Points to Note When Booking Individual Flights for Sightseeing in America and Canada
Table of Contents
- Top
- Point 1: It takes time to make reservations
- The problem of too much freedom
- The problem of proliferating web services
- The problem of many types of tickets
- Point 2: There's no guarantee you'll reach your destination
- The problem of not knowing the time
- The problem of not knowing if you can enter the country
- Point 3: The biggest problem is that it doesn't get much cheaper
- Summary
I went on a trip to America and Canada.
On that occasion, I decided to "determine everything myself since it's a rare opportunity" and booked flights and hotels without relying on a tour.
As a result, it was so difficult that I thought I would never do it again, so I'm writing down the points to note.
This time it's about flights. I'll write about hotels another time.
Point 1: It takes time to make reservations
The first problem is that it takes time to search.
The problem of too much freedom
It boasts overwhelming freedom compared to tours, but due to that freedom, it takes a lot of time for screening unless you're quite experienced. Furthermore, you need to arrange flights at times that meet your purpose for visiting (touring sights, meeting acquaintances, exploring, etc.).
You also have to consider problems like flights that take over 30 hours to arrive due to transfers, arriving in the middle of the night when public transportation isn't running, or attractions being closed on the day you arrive.
Yes, this is a constraint satisfaction problem. It's not something humans should solve.
The problem of proliferating web services
Fortunately, we live in a world overflowing with convenient web services. But the problem is that there are many, and you have to search around because each has or doesn't have specific routes, and prices differ.
For now, I'll list the services I mainly used, hoping it will be of some help.
These are services that aggregate services. They search across information from various sites. It's good to use them once you've roughly decided on your constraints.
By the way, I made my reservation through Surprice. It was relatively affordable due to coupons and such.
The problem of many types of tickets
Airplane tickets are quite complicated.
While there are differences in the tickets themselves like regular airfare, PEX tickets, discount tickets, etc., when booking yourself, the distinction between one-way tickets, round-trip tickets, and open-jaw tickets becomes an issue.
- One-way ticket: You can freely choose airlines and airports for your outbound and return trips. However, it's terribly expensive compared to round-trip tickets.
- Round-trip ticket: The common ticket where you use the same airport and airline for both outbound and return trips. The most affordable.
- Open-jaw: This might be unfamiliar. It's a ticket where the airports for outbound and return trips are different, but the airline is the same. You can get it for almost the same price as a round-trip ticket.
When traveling between two countries like America and Canada, look for open-jaw tickets. If you book one-way tickets separately, it will cost a considerable amount.
Point 2: There's no guarantee you'll reach your destination
Even if you manage to find a good route and make a reservation, it's uncertain whether that travel will be possible.
The problem of not knowing the time
Whether you can move according to schedule requires thorough investigation, such as airports where lines form for immigration procedures, or surprisingly remote locations where travel time takes unusually long.
If it were a tour, the flights would be arranged considering these factors, so you can relax. Even if there's some trouble, there's support.
The problem of not knowing if you can enter the country
America's ESTA is well-known, but Canada also has an electronic travel authorization system called eTA.
Usually, the site where you booked your ticket will periodically send emails asking "Did you get it?" "You haven't got it yet," but without that, you have to remember to get it yourself.
This might be something you can just be careful about, but with so many other points to be mindful of, it's quite common to forget the basics.
Point 3: The biggest problem is that it doesn't get much cheaper
After putting in all this effort to decide on flights, you'd think it would be considerably cheaper.
But surprisingly, it's not much different from a tour, or rather, considering the effort spent, it might be more expensive.
Summary
Unless you need an extremely high degree of freedom for your trip, it seems better to simply entrust it to a tour.
However, deciding various things yourself is fun, so if you like building your own PC, you might want to try it once. I've done it once, so that's enough for me.
