How to book plane tickets. Online booking of plane tickets without payment. Booking through ticket agencies

In the age of advanced communications, when many purchases are made via the Internet, the question arises: is it possible to purchase a real airline ticket without leaving home without paying a penny for it?

The answer in most cases, oddly enough, is positive. Why is there a need to book air tickets online without paying?

What motivates you to look for free ways to buy an air ticket?

If a person wants to buy a plane ticket, but does not plan to pay for it, there are usually good reasons for this:

The airline offers a good discount, but, as luck would have it, there was no card at hand for payment. If there is a card, then perhaps the funds on it are this moment no or not enough.
No visa fee. According to the rules, to submit documents to the visa center, you must provide round-trip air tickets. However, there is no 100% guarantee of obtaining visa approval; the money spent on tickets may be lost.
A trip abroad is planned, but the exact date of return has not been chosen, because if you like it, there is an opportunity to stay.
When traveling there is a need to cross the borders of several states. The rules of some of them require the presentation of a return air ticket or a ticket to another country. But a reservation for such tickets is enough. Even if you plan to return by other means of transport, an air ticket is still required.

What to do in all such cases? There is a solution: book tickets with deferred payment.

How to fill out the reservation form?

To correctly complete the procedure for booking an electronic ticket, you need to go to the appropriate website, register, select the destination (country, city) and departure, determine the date of arrival and return (if planned).

Next, the airline is selected. You should not pay special attention to the cost of the ticket, since in principle payment is not expected. Then a form is filled out, where data on the passenger and his companions is entered.

After entering the required information, you need to go to the payment point. Then the site will issue a reservation number, and a special counter will appear that takes into account the reservation time and notifies about the end of this period.

How to make an unpaid purchase of an Airbus ticket

Of course, there are travel agencies and airlines that do not agree with free bookings. There are those that allow you to postpone payment only for an hour or no more than a day. This will not save you if you cannot yet collect the full amount for payment or if there is no money at all at the moment.

Companies that provide reservations for more than one day prefer to keep it for up to 2 - 4 days. Much less often, up to 7 and 10 days. Moreover, it is worth paying attention to the fact that in each specific case the period can be negotiated separately. And also do not lose sight of the fact that reservations are provided up to a certain time, and not inclusive!

Duration of e-ticket booking period for popular airlines:

Airline	Deadline BEFORE
KLM	24 hours
AlItalia	24 hours
SAS	2 days
Aeroflot	2 days
AirBaltic	3 days
AirBerlin	4 days
AirFrance	4 days
EuropeAir	7 days
UIA	10 days
Turkish Airlines	10 days
Lufthansa	10 days
Qatar	10 days

Preliminary preparation for reservation

So as not to lose cash, time and nerves, to get the result for which the booking is actually started, you need to assess the situation:

When planning to carry out the procedure for obtaining a reservation, it is worth analyzing which air carriers offer a longer retention period.
Calculate the time that affects the duration of maintaining the reservation, the maximum required for paperwork.
Take into account the conditions for unilateral cancellation of reservations when demand increases.
Clarify sanctions for refusal to pay for a reserved seat for a customer.

Recommendations for purchasing an air ticket with deferred payment

Free options

There are several ways to book air tickets without paying:

First: using airline websites. Airlines allow you to make a reservation and then transfer funds over periods of varying lengths. However, there is a nuance here: they can independently shorten the period for confirming a reservation by payment.

Usually a notification about this is sent to an email address or phone number, and therefore it is mandatory to indicate real contact contacts when booking. A printed booked ticket usually contains information that the reservation has not yet been paid, however, this circumstance does not interfere with visa processing.

It is important to familiarize yourself with the terms of deferred payment in advance. There are airlines that charge pennies and fines for bookings not paid within the specified period and for cancellations. For example, Lufthansa issues an invoice if a ticket has been booked, the reservation period is still valid, but it is no longer necessary and for this reason you have to cancel it.

The second way to book a plane ticket without paying involves doing it on the resources of those agencies that sell air seats. This is the most popular option. It is beneficial in that agencies can make it possible to book a ticket without paying even with those air carriers that do not provide such a service themselves. The most common solution is to decide on a suitable flight on the website agent.ru.

This is practically an online tourism agency that searches for air tickets based on a given request, without redirecting to airline websites. The nuance is that the reservation in this case is secured by the site itself, charging a commission depending on the cost of the ticket. Therefore, the price of a ticket purchased there will be higher, and you will not be able to save money.

But, if you don’t need the ticket itself, but only the fact of booking it, then this agency is the most suitable. From 3 to 10 days, depending on the airline's capabilities, this service allows you to maintain your reservation while it is necessary to complete administrative procedures. The booking period is closely related to the expected start date of the trip. Therefore, the closer it is, the shorter the reservation period.

Searching a few months before your trip will give you more options for booking length. Once the period expires, the reservation becomes inactive. It is recommended to cancel it when it is no longer needed, independently before the expiration of the term, in order to avoid the accrual of fines, etc.

The third method of booking air tickets without payment is suitable for those who have to some extent mastered the skill of reading English language. The English-language resource gomosafer.com helps make booking air tickets without payment very simple:

Searching and finding the departure direction.
Reservation of a place.
Confirmation by pressing the on hold button where payment is required.
Completing the booking process.
Ticket printing.
Receiving a status confirming the reservation.

It is difficult to say exactly how long a reservation remains active. The experience of travelers confirms that such a reservation allows you to calmly go through all customs bureaucratic procedures.

Options with minimal investment

This recommendation on how to book air tickets is suitable if you still have a small amount in your account. Here you need to deposit three hundred rubles. A ticket to the desired destination is booked on the website euroavia.ru. When the booking form is completed, at the end, when choosing payment, it is noted that a booking confirmation is needed only for obtaining a visa. It is for this visa reservation support that you need to pay a fee. The reservation will be active within a week.

Despite the fact that this method involves depositing money, it has an advantage over free options. In this case, the reservation is guaranteed to be kept for a week. But the previous versions do not provide such a guarantee. Even if a pre-booking is made for a period of up to 10 days, the airline may unilaterally cancel more unpaid reservation and sell a ticket, citing high seasonal demand or the approaching departure day.

The next option is for the case when it is absolutely necessary to have a long-term reservation. Here you will not be able to book the required air tickets online without paying, since we are talking about purchasing a ticket with the possibility of a refund after completing the necessary formalities. Airlines do not always provide the opportunity to return a ticket without losing money.

A minimum service fee is charged. The more expensive the ticket sales rate, the higher the fee. When a refund can be made in advance, there is a possibility of an almost 100% refund of the ticket price paid. The closer the departure date, the fewer such opportunities. Some companies immediately stipulate the conditions under which it is impossible to return a purchased ticket.

Most often these are economy class tickets. There are intermediary sites (for example, OneTwoTrip.com) that help compensate up to 90% of the cost of a ticket if you cancel it, even where a refund after purchasing a seat is almost impossible.

Another way to book a ticket without paying is to initially reserve the purchase of a seat with a reservation for a minimum period, indicating that payment will be made electronically. You won’t have to spend a large amount, because by checking the meter for the end of the payment period, you just need to buy an extension of your reservation on time for a purely symbolic amount. This can be done on sites where such a service is additionally provided.

Another way: if you have money, but it’s not enough to redeem your reservation, you can use a long-term reservation with a travel agency. This will cost a much smaller amount than the cost of the ticket.

One recommendation is to buy the most cheap air ticket. If your visa is refused, you don’t have the money to pay for insurance against visa refusal, or you simply can’t use it, you don’t have to fly anywhere and throw away your ticket. For European flights, low-cost companies often offer tickets with an affordable price of a few euros; losing such an amount is not too critical.

A creative version of how to book an air ticket without paying is to contact friends living in the area of the planned departure to make a long-term reservation. You can pay them upon arrival by purchasing a ticket or giving them a desired souvenir that you brought for them.

Booking confirmation

If the reservation was needed for a visa center and it requires confirmation, then a paper copy of the documents is provided by the following reconciliation services: www.myairlines.ru, www.viewtrip.com, www.virtuallythere.com, www.checkmytrip.com.

The algorithm for obtaining documents is as follows:

Book air tickets on the resource online without paying.
Go to the verification service website.
Enter the 6-digit code (PNR), after booking it will be sent to your email address.
Fill out the form with the Latin surname of the person who is going to fly.

As soon as your reservation status is confirmed, you can safely make a printout. It puts a mark confirming the reservation. If there is a need to check for its activity, this can be done on the websites: checkmytrip.com, virtuallythere.com, myairlines.ru, viewtrip.com, entering the reservation, order, payment number and the customer’s last name or by email address, mobile number and etc.

As for the websites of airlines whose tickets are booked, there may not be such information about the availability of reservations. Instead, it is usually written that the ticket reservation is at the registration stage or something similar.

Video: how to book air tickets without paying?

What to do when it is impossible to track your reservation?

If for some reason the reservation is not activated or is not detected, for example, on the website www.checkmytrip.com, then you can try to make it on other resources. Any system can “freeze,” that is, fail. Don't despair, you need to try again.

Sometimes it comes instead of a 6-digit code - a 5-digit code (PNR). Then you should check your reservation on the website of the air carrier where the seats were reserved. If all else fails, it is better to duplicate your reservation with another airline.

Booking air tickets and paying for them is a common service provided by all major airlines. As a rule, the booked ticket must be paid for within a short time, which is not always convenient. Sometimes it becomes necessary to book air tickets without payment, just so that the air ticket reservation is recorded. Subsequent payment in this case is not carried out, since a person needs to have the fact of a booked ticket, and the ticket itself is not needed. This manipulation can be done using ticket booking services. This is not difficult to do if you know all the nuances of the procedure.

Principle of booking tickets

Not everyone knows what booking airline tickets is. This is a service provided by major airlines and intermediary firms (ticket agents) that allows you to reserve a ticket for the desired flight, but without paying for it immediately. Such a reservation is kept for a short time. The client is given about 24 hours to pay for the ticket. If the airline does not receive payment within the agreed period, the booking will be automatically cancelled.

How to make a reservation depends on the features of the site providing such a service. General scheme next:

selecting a ticket for the desired date;
entering your own passport data;
entering a number bank card(if the client is going to purchase a ticket).

This procedure can be carried out both on the website of the carrier company and on the websites of ticket agents providing services for booking tickets for any type of transport in any direction. The period for which a ticket can be deferred depends on the date of the flight, the airline on whose plane the ticket is selected, and the policy of the site providing the booking service.

When is a deferred reservation needed?

You may need to book plane tickets without payment in the following cases:

lack of funds to instantly pay for the selected ticket;
the need for a visa;
to visit some countries.

When planning a trip, people often come across so-called “last minute” tickets that are sold at a reduced price. Such offers are rare, so it is customary to monitor them. It may happen that when a promotional offer appears, the client does not have his bank card at hand, or does not have enough funds to pay the full cost of the travel document. In this case, the ability to book a ticket with further payment within a few days will come in handy.

When applying for a visa, documentary evidence of the availability of booked tickets is required. Many people prefer not to buy a ticket before visiting the consulate for fear that the visa will not be confirmed. Thus, a person may encounter the following unpleasant situation: plane tickets have already been purchased, hotel reservations have been paid, but a visa has been denied. When booking a flight without paying for a visa, deferred booking of air tickets is the only way out to avoid losing money in case of refusal by the consulate.

Deferred booking may be required for entry into some countries. For example, tourists are allowed into Panama only if they have a return ticket to fly out of the country. If at the same time a person plans to leave the state by land transport, deferred booking will be the only possible way out of this situation, since buying an air ticket just to resolve bureaucratic issues will be expensive.

Benefits of deferred booking

Before you figure out how to book a plane ticket without paying and how you can get a reservation confirmation, you should find out why this service is so useful.

Confirmation of the booked ticket is included in the list of necessary conditions for obtaining a visa. When making a deferred booking, obtain such documentary evidence of availability travel documents It won’t be difficult, since you can track your reservation on the airline’s website.

Websites that provide booking services without payment allow you to postpone your ticket for a period of three to ten days, depending on the flight date. For example, Korean Air and Emirates airlines allow you to hold your reservation without payment for 5-10 days. The less time left before the selected flight, the shorter the booking period. So, for an express flight, a ticket can be booked for no more than three days, but if you reserve tickets long before the flight date, the booking will be about seven days. As a rule, seven days is enough to book a ticket, print out a document confirming your reservation and provide documents to the consulate. The same period is sufficient if you need to present a return ticket to visit some countries.

Booking on the carrier's website

Major airlines provide services for deferred booking of plane tickets without payment on their websites. On these sites there are urgent offers at promotional prices that allow you to purchase a plane ticket at a big discount. In addition, on certain days of the week, ticket prices may also be reduced.

Important! When booking, you need to remember that the carrier reserves the right to shorten the booking period without warning or cancel the booking altogether.

The duration of a deferred reservation depends on the destination, ticket price and time remaining before departure. So, when reserving tickets long before the flight, the reservation period is on average 3-4 days. The term for booking tickets for upcoming flights does not exceed one day.

Turkish Airlines and Qatar provide the maximum possible period for booking. On the websites of these carriers you can defer payment for a flight for up to 10 days.

United Airlines allows you to reserve a ticket and defer payment for up to one week. Rest famous airlines They offer to defer payment for your reservation for no more than 4 days.

Important! When choosing this reservation method, you should carefully read all the information about deferred payment provided on the site. Some companies allow you to defer payment for no more than one day. If payment has not been made after 24 hours, the reservation will be automatically cancelled.

Making reservations on travel company websites

To book tickets, many people prefer to use intermediary sites rather than official airline sites.

There are also sites that, for a reasonable fee, provide a service for booking tickets specifically for presenting documentary evidence to the consulate. When confirming a reservation on such a site, there is a special column “reservation confirmation only.” The cost of such a service is about 300 rubles, depending on the intermediary site. Thus, by paying a small amount, the client is guaranteed to receive a confirmed visa reservation without paying the full cost of the ticket for a period of 7-10 days.

The advantage of a paid service over a free one is a longer booking period. On a free site, this period ranges from two days and depends on a number of factors, while when paying for the service, the client is provided with a guaranteed reservation for at least one week, and the maximum reservation period is 10 days, depending on which airline tickets the client has chosen.

You can obtain the necessary travel document on the website Agent.ru or euroavia.ru. The first site provides the service for free, on the second site the cost of a deferred booking is 300 rubles. Both services are intermediaries, so the cost of tickets is more expensive than on airline websites.

Booking times on Agent.ru directly depend on the flight date. This cannot be predicted, as these time frames are imposed by the airline. Thus, the reservation can last from three days to a week; in rare cases, it is possible to postpone payment for the flight for 10 days. To make a reservation on this service, you must register and gain access to personal account.

The euroavia.ru service provides a paid service designed specifically to confirm your reservation when applying for a visa. This service costs 300 rubles, payment is made online. A paid service allows you to get a reservation for a period of one week.

Instructions for reservation

The following instructions will teach you how to book a plane ticket online without instant payment on the Agent.ru website:

First, you need to go to the website and register to gain access to your personal account. This is not necessary, since you will still have to enter personal information when purchasing tickets.

Advice! If you need to book tickets regularly, it is recommended to go through the registration procedure once in order to save time on manually entering the necessary data in the future.

On the main page of the site you must enter the points of departure and arrival. You can do this manually or select cities from the list. Departure and return dates are also selected here.
After the client has made his choice and clicked the flight search button, the site analyzes all possible options and redirects to another page where prices and flight duration are described in detail. In first place we offer the most cheap option. Typically, every low-fare ticket is represented by a small airline. Since the client will not pay for the ticket, it is recommended to give preference to the offer from major airline, despite more high price. This little trick guarantees that the duration of the reservation will be longer and confirmation of the reservation will not take long to wait, since the major carrier cares about its image.
Having chosen the optimal flight, you should click on it, as a result the site will redirect to the booking page.
To make a reservation, you must enter the following personal data of the booker: email address, passport number, citizenship, document validity period, surname and full name, as well as the passenger’s date of birth. Finally, the site will prompt you to enter a phone number so that a service representative can contact the client. After entering the above data, you must check it again, and then agree that the information provided is correct by clicking the appropriate button.
The next step is to select additional services, such as insurance for the duration of the flight or for the duration of your stay in another country. Since the ticket is issued only to confirm the reservation, these services are not needed and it is recommended to refuse them by unchecking the boxes next to the offer. Then click the button to place your order.
Once the order is confirmed, the site redirects to another page. Here you can find a six-digit code and a time counter showing how much is left before you need to pay for the ticket.

Important! On the page with the reservation confirmation code, you do not need to click the payment button for the order.

After going through the procedure on the Agent.ru website, you need to copy the received six-digit code. You can use it to get confirmation of your reservation. This procedure is carried out on the website checkmytrip.com. After going to the site, you should paste the code into the appropriate box located at the very top of the main page. The client's last name is entered here. Then you need to click the check button. After a few seconds, the page will refresh, information about the flight and passenger will appear on it, and at the bottom it will be highlighted in green that the reservation has been confirmed. This page can be printed and taken to the consulate when applying for a visa. The printed booking confirmation page is also used to confirm availability of a return air ticket when entering another country.

When issuing a ticket, reminders about the need to pay will be sent to the email address the client specified on the Agent.ru website. Upon expiration of the deferred payment period, the reservation will be automatically canceled, so the client does not need to do anything. If you wish, you can go to the website and manually cancel the reservation in your personal account.

The advantage of such a booking is that the client does not provide his bank card details, so there is no need to worry that the cost of the ticket will be debited from his bank account.

For those who are not afraid of losing a certain amount of money, the option of exchanging and returning a ticket may be suitable. In this case, the passenger purchases a ticket and then changes it to another date if the visa is denied. When the visa is confirmed, the paid ticket can be returned, losing some money.

Video

Knowing how to book flights and get confirmation of your reservation will make traveling easier and cheaper for everyone. Using the described booking method on special websites will allow you not to spend money on extra tickets and will provide the necessary confirmation when applying for a visa at the consulate.

Dear readers, this article was written in January 2015, all information was relevant at the time of its publication. Unfortunately, some services have changed the interface (checkmytrip.com), thereby complicating the process of printing tickets.

In this article we will talk about booking and printing unpaid air tickets. It's no secret that travelers are required to have return air tickets when applying for visas; sometimes they are asked about a return ticket right at the airport, etc.

Who needs an air ticket reservation and why?

To obtain a visa. One of the reasons for making fictitious reservations (air tickets, hotels, transfers, etc.) is the strict visa requirements of some countries, which probably live in the Stone Age and insistently require you to have all the necessary pieces of paper (air tickets, hotel reservations, transfers, etc. .).

There are a number of travelers who prefer to catch cheap air tickets (last minute trips) with visas in hand, and when the coveted ticket appears at a reasonable price, they immediately buy it. Such travelers first receive a visa (of course, without paying for tickets), and then look for tickets.

For presentation at airports. You may also be required to receive return air tickets when entering those countries that allow tourists to enter their country without a visa, Thailand as an example. When traveling to Thailand, the traveler may be asked for a return ticket before the flight and, if it is not available, they may not be allowed to board the flight.

In addition to air tickets, they may check your insurance, hotel reservations, etc. Each country has its own requirements for tourists; you can find out in advance about the requirements of the country you are going to using the Timatik service, more about it here.

If your visa is refused. Free air ticket booking is also convenient in cases where you are unsure whether you will be issued a visa or not and the correctness of filling out the documents does not play any role here. Especially if there were previously visa violations - overstays, unpaid fines and other violations that you have already forgotten about. In such a situation, not many tourists want to sit with a paid air ticket in their hands if there is no confidence in obtaining a visa, and booking without payment allows you to somehow calm your nerves.

It is especially important to have an air ticket reservation when submitting documents to the consulates of countries that often refuse to issue visas (USA, England, etc.).

How to book a plane ticket without paying

Let's look in detail at how to book a ticket without payment; in most cases, it is booked for consulates and to minimize unnecessary questions at airports.

There are a few important points you should know when booking free flights:

There is no guarantee that the air ticket reservation will last long. Sometimes airlines charge unpaid booked flights, but this happens in cases where there is little time left before departure and there are people who want to purchase a booked but unpaid ticket;
in most cases they will give you a visa, but if you find an air ticket at a good price and don’t buy it, then closer to the date of your trip such prices may no longer be available, so if you see good price for an air ticket, it’s worth buying it.

So, let's start booking the air ticket without paying. There are several simple steps, having completed which you will have a real air ticket reservation in your hands.

Search for a flight ticket for booking without payment

To search for an air ticket in the direction you need, go here, the search form and filters will help you find an air ticket for the required dates, if you are doing this for the first time, then read the article about searching for air tickets, it will help you save a lot when buying air tickets “Features of searching for air tickets.”

We select any offer and begin filling out the data on the agency/airline website to which the air ticket search engine will transfer us. As mentioned earlier, some airlines allow you to issue air tickets via the Internet and pay at their offices, thereby giving us time to go to the visa center with an active ticket reservation; other airlines hold the reservation for a long time, which is also to our advantage. Booking conditions provided by airlines sometimes change, so be careful.

The main task of all these manipulations is to obtain the so-called PNR code (Reservation Code). Recently, many online services for selling air tickets have been trying not to show this data, but we will be more cunning.

Having filled out the standard data for purchasing air tickets, we will have a reservation number - this is a short set of characters consisting of Latin letters and numbers; the reservation number should be remembered or written down.

Sometimes you receive an email with a reservation number, sometimes the airline ticket reservation number is indicated right on the website page, this is not so important, we will only need it once.

How to print airline ticket reservations without paying

The next step is to print out your airline ticket reservation without payment. We go to one of the sites for checking air tickets and calmly print out our air ticket reservation.

There are several sites for printing out air ticket reservations (viewtrip.com, virtuallythere.com, myairlines.ru, etc.). For example, I use the site checkmytrip.com, it has a simple interface and it always works properly.

In the form that opens, enter the reservation number, the last name for which the ticket was booked and click on the button. Next, you will be able to print or save the itinerary receipt.

Video on how to print an unpaid airline ticket reservation

My friend (Anton Pushkarev), did short video clip, in which he talks in great detail about printing out unpaid reservations. The video is three minutes long, be sure to watch and like it if it helped you.

That's all, now you have a real (legal) air ticket reservation, which can become your air ticket if you pay for it on time.

Air ticket reservation

Booking air tickets occurs every time in the process of purchasing a plane ticket via the Internet, in most cases people do not even think about it.

In order to understand why air ticket bookings happen without our knowledge, we need to understand how most aggregator sites for booking air tickets work.

In fact, everything is very simple. When you are looking for an airline ticket, aggregator sites provide a selection from many ticket and airline sites. After selecting an air ticket (by price, time, etc.), the aggregator site redirects you to the airline’s website, but not everyone does this, some sites offer to purchase an air ticket directly on their website, this is what the agent ru website does.

It is at this moment that an air ticket is booked, which can turn into a purchase or remain a reservation. Thus, any air ticket purchased online occurs at the online booking stage, the only difference is the time that this reservation lasts.

Where to book flights

There are several options for booking and purchasing air tickets. convenient ways, about which I

metasearch engines (air sales, skyscanner, etc.) - search for air tickets on many sites and provide you with the search results in a readable form (be sure to use the calendar low prices and subscription to price reduction);
ticket sites (Agent RU, Euroavia RU, etc.) - you can make a reservation directly on their website without going to the airline’s website;
air ticket exchanges (turdom ru and others) - as a rule, you can buy air tickets here at a very good price, but you need to catch them;
airline websites - sometimes such sites can have very inconvenient navigation or lack of Russian language, so you need to know English.

Deadlines for booking tickets from different airlines

The timing of booking air tickets depends on the conditions of the airline, and not on the site on which you book the ticket. The lifetime of your air ticket reservation may be influenced by various factors (time before departure, availability of tickets for a given flight, etc.).

The approximate time for which airlines hold reservations can be seen in this list:

Qatar holds reservations for up to 10 days;
Aeroflot holds reservations for no more than 2 days;
Turkish Airlines holds reservations for up to 10 days;
KLM holds reservations for no more than 1 day;
UIA holds reservations for up to 10 days;
AlItalia holds reservations for no more than 1 day;
AirBaltic hold your reservation for up to 3 days;
SAS holds reservations for up to 2 days;
AirBerlin holds reservations for up to 4 days;
AirFrance holds reservations for up to 4 days;
Lufthansa holds reservations for up to 2 days;
EuropeAir holds reservations for up to 7 days.

A number of airlines allow you not to pay for booked tickets if you book on their websites, and you can pay at their office. In any case, carefully read the “fine print” text regarding the cancellation conditions. For example, Lufthansa will charge you a cancellation fee for a guaranteed reservation.

How to check an air ticket

It’s very easy to check an air ticket using your reservation number and last name; now I’ll tell you about this in more detail. As I said earlier, all air tickets purchased via the Internet are, in one way or another, booked through one of the global reservation systems and thus each air ticket (whether it is paid for or not) has a unique reservation number.

Check your flight ticket through global booking sites

I know several global reservation systems used by airlines and all those who sell air tickets: Sirena, Galileo, Saber, Amadeus. Any tourist can access these systems, but not directly, but through the corresponding information sites.

Siren - www.myairlines.ru
Saber-

Here you should take into account the following nuance, depending on the airline, the booking system with which this airline works will also depend (Sirena, Galileo, Saber, Amadeus), so you should know which site to check your air ticket on. Sometimes, information about the reservation system is indicated on air tickets, but for greater confidence, you can enter the reservation number and last name on all presented sites.

Check the purchased air ticket by number and surname

Large ticket agencies (for example, onetwotrip) provide their clients with a number of options (print an electronic ticket, issue a refund, select the type of food on board, etc.), including checking the purchased air ticket by number and surname (by order or payment number and email address or mobile phone number).

In order to check an air ticket purchased on onetwotrip by number and surname, you should indicate the ticket number (namely the ticket number, not the reservation number) and the surname that was specified during registration on this page www.onetwotrip.com/ru/ticket .

In what cases to book a plane ticket without payment?

Booking a plane ticket without payment, as I wrote above, is required in the following situations:

booking air tickets for a visa - this is done in cases where the country issuing the visa is very meticulous and there is no guarantee of issuing a visa;
deferred purchase of an air ticket - if you have found a good price for an air ticket, but have not yet decided whether to go or not, then booking helps and you can think about your trip in a calm atmosphere;
lack of money to buy a plane ticket - you found a plane ticket at the best price, but at the moment there are not enough funds to buy it (anything can happen in life, wages were delayed, payment by bank card does not go through, etc.), in this case make a reservation and pay a little later;
there is a high probability of a visa refusal - you know exactly for what reasons your visa may be denied and you do not want to have a paid air ticket in your hands.

Booking air tickets for a visa

To obtain a visa, in one sense or another, there are several ways to prove to consular officers that you have air tickets. Here are the most legal ones.

Refundable flights

The most reliable way to obtain air ticket reservations for a visa is to buy return air tickets. You will have real air tickets (paid) in your hands, suitable for obtaining a visa. With such air tickets, you should not have any unnecessary questions from consular officials.

After receiving a visa, return air tickets can be returned with the loss of part of the money. It’s not entirely clear why you need a visa then (you’ll probably travel by land and not by plane), but many people make reservations this way - it’s reliable and less nerve-wracking.

Booking air tickets without payment

A more risky and less predictable type of obtaining a visa is to take an unpaid air ticket reservation to the consulate; this could be anything from the airline automatically canceling the reservation to a call from a consular officer to the airline.

Friends, you should remember that the consulates are not stupid (at least no more stupid than you and me) and understand everything perfectly well, and if they want to find a reason not to issue a visa, they will definitely find it. I strongly do not recommend making an air ticket reservation in Photoshop - this is pure deception; it is better to make an unpaid reservation, which in itself is an official document.

If you have successfully read this article to the end, then you know all the features when booking air tickets and now you understand exactly how it all works.

Purchasing air tickets online usually involves paying for your reservation at the time of order. This option is perfect for travelers who are firmly confident in the possibility of making a trip. But what if it is impossible to predict the exact date and time of the flight? We will tell you how to book plane tickets without paying online using ticket services and airline websites.

In what cases may it be necessary to book tickets without payment?

Most often, booking air tickets online without payment is required when submitting documents to the visa center. Most countries that are members of the Schengen Agreement make the presentation of air tickets one of the mandatory conditions for obtaining a visa. At the same time, the consulates reserve the right to refuse a citizen of the Russian Federation to obtain a visa even if all documents are filled out correctly and provided in full.

The reasons for refusal may be different, but in any case the applicant risks losing a lot of money spent on purchasing air tickets. Thus, booking plane tickets without payment is a fairly reliable insurance in case of an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a visa.

Practice shows that consulates never contact airlines to confirm bookings. Therefore, you just need to present printouts of air tickets issued for the required dates. Some applicants successfully obtain visas even using old printouts with edited dates. Of course, we do not advise you to do this: falsifying documents is a crime. It is much wiser to book tickets without payment using special services or airline websites.

In addition, ordering tickets without payment can be useful if you do not have a bank card with a sufficient amount in your account.

Can I book and print air tickets online without paying on the airline's website?

The problem is that most airlines do not allow you to book a ticket without making a payment. For example, it is impossible to book air tickets online without paying for an Aeroflot flight using the carrier’s official website: you simply will not receive the coveted printout.

The list of airlines that provide the opportunity to purchase tickets without payment is quite modest:

German Lufthansa can hold your reservation for up to 2 days.
The American company United Airlines provides deferred payment for up to 7 days.
The airline with the self-explanatory name Korean Air is particularly generous: you can defer payment for your order for 10 days.
Air France and some other European companies offer a paid deferred payment service for up to two days.

Despite the fact that the option of booking a ticket through an airline seems to be the most logical and safe, it imposes certain restrictions.

The main disadvantage is that the resulting printout will contain an indication that the ticket has been booked, but not paid for. For some consulates, this note will be another reason to doubt the applicant’s intentions. This problem can be solved using special systems that search for tickets in airline databases.

How to get a paper printout of a ticket ordered on the airline's website

The list of services that allow you to print a paper version of your travel document has remained unchanged for several years:

In order to receive a paper printout, you must enter the passenger's last name and the 6-digit number sent by the airline when issuing the ticket on one of these sites. The sites work with different databases, one of which will definitely contain information about your booking.

What else do you need to know about booking tickets through airline websites?

Deferred payment in many airlines is paid service, the cost of which can reach several tens of euros. For example, Air France offers a “Thinking Time” service for up to 15 euros. In other cases, you will still be allowed to reserve a ticket for a while, but if you refuse or do not pay on time, your card may be charged a fine.

Thus, booking tickets without making payment through airline websites usually leads to additional financial costs. Travelers booking tickets for a visa should carefully study the airline's rules so as not to encounter unexpected costs.

How to book air tickets online on aggregator sites without paying

Another way to book air tickets is to use ticket aggregators. Is it possible to book a plane ticket without paying through one of these services? Just as in the case of airline websites, not every aggregator provides the service of issuing travel documents without payment.

However, there are at least two proven options, one of which is especially convenient for Russian-speaking users. In the event that the desired airline does not allow you to print a ticket without paying the full amount of the order, the method using aggregators remains the only booking option.

Book tickets on agent.ru

Among Russian residents, the most popular service for booking tickets without payment is agent.ru. This site is not just an aggregator, but a full-fledged booking system that allows you to issue tickets without visiting airline websites.

Agent.ru provides the opportunity to defer payment for flight tickets quite large number air carriers. As a rule, the payment period ranges from 12 to 72 hours, but in the case of individual companies it can be up to 10 days.

Let's figure out how to book air tickets online without paying through Agent.ru.

In order to book plane tickets without payment, you need to register on the agent.ru website and follow a few simple steps:

Step 1. Select the desired destination and departure date, as well as the number of passengers.

Step 2. In the window with a list of options, select the carrier that provides the most long term reservations. Unfortunately, agent.ru does not display this information, so you can only rely on the company name.

The carriers offering the longest bookings are:

Emirates;
Korean Air;
Hong Kong Airlines;
Air Europa (S.A.U.);
United Airlines.

Step 3. Enter real information about each passenger and your E-mail - it may come in handy if you forget your order number. If you are offered insurance, refuse this service.

Step 4. On the payment page, copy the 6-digit reservation code. After this, you can close the site without making payment.

Step 5. Visit checkmytrip.com. Enter the code and last name of the customer. Print out the received ticket form.

The agent.ru website will automatically cancel the reservation after the period specified in the letter that will be sent to your E-mail when making an order. There are no penalties for canceling an order without payment. However, if you wish, you can pay for the tickets after receiving your visa if the reservation is still valid.

It should be noted that tariffs for issuing and returning tickets through agent.ru may differ significantly from the offers of air carriers, both up and down.

Booking a ticket through the website gomosafer.com

The English-language resource gomosafer.com also allows you to book tickets without paying. The process of placing an order is almost identical to the agent.ru website: you need to register on the site, fill out information about the departure date and passengers and, having received the reservation code, use the search on one of the four sites listed just above: checkmytrip, viewtrip, virtuallythere or myairlines. The result will be a printout of the ticket with the status “Confirmed”.

Since the functionality of the gomosafer website is similar to the Agent.ru service, and the database with carrier offers is not adapted for Russia, we recommend using it only in cases of extreme necessity, when other options do not give the desired result.

What else you need to know about booking tickets for a visa

The practice of obtaining visas by our compatriots shows that concerns about the timing of booking air tickets are unfounded. It is enough to present a printout of your confirmed reservation status to the visa center to successfully go through the bureaucratic visa approval process. Just like with a hotel reservation, which can be canceled without any financial loss, having an airline ticket is a mere formality.

Consular employees do not check the relevance of the reservation in the database, so a printout made through the checkmytrip website or similar services will be sufficient grounds for obtaining a visa.

Conclusion

In this review, we tried to describe in detail how to book air tickets online without making payment using various methods. The choice of a specific option depends on your future plans.

In the event that the desired airline provides a deferred payment that covers the visa processing time, or you simply want to buy a ticket, but do not have a bank card with a sufficient amount at hand, we recommend using the airlines’ websites. In this case you will get the maximum profitable terms purchase and return of tickets. However, it is worth remembering possible penalties in case of refusal to pay.

If you need tickets solely to obtain a visa, and you plan to place the order later, we recommend using aggregator websites: the ordering process in this case will take a minimum of time.

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