The Best Way to Book Group Flights
Group travel can be a brilliant experience, whether you’re going on a trip with friends and family or travelling to a conference with your colleagues. Booking tickets on the same flight can make your journey more enjoyable and less stressful, and in many cases making a group booking for flights can provide other benefits to your experience as well.
Depending on the size of your group, making a group flights booking can be quite stressful and complicated. In the event of organising corporate travel, getting the right dates, details and prices is incredibly important, which is why many people choose to work with an agency like FlightsPro to help manage a group booking.
No matter why you’re booking flights for a large group, this article explains everything you need to know to ensure the process runs smoothly.
When Do You Need to Book Group Flights?
Group flight bookings are needed in a range of professional and personal situations. Whilst there are some scenarios where individual bookings make more sense, booking flights for a group may be required in the following situations.
- A trip for you and your colleagues
- A family holiday
- Employee transport for a work event
- A holiday with a group of friends
- Client transport for a meeting or conference
- Guest travel for an event like a wedding
These are all cases where the best scenario is all passengers arriving or departing a destination at the same time. In the case of things like family holidays, it’s also beneficial to book group flights so that passengers can sit next to each other on the plane.
How Does Group Flight Booking Work?
Booking flights for a group is often required for group holidays or corporate trips. To ensure that everyone arrives at the right time, and also to allow travellers to sit together, a group flight booking is the easiest way to purchase all the necessary tickets in one go.
A group booking for flights works by purchasing all of the tickets at the same time, instead of each group member buying a plane ticket individually. Whatever the purpose or nature of the trip, having everyone travelling together is often the best way to remove the likelihood of travel problems and make the most of group travel deals.
Anyone can organise group bookings for flights, but you can also outsource this task to a travel management company or travel agent like FlightsPro. This can be the best option, especially if you’re organising business travel or you’re booking for a very large, multigenerational group.
Why Book Group Flights?
Everyone knows that plane tickets fluctuate in price, which means that the same people on a flight can end up paying wildly different amounts for their tickets. When you book group tickets, you’ll usually get the same price for everyone, which can often work out cheaper in the long run.
An advantage of group bookings for flights is that you often don’t have to confirm the names of passengers until a couple of weeks before departure, which allows for more flexibility that can be really useful for group travel. Some airlines may also allow you to share baggage allowance between passengers travelling in a group, which is ideal if you’ve got a lot of luggage.
Making a group flight booking allows more flexibility than everyone purchasing individual tickets and means that the task of booking tickets is completed in one go. Whether you’re in charge of organising a corporate trip or just booking flights for a family holiday, a group booking can save a lot of time and hassle.
How to Book Group Flights
If you’ve decided not to use a travel agent and are responsible for booking flights for a large group, the first thing you need to determine is how large the group is, where you’re travelling from and the dates you will be flying out and returning. Using this information, you’ll be able to determine which airlines offer the flights you need.
Some airlines allow you to book for groups of up to around 25 online, whilst others require you to call their group booking department. With the former, you’ll be able to view prices and options immediately, whilst the latter means you’ll usually be sent a quote for the cost of your group’s travel.
In most cases, you won’t have to provide the names of all the passengers when you make the booking, as this can usually be confirmed up to a few weeks before the flight. Many airlines also let you change the size of the booking by 10-20% before departure as well, which allows for really useful flexibility.
Once you’ve booked your group flights, all you’ll need to do is confirm the passenger names by the appropriate deadline and complete any necessary online check-in tasks. All that’s left is to ensure that everyone arrives at the airport at the same time!
What is the Best Way to Book Flights for a Group?
If you’re wondering how to book flights for a group, you have two options. The first is to make the booking yourself, and the other is to work with a travel agent who will manage the booking for you. Below, we’ll weigh up the pros and cons of each option.
Booking Flights Yourself
When you book group flights yourself, you have control over when you travel and how much you pay, which can be a benefit if you’re working with a specific budget or plan. If you’re flying with an airline that allows for online group booking, it’s also really straightforward to book multiple tickets online, making the task of booking tickets yourself simple and stress-free.
However, not all airlines facilitate group bookings online, which means that you may have to ring up an airline and sort your booking over the phone. If you’re new to arranging group travel then this process can be confusing and time-consuming, and it’s also easier to make mistakes when making a booking over the phone.
A key disadvantage when booking flights for a group yourself is that it can be a long-winded process. Comparing deals from different airlines, getting quotes and finding a date and time that works for everyone takes time, and you might not have the luxury of several hours to find the best deal.
An advantage of booking group flights yourself however is that you can take the time to find the best deals, which is ideal if you’re travelling on a budget. In some cases, you can get cheap group flights by booking in smaller groups or booking at a certain time, and when you’re in charge of making the booking you can use this to your advantage.
Using a Travel Agent
When you book group flights through a travel agency like FlightsPro, all of the admin is done for you. You need to provide the size of your group, your destination and your travel dates, and the agent will be able to book the tickets for you. The main advantage of this is that it’s fast and simple to get group plane tickets, which is ideal if you’re trying to efficiently plan a trip.
Another advantage of using a travel agent for a group flight booking is that it can take all of the stress out of a complex process. In corporate scenarios, there can be a lot of people that need accommodating, and a group travel agency will have experience with managing and sorting this for you.
This experience is another advantage of using an agent when booking flights for a large group. Group travel agents will have existing relationships with airlines as well as the knowledge of how to get the best deals on tickets, so you’ll likely get the best possible price and experience when you let an expert book your group trip.
Whilst booking flights for a group with an agency does come with a fee, this cost is often worth it for having someone else manage the details of your booking. A potential disadvantage could be that you’ll have less control over your booking, but if you find the right travel agent to work with and are clear with your requirements, you’ll have a very positive experience.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is it cheaper to book group flights?
It can be cheaper to book group flights, as some airlines will offer slight discounts on tickets for large groups of people. Booking lots of tickets at once also means that you’ll get the same price for each, whereas ticket prices can vary a lot for the same flight if you book them individually at different times.
However, some airlines will not offer group discounts on flights and instead offer other perks like booking flexibility or priority check-in. So it’s not automatically cheaper to book tickets in a group, although working with a travel agency to do this does often mean you get the best deal.
Can you get group rates on flights?
A lot of airlines do not offer reduced rates when you book tickets as a group, although some might for particularly large bookings. However, you still benefit from making group flight bookings because you’ll be given assurance that everyone will be on the same flight, you’ll get flexibility with confirming passenger details, and you’ll often be able to change the size of the group booking without being charged, up to a point.
How many people are considered a group for travel?
When it comes to booking flights for a group, you usually need to be booking tickets for more than seven people to make use of an airline’s group booking service. Some airlines allow online booking for up to 20 guests, whereas others ask that you contact their group booking team directly for groups of over 8 people. Every airline has a different threshold for what constitutes a group, so the best thing to do is check with the airlines you’re flying with to see whether you’ll benefit from making a group booking.
Summary
Group travel can be very complicated, but knowing the best way to book flights for a group can help to make the whole process smooth and stress-free. Most airlines have dedicated teams that will assist with making a group flight booking, and with a lot of flexibility up until a few weeks before your departure, it’s a great way to get the best deal on your plane tickets.
To take all the stress out of booking flights for a group and get the best value, working with a travel agency that specialises in group travel is a great idea. FlightsPro is an expert in this area, offering the best group prices, exceptional customer support and complimentary check-in service and seat allocation. Take a look at our group flight bookings page for more information, or get in touch to speak to our team.
