Booking your trip

Have you decided to book a trip? You can enjoy your holiday even more with the proper preparation. You can find immediate answers to all your questions here:

• Should you book with a travel agent or online?
• What should you check before confirming?
• When is the reservation final?

Booking a trip: should you book with a travel agent or online?

Are you unsure whether to book your trip with a travel agent or online? Discover the advantages of both sales channels:

Booking a trip with a travel agent

• With a travel agent, you have a personal contact who can answer all your questions.
• You can tailor your trip to all your wishes.
• You immediately have an idea of the total price.
• Travel agents are required by law to give you certain information, such as which travel documents are necessary. 

Booking a trip via the Internet

• You are not tied to opening hours.
• You have a larger range of options for booking your trip.
• You can browse through all the information at your own pace.
• You can obtain a better picture from the photos on the website and the ratings from other travellers.  

The ECC-Net researched in 2016 the difference between the initial and final price when booking holidays online. In a majority of such cases price increase is linked to management fees, credit card fees and fees for check-in. Very few consumers complain if the final price not correspond to the indicated price. ECC-Net bundled the results in a report, a summary and a checklist for consumers.

Booking a trip: when is the reservation final?

Are you sure that the indicated price is the final price? Yes? Then you can book your journey and complete your reservation. This means that the reservation is final, and that you must pay for your trip. You can do this as follows:

• online: Click on the ‘pay’ tab, or on another link to the payment screen.
• in an agency: sign the order form.

You will have to provide quite a lot of personal data during the booking process. You should therefore always carefully check the content of the contract before you sign it, or before you click on ‘pay’.

Does your order confirmation not correspond to the information you provided (e.g. a mistake in the name, in the travel period, etc.)? Then you will be deemed responsible for this. Prove that the counterparty made a mistake? That’s often difficult! But you can make print screens of the various booking steps. These may be useful if it comes to a dispute.

Please note: make sure that the name of all your co-travellers fully corresponds to the name on the travel documents. A small mistake could be very costly.

Booking a trip: to what should you pay attention when booking online?

1. Make print screens of all the booking steps. These can be useful in case of a technical problem, or to demonstrate a discrepancy with the confirmation.
2. Be careful with simulations on the Internet! Your reservation becomes final when you click the payment obligation button (e.g. "buy now", "pay now", "confirm your purchase", etc.)
3. Caution with pre-ticked boxes. These are not allowed. Optional choices (insurance, seat selection, etc.) may not be offered to you in this way.
4. Immediately contact the counterparty if you have received an error message, or have not received a confirmation (also check your spam box!) Do not book again without being sure that the first attempt really failed, otherwise you may have to pay twice for the trip.