Flights Help Please

[sheldon1]

I will be very soon wanting to arrange 3 flights from Manila to Manchester. Could anyone who has done this before kindly advise me on the best way to do this?

1/ Can i do this from the UK and pay on my debt card? I heard they might be issues at the airport if the cardholder it not present at the time of departure? (i will not be flying)

2/ Is it better to send the money to my wife and let her do it from a travel agency?.

3/ I always find Ethiad the cheapest. Are any Airlines better than others at one way flights?

4/ Children will be under 8 years of age

Could anybody possibly help me with any issues or advice that i might need?

Sheldon:Help1:

[stevewool]

the way i did this was to send money there and let them book the flight and pay for it too, Etihad is a good airline plus you know the times and the stop over too, so that does help you plan, if you know of a good travel agent over there that helps too, if you have a problem with that maybe Emma could help you, she use to work in travel and still knows a few people who are still working in the travel business, i have no idea about kids under 8 hope this helps

[melovesengland]

I will be very soon wanting to arrange 3 flights from Manila to Manchester. Could anyone who has done this before kindly advise me on the best way to do this?

1/ Can i do this from the UK and pay on my debt card? I heard they might be issues at the airport if the cardholder it not present at the time of departure? (i will not be flying)

2/ Is it better to send the money to my wife and let her do it from a travel agency?.

3/ I always find Ethiad the cheapest. Are any Airlines better than others at one way flights?

4/ Children will be under 8 years of age

Could anybody possibly help me with any issues or advice that i might need?

Sheldon:Help1:

I always let my husband book flights for me on Kayak using his credit card. I dont like carrying big amount of money when I am in the Philippines. I always advise to use credit card as well on booking flights so you can get your money back in case the airline happens to be bankrupt before your wife can fly or in case you are using fake agencies or if you get SCAMMED. We used Etihad Airways as well many times now and they are very efficient. If you will book the flights for your wife, just make sure that your wife's got a copy of your credit card and biopage of your passport or copy of any valid ID. She'll be alright, Ive done it before so I dont think there is no difference to her.

[Iani]

It's not a problem

Firstly if you want to use Etihad, there's no benefit in booking from here or there - as their site will have a uniform costing (Not like you're booking from netflights for example)

Now you probably know this, but don't forget Etihad, along with many others, have a matrix system where you can enter dates for your flights, put in that you are flexible - and it will bring up different prices for different dates. Some would say it's more fun experimenting with this than playing Space Invaders on the Etihad games in flight entertainment (Grief that was a boring game this afternoon).

Seriously though, regarding your booking this, I did something similar last July. I phoned Etihad customer services afterwards to ask what they wanted, and they told me all I had to do was go to the Etihad service desk at Manchester, present my card, give my wife to be's booking reference and authorise it there and then.

Now for me this was ok, as I had to be at Manchester airport that morning anyway (I was flying from UK, she was flying from where she had just finished her contract, and we were meeting in Abu Dhabi).

On top of this I scanned my credit card and e-mailed her this, for her to print out, but she didn't need it in the end.

Hope this helps, but Etihad are extremely approachable, so maybe if you give them a call and explain it, they can say what you need to do (And you'll get a name who you speak to)

As for an alternative to Etihad, well presumably your wife and children will be best flying to Manchester rather than a London airport, so Etihad really will be not only the best (And IMO they are fantastic and up there with the best anyway) but cheapest.
Maybe worth checking out Emirates as well mind.

For a suggestion, check your flight dates on netflights.com. These are owned by Thomas Cook, and unlike say Expedia (A dead loss IMO) they will usually find a much wider range of reasonable flights. They will also find the "best" flights for time of flight - they will bring up the slightly more expensive ones with say a 2 hour wait in transit, instead of ones a bit cheaper but involving 30 hour layovers. You definitely don't want those!

Edit don't forget if you're registered with one, to go through topcashback or quidco, and you can get a few squid back.

[Iani]

Edit number 2, and so important I've put it in a separate post so it can't be overlooked. If you book Etihad, if you haven't already - then do register and join their flyer programme loyalty thing. It's free for the base membership, but it gives you a whopping 30kilos each instead of 23. You know how women like to stuff those suitcases!

Emirates are 30 kilos standard allowance anyway, but hey

[skysisi]

My husband was send me a money for my ticket coz i don't like to pay online just to make it sure, i used cathay pacific and i pay in person, If your wife and daughter are first time immigrant there is discount.

[marga]

Hi Sheldon.

If you are going to book your wife and kids a flight,make sure she has a copy of the details especially the card (master,debit,visa) you used in booking.Hubby had a problem with etihad before.They wanted to make sure and also to minimize fraud!

I hope this helps.Congratulations again