Flights are booked!

Super excited that my Dad and I finally booked our flights to Bangkok and back!! This is it….it’s officially official. 😄

I feel like the process of booking flights deserves it’s own blog post as it was basically a life changing event. And of course, maybe some of the things I did will help you if you are ever booking a flight. I’m sure there are things we could have done differently as well, so if you have any tips about the subject, please feel free to share!!

So first of all, what website should you use? I have always used Expedia for my flights and hotels and have had no complaints. However, when searching for flights for Bangkok, I found that Expedia seemed a bit expensive and I wanted to see if I could do better. Obviously we don’t want to pay more than we have to. On all of the travel blogs I’ve been reading, many suggest Sky Scanner to use for booking flights.

Sky Scanner is a gift from the universe above. 🙌 It’s so handy in that it lets you punch in your cities and dates and then organizes it by both price and the best flights (shortest layovers, less stops). THEN, it gives you the cheapest flights on the internet from a variety of websites and airlines- score! Definitely my favourite tool for this part of the trip planning.
Next, the hardest question for me… when is the best time to book your flight? Great question. Honestly, I wish there was a magical day that an airline would give you that would guarantee the cheapest flight to your destination. This is seriously just like gambling! Should I book it now? What if it’s cheaper tomorrow? Nahh I should book it today because it’s going to go up in price next week. Frankly it’s a teeter-totter of emotions and inner turmoil. 🤓 Just a bit dramatic! I guess eventually you just have to grow a pair, decide on a price you are comfortable paying and go with that.

Side note…. we also used an app called Hopper. The good thing about this app is that it helps you predict the best time frame to book your flight and it also tells you what price you should expect to pay. You can set it to send you a notification when it’s the “right” time to book, and it also knows when the prices will begin escalating. I personally did not have much luck with this app as the price it showed on Hopper was about $200-$300 higher than the lowest prices I found on Sky Scanner. But it was a good guideline for us on when to book, for which I am grateful.

In our case, we wanted to stay under the $1200 range for the round trip flight. Keep in mind, my Dad lives in Manitoba so I have to fly there first and then we are leaving from Winnipeg. SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT! 😑 I’m laughing to myself as I write this because let’s be honest… poor me whining about the troubles of purchasing a ticket to Asia. I know, I know.

Ok let’s move on with this, I’m boring myself now. How should you book the flight? I was getting pretty anxious to book these babies but my Dad was better at waiting it out for the right time. I randomly looked on Sky Scanner one day and saw the lowest number I had seen (under 1100)…ok finally. I called Corey Bear and told him this and he suggested booking through my parent’s travel agent. Why didn’t I think of that!? We will come back to this.

The best flights I found were with Korean Air. This is another big question: What airline should you fly with? We hear horror stories of people being kicked off of planes and companies overbooking seats. How do you know the airline is trustworthy, especially a foreign airline you’ve never heard of? I’d like to call upon my good buddy… Trip Advisor. Any airline, landmark, attraction, restaurant or hotel you need to know about you can find here. The reviews for Korean Air were fantastic and this made me want to fly with them. They were also the cheapest at the time, perhaps from a seat sale, but who cares, less money is less money.

To wrap it up, I found it only 20 dollars cheaper to book through the actual Korean Air website as opposed to a search engine website such as Budgetair or Flight hub. My Dad went to his travel agent and she found the exact same flights for cheaper than I could have booked them! We did have to pay her $50 each for booking the flights but it evened out in the end and we also have the extra peace of mind that if something were to be delayed or cancelled, Gloria could help us while we are stranded in a foreign airport! She even went through and selected all of our seats on all 6 flights so that we will have the most comfortable flight possible. Thank you Gloria!!

Finally, I booked my flights from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg and back, and being the thrifty smart girl I am, I used my travel rewards from my Scotiabank American Express Card and these flights ended up being free! When I signed up a few months back I got 25,000 free points equivalent to $250 travel dollars, so along with other points I have collected I was able to apply them to these flights. DONE!

What a relief to book these. It was actually a long frustrating process considering all of the what-ifs and how-to’s, but so worth it knowing that in 4 months we will be on our way!! Now I just have to not look at the prices and see if they have lowered even more since we booked! Thanks for reading amigos! 🙂

Xo Hales