare for My
Destination: Please find me the cheapest fares from Point A to Point B?
I may or may not be somewhat flexible on times and dates. Or can I ask
you to beat a fare I found on another website by email or calling?
If you're asking
this question, then perhaps you're searching but finding no fares. If this is
the case, you are likely entering your destinations in the wrong format. To be
certain you get things right, use our airport codes
list and enter airport codes for your destinations.
If you are
wanting us to do the work for you then you will not receive a response. We also
will not monitor prices for you to email you when the price goes down. Hopefully
we can beat other fares on the web whenever you submit a search. We work with
many hundreds of airlines, and prices do change on an hourly basis, particularly
the "available
special fares." If you wish, you can try for a fare more than once during
the day, as the system updates often during any given day. Typically, the lower
a fare is, the shorter a time it will remain available.
If you are
looking mainly at "bargain
fares," which mostly apply to flights from North America to overseas, then
try to purchase at least three months in advance or the seats may no longer
available (especially for the holiday season). Also, please follow the following
order of work: First, try different days yourself. But if each fare says no
seats available whenever you hit the "check availability" button, then
please email us your passenger names,
day and evening phone numbers, cities you need in the itinerary, and what range
of dates you will accept for both outgoing flights and return flights (if it is
not one-way).
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| PAYMENT |
:: Can I buy tickets for other people ?
Airfare Discount does not accept
third party credit card transactions.
:: Is your credit card information
securely handled by this web site? What are the credit card processing policies?
What credit cards are acceptable?
Our booking process shares a THAWTE
Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate. This system provides the maximum online protection that we have been
able to find to protect your credit card order. Please read our terms and conditions
prior to any purchase. We do accept MasterCard, VISA,
Discover, and American Express. However, some airlines do not accept
Discover. Therefore, we may have to ask you to give us an alternate credit
card or you would face cancellation.
Please be aware of the following policies on
credit
card declines:
Part
1: There is a chance your credit card will be declined during our
attempt to process your reservation. This can happen for a variety of
reasons: one of which is failure of matching your billing address
with your bank. Or your bank requires our agency to do a
phone authorization only. Or, perhaps the address you gave was an overseas
address or your card is registered with an overseas bank. Generally
speaking, travel agent booking systems cannot verify billing addresses
with overseas banks. Or, if this is a bank debit card, the problem may be
that your bank has a limit on the maximum amount of an individual
transaction. You may also wish to check your amount of available funds and
whether or not your last payment to your credit card company had gone
through at the time of credit card decline. Or a direct deposit may have
been delayed. Or, your credit card company may have an alternate name or
billing address for you. Also, the charge of base fare and taxes by the
airline itself may go through, but later, after ticketing, our processing
agency will attempt to add the processing/shipping and automation fees
separately, and this separate charge may be declined. Even though the
reservation may have been automatically ticketed, it will not be final or
guaranteed if your credit card is declined for part or all of the
charges.
Part 2: If your booking has been rejected
for a credit card decline, we have the following options: (1) If you
booked an "available
special fare," and not a "bargain
fare," then your booking will be canceled. You will need to re-book
once you straighten things out with your bank. We generally cancel
"available special fare" bookings within 24-48 hours following
credit card declines (24 hours max for domestic flights). This is because
airlines will not keep prices and availability the same for very long. (2)
If you booked a "bargain fare," you will receive an email suggesting you
either mail a money order, or fax a form and documentation.
Providing an alternate credit card could also work. Here are the details
for option two: For a bargain
fare, if your card was only rejected for an address verification
problem, you will be given the option of faxing us legible copies of the
credit card (front and back) and either a passport or driver's license for
the card holder and for one passenger of each last name that passengers
have in the booking you have made. Exempt will be children who are under
age 12. Incidentally, if we cannot mail to a verified credit card
billing address, either because of a problem with verification or because
Federal Express shipments cannot be delivered to PO boxes, then we will
ask for passport or driver's license photocopies from one passenger for
each last name (e.g. if the credit card holder is Smith, but the
passengers include two Johnson's and one Erickson, then we need a passport
or license for one of the two Johnson's, for the one Erickson, and for
Smith, the credit card owner).
Part 3: Due to a
credit card decline, you may experience resulting delays in processing
your reservation while we attempt to contact you. These delays are your
responsibility, not a liability of Airfare Discount or its affiliated
ticketing agency. It is the customer's responsibility that they have a
properly functioning credit card before they book. Please visit our Terms and
Conditions for more information.
:: I do not have a credit
card or check card or I do not have enough space on my card right now. Can I
pay by another method? Or can I buy tickets now and mail a check later? Can a
reservation be put on hold until money is available?
We cannot put
reservations on hold. The majority of fares are only valid for 24 hours maximum
after booking. Our booking system currently is set up for credit or check card
orders only. You need to be careful with debit cards or check cards. These often
have limits for the maximum amount of an individual transaction. The card holder
is often unaware of this limit. If you do not have sufficient funds or your
credit card is denied and you have booked a "bargain
fare," then we may offer you the chance to send in a money order payable to
whichever of our partnering agencies would be ticketing your reservation, but
this is only for bargain fares. We are looking into additional purchasing
methods as they become feasible. We do accept MasterCard, VISA, Discover, and
American Express.
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| PRICING |
:: How does this website offer
competitive pricing compare to other websites ?
We made a choice that we would not get into the
travel business unless we had a clear competitive advantage. By setting our
business to handle a high volume of purchases, we can afford to earn very
little compensation for our published fare tickets ("available
special fares"). Moreover, by working with an impressive number of
companies, we can offer even better bargain
fares. We would be pleased for you to check the prices of our competitors
for comparison. The majority of our online competitors and the majority of
travel agencies either have no "bargain fares" from wholesalers or consolidators
or only a relative few.
:: Explanation of fees and taxes for my
booking ?
Included in the "Taxes & Govt. Fees" line of your final
booking page are all government fees, which include fuel costs, local government
taxes, airport use fees, 9/11 security fees, and other fees that are outside the
control of Airfare Discount or any other travel agency. You can click the
link there to see a breakdown. On your initial fare search results page, you
will see a link saying "+tax" right after each price. This link also leads to
some details on the government fees. Additional fees you agree to are a
processing fee of either $19 or $34, depending on whether you are issued
e-tickets or paper tickets, and an automation fee (see totals on the final
credit card booking page for this fee amount). These will be itemized for you on
the final booking page before you enter credit card
information.
Processing fee: The shipping/processing is either $12
or $35, depending on whether you are issued electronic or paper tickets. You
will be able to indicate your preference on the final booking page. However, if
the airline requires paper tickets for your route, you will be issued paper
tickets and charged the $12 rate, you If you select paper tickets
for $35, but the airline requires electronic tickets or themselves charges extra
for paper tickets as a penalty, then you will instead be issued electronic
tickets at the lower $12 rate. In addition, some of our participating wholesale
discounters have in-house policies to do e-tickets whenever possible, so you
will be issued e-tickets at $12 for such reservations, even if you selected
paper tickets for $35. These fees do not just cover mail costs, such as federal
express, priority mail, overnight mail, and global priority mail. They also,
most importantly, cover costs of processing and customer service incurred by our
ticketing agency and Airfare Discount. These shipping/processing fees are
determined by averaging the costs of many reservations.
The second fee,
for automation, primarily pays for the contract we have to access the airlines'
fares and reserving the seats.
In assessing our fees, you should realize
the airlines, who once provided 15% commissions 20 years ago, now provide 0%
commissions on airfares with only very rare exceptions. Airlines believe U.S.
travel agents should either work for free or charge fees to the customer.
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| RESERVATIONS |
:: What is a reservation code ?
The reservation code is the number
that we give you in
the email you receive within hours after booking. It is only for the Amadeus
travel agent system. Each airline you fly with will have an alternate
reservation reference number for you. The airline will not recognize the Amadeus code, only their own
code, but they should be able to find your reservation by looking up your name
if you talk with them. It is best you record their own code from the CheckMyTrip
information so you can more easily call them to arrange any
meal, seating, or handicap needs you have. If they cannot find you under your
last name, it is possible your first and last names were switched around on the
reservation. Look closely at your CheckMyTrip
information.
:: What is our cancellation policy? Is there any fee ?
At this time, cancellation is possible for most fare
listings designated "Bargain Fare" on our website but NOT necessarily for other
airfares you see, such as "Available Special Fares."
Here are your options for
the two fare types as follows:
"Available Special Fares,"
our site
tells you right before you enter your credit card details that
cancellations and changes to the fares are "Not Allowed." However, there
is a partial chance our ticketing agency would still be able to bargain
with an airline to allow a "voiding" of the ticket. If your tickets have
been shipped or you have e-tickets that have been "reported" to the
airlines (done usually each Monday/Tuesday), then only the airline can
issue a void or change a reservation, whether e-tickets or paper tickets. If our ticketing agency offers to void your
tickets when you speak with them, they will require you to send a written
request from the email address you used as a reference when you booked
your airfare. It will then be your responsibility to call our ticketing
agency back to confirm they have received the email. You should also check
with the airline once you are told it will be cancelled, to confirm it
really is cancelled, before you purchase any alternate airfare. For any
voids to your ticket or voiding/reissuing tickets for changes of name or
itinerary, you will be charged a fee according to our Terms and Conditions. In
addition, you will not be refunded any of our processing fees or the
automation fee. It does not matter if you made a mistake on our web site
when you entered a booking. We strongly recommend you purchase travel
insurance to cover the chances of family emergencies, military
deployments, and any other unavoidable reasons you may wish tickets to be
cancelled or voided. Please check to see what exactly this insurance
policy actually covers before you purchase.
"Bargain
Fares," cancellations are usually possible prior to departure.
They can also be done after the departure date IF you have not used any of
the legs of the trip. The required fee a customer would be charged for a
cancelled ticket will be listed on the final booking page when you are
about to put in credit card information. Cancellation fee information will
be repeated in the email
confirmation you receive shortly after booking. Such fees are usually
fairly steep. You will have to allow time for mailing back your tickets
and at least 1-2 months processing by the airline before your credit card
can be reimbursed the price of the flights (minus the cancellation fees).
You will not be refunded shipping/processing fees. Additional processing
fees may apply, depending on what the discounter reports, and this is
discussed in our Terms and Conditions. Please read that page for more
information on rules regarding cancellations and changes.
:: How do I request for specials meals
and seating?
Once your flight is ticketed, you
might inquire with the airline how to pick meals or seats. For
meals, you may have to wait until the day before the flight to make
the final arrangement, depending on the airline. Click here to see
airline policies for in-flight meals.
For seating, our ticketing agency will not make arrangements. After
your flight is confirmed, you will need to call the airlines. However, airlines do not guarantee specific seat
assignments they make until you arrive at the check-in counter or
gate to receive a boarding pass. If the flight you have chosen
leaves North America, the airline may require you to wait until the
day of your flight to receive a specific seat assignment.
:: I received an email saying my
reservation was unsuccessful and could not be confirmed. What should I
do?
If you were issued a eight-digit
code, all made of numbers, then your booking failed and you have an
"x-booking." We will tell you how best to remedy the
situation. Most likely, the flights you desired have not been
properly updated by the airlines on the Amadeus system. One part of
your trip may be waitlisted or, if you are booking several airlines
in the same itinerary, the airlines may not have the right agreement
to be used together. Or, the connection to the airline failed, in
which case it might go through if you try a second time.
What you may do next depends on whether your booking was a
"bargain fare" or an available
special fare. Click that link if you do not know which you have
booked. If you booked a "bargain fare,"
we will likely double-check the booking, because there is still a
65%+ chance we still can get your booking to go through. For these
fares, you may email us to
make sure we spot it, because there is a fair chance the system may
have not realized there were enough seats available.
All other fares are "available special fares."
For these, your process choices will be different. You could retry
the booking a second time and it may then go through. Changing the
flights you chose could also help, if the problem is overbooking. If
your booking fails still, you should speak to an agent in our ticketing
office, 1-877-600-7474
Here
are instructions for the phone call:
When you get an agent on the line, tell them you made an internet
booking that did not go all the way through. It is an "X
booking." If you give your last name or the 8-digit code
you received, the agent should be able to look up your attempted
reservation in the computer. They could try to manually confirm the
flights or find something very similar for you in route and
hopefully in price. We are sorry for the inconvenience, but we hope
you will continue to use our site for travel needs.
:: I need to do changes in my
reservations how do I do it?
For "bargain
fares,"
changes are possible for certain reservations
prior to departure on the beginning of the trip. But there are
limits and fees usually in the $200-$300 range plus additional
shipping charges possible. You will see the change and cancellation
prices ("penalties") given on the final booking page above
the automated credit card form. They will also appear in the email
itinerary we send you after you place a booking. For these bargain
fare bookings, you will need to mail the tickets back to the
discounter that shipped the tickets to you. If you have e-tickets,
there will be a $20+ paper ticket printing fee, since the tickets
will have to be printed to be exchanged. You might be asked to fill
out a manual credit card authorization form to authorize new charges
on your credit card to complete the change-of-ticket transaction.
For "available special fares,"
your options depend on how much time has passed since you booked. If
we have not shipped paper tickets out yet, you may call us to change flights. We cannot promise you
anything, and the new flights may be more expensive, especially now
that some time has passed. You would have to pay the difference of
extra fare and probably a change-of-fare fee. If you have e-tickets,
and it has been several days since you booked, you should call the
airlines to make changes. If you have paper tickets that have
been shipped out by our ticketing agency already, you will need to
bring the tickets to the airport to be changed.
:: I need to add passengers to my
reservation?
If at least one of the additional
passengers has the same last name as the credit card holder who will
be purchasing the additional seats on the plane, then we recommend
entering a new booking. Otherwise, see below for more options:
If your reservation is for an available special fare,
you may call our ticketing agency at 1-877-600-7474.
If your reservation is for a bargain fare, then
you should email us and
specifically tell us that you booked a bargain fare give us your reservation
code as well. We can then call the discounter that is offering
that fare through our site and ask them if there is enough room on
the plane for additional passengers. We would then email you back or
call you with the information.
:: How do I check the status
of my reservation?
An agent of Airfare Discount or one of its processing
agencies will contact you by email within 24 business hours for your flight
confirmation. This will be done by email and will simply reserve space on the flight. If you fail to receive this message, call us
at 1-800 600-4553
for "bargain
fares" and "available
special fares". Airfare Discount and any of its processors will not be
held liable for any inability to confirm space during the above 24-hour period.
However, most flights become confirmed within a few hours of reservation. For
most flights, you can also confirm your flight using CheckMyTrip.
Your credit card will
not be
charged if your reservation cannot be confirmed. If you do not receive an email within
the 24-hour period, please call or email us. Please use CheckMyTrip
in this case to confirm space. Once your space on the flight is confirmed, your
credit card needs to be processed and the reservation needs to be
ticketed. See our Ticketing
& Shipping Information for information on this next step. Please see out Terms and
Conditions page for more information.
:: Can I order my tickets by phone
instead of online?
You have the advantage of using our
multi-million dollar booking system. Without this automation, you would not have
the opportunity to save the difference over what an offline travel agency would
charge you in commission and overhead. Therefore, only in rare circumstances
will we help you with arrangements over the phone.
:: How can I get an airfare for a
flight in less than a week?
This cannot be booked on
our site, since there is a chance it will be paper tickets and we have to have
enough time to ship them to you. However, you may call our new ticketing office
to see if they can look up e-ticket flights to help you, 1-800 600-4553.
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| ROUTING |
:: Routes originating outside North
America
If your trip does not begin in USA/Canada, then there are issues. If your credit
card is registered to a USA/Canada bank and you will have the tickets shipped to
a USA address, which is importantly also the billing address on your credit
card, then you may book flights from anywhere to anywhere. Otherwise we do not
have an option for international flights that originate overseas. You could
place a booking, but you would soon receive an email telling you your airfare
cannot be processed.
:: How do I book a one-way flight?
On Airfare Discount website there
should be a "one-way" and "roundtrip" option on the
air fare search engine. This way, the system will ignore any
information that appears in the Return city that you have entered in your fare search
form. It will only quote you prices on the one-way departing flight. As a
note of caution, if you purchase a round-trip airfare and do not use all
the legs of your itinerary, you might have a problem; because, if you skip
one leg, all later legs of the itinerary will be voided by the airline as
unusable and they even may sell your space to someone else. You may not
receive a partial refund.
:: May I fly into one city then fly
out of another?
Yes. Although our system may automatically fill in
your return trip information when you type in the airports for your
departing flights, you may still change the return trip airports to
whatever you desire and the system will have no trouble searching flights
for you.
:: May I book a multi-city itinerary?
You may
book routes of Point A to Point B then Point B to Point C (or back to
Point A), by filling in the blanks on our fare search form however you
like. Although our system may automatically fill in your return trip
information when you type in the airports for your departing flights, you
may change any blanks you want. To include even more flights on your
itinerary you will need to make multiple bookings.
If you are
flying from North America to multiple overseas destinations, you should
like to have part of your fare be either one-way out of North America or
would like your final return to North America to be the same as your first
flight out of North America (only in reverse). In other words, in the
second example, you might fly New York to London, then fly around other
Europe destinations, but fly back to London before heading to back to New
York. This way, you will have a chance at a "bargain fare," negotiated by
one of our consolidators, for part of your trip. These give the best
discounts on overseas travel.
:: Can I book open-ended return
flights?
We cannot book this type of flight through our system,
where a return flight date would be flexible. On our web site, we can only
suggest you book a one-way trip now or book a round trip and simply not
use the return tickets. Then you may buy a one-way return ticket
separately when you figure out when it is you actually will need to
return.
:: May I arrange a stop-over on my way to a
destination?
Not if you plan to return to your original departure
point during the same itinerary, unless you book two separate itineraries.
As mentioned in the multi-stop itinerary question elsewhere in this
section, you may book Point A to Point B and Point B to Point C all in one
reservation, but to then go from Point C back to Point A or elsewhere
requires a second reservation.
:: How
does someone enter a booking where some passengers return or depart on
different days than others?
You may want to use your credit card to book
several family members and/or friends, but not all will travel the exact
same route. Perhaps you will travel round-trip but pick up a family member
along the way, half way through your trip, who will come home with you on
a one-way route. You will have to place two separate bookings in this
case. We do not have any way around this. You will want to check out both
itineraries fully before booking, making sure you will be on the same
flight together if you desire that. For some flights, you may book
for passengers without yourself traveling.
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| TICKETING
and SHIPPING |
:: What is the process of
ticketing and shipping?
Once your flight
is confirmed,
your credit card will be charged and tickets will be issued.
Electronic Tickets:
Most flights within the United States, especially, are electronic "E-tickets."
This is not the case with some of the smaller carriers or with a majority of
reservations that involve more than one airline on the same itinerary.
Notification of E-ticket registration should be sent to you by e-mail within 48
hours, but if your credit card billing address fails to match what the bank has
this may delay your order. Click here
for rules and conditions of your choosing an e-ticket or paper ticket
preference on our final booking page and the fees that are relevant for
processing. If you have e-tickets, there is a good chance you will often not
receive paper receipts (especially if you book an "available special fare"). For
"bargain fares," it depends on the discounter.
If you fail to receive an email about electronic tickets, be sure to check with
CheckMyTrip
to see if it says "confirmed" below each flight on the
itinerary. You may also check ticketing status, looking to see if the screen
results show "Ticket Issued" and either "Electronic Ticket" or "Paper Ticket."
Shipping
address: If you want shipping to an address other than the billing address
on your credit card, then enter it in the message box that appears prior to the
credit card form on the web site. We usually will require additional documents
to be faxed by you when we see this. If you enter the wrong address, this will
have to be corrected, and it may take extra time. We are not liable for
difficulty you are caused by such delays. Incorrect address information may
result in additional mail routing charges, particularly if the tickets are
returned to one of our ticketing agencies as undeliverable. The ticketing agency
may refuse to deliver the tickets until the customer agrees to pay for the
tickets to be shipped a second or third time.
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