Even those who shun email are willing to get technical when it comes to buying a flight. It's less time-consuming than waiting in a telephone queue, and telesales staff often seem poorly trained and unenthusiastic about searching for deals. Thanks to canny marketing by the likes of Lastminute.com and EasyJet, people also believe they can save money online.
But is it true? In many cases, it seems so. A call to British Airways for a long-haul return flight to Buenos Aires got me a ticket costing nearly £800. But online I got the same for £490, including the £5 discount for using the web. A colour-coded online calendar showed me cheaper flights for stays less than 28 days, while the telesales employee never suggested this. A further call got me a ticket on the phone for £478. But the web was the first step to taking control of the trip.
Among the brand leaders in this crammed marketplace are Expedia and Travelocity. Both are easy to use and offer similar layouts and services, though Travelocity has been acclaimed for business-friendly extras like repeat bookings and a farewatcher service that sends updates of changes for business travellers. A newcomer in the glossy league is Opodo, created by some of the big-name airlines in a bid to take on the budget competition.
Given the alliances that are forged in the heady world of international flights, you'd probably expect these big brand sites to offer the same deals on standard destinations, but a return flight from London to Lisbon in early May cost between £105 and £295 from Expedia, £130.80 and £152 from Opodo, and £128.80 and a mindblowing £647.50 from Travelocity.
But be warned: start messing about with provincial departure points and these intelligent search engines will come up with insane time- and money-absorbing routes through European hubs, even when you're bound for a common city break destination such as Venice.
When this happens, it's time to go budget-surfing. If you want to go straight to the no-frills section, browse travel.theguardian.com/cheapflights to find which airlines go where, and then enter the garish, primary coloured, idiot-proof environments of EasyJet, Ryanair, Buzz and the like. Here offers are laid out like topless sunbathers and you can get a booking from as little as zero pounds at certain times of the year. As departure dates approach the price rises, so this is a good place to hedge your bets and blow £20 on a future flight you might not even take.
The competition for online flight booking is fierce. According to market researchers at Jupiter MMXI, nearly 6 million people visited UK travel sites in January 2002, with Lastminute.com receiving 849,000 customers. Jupiter expects the European online travel market to be worth around 20bn euros by 2006.
The other place to find bargains is at online auctions, where buyers bid against each other for flights. At sites such as priceline.co.uk, you can also choose to fly via a string of airports and widen your range of dates to make your offer stronger. Bid too low though, and you'll be advised to get real. The risk here is that you have to plug in your credit card details and once you've sent your bid, there's no going back.
But it's not always easy to know how reliable an online company is. Whereas any high street punter can distinguish between a slick operator and a bucket shop, a flash web page with animation and a well-designed look does not guarantee that the represented company is reputable. An expensive site might be the seductive cover for a dodgy or even non-existent company.
Keith Betton, head of corporate affairs at the Association of British Travel Agents (Abta), suggests people "check to see if the online operator is a member of Abta or Atol so that they can get their money back if the company goes bust. "Customers should not take the onscreen membership logos at face value," he adds. "If in doubt they should check with us, via our website, where there are some 700 members, or give us a call."
Of course, the web is not only about flights. Many sites are full-on travel agents offering packages, hotels, car hire, money and information. While some people will always prefer face-to-face bookings, to talk over alternative dates, routes and offers, the advantage of web booking is, in addition to saving time and, with any luck, money, it gives a sense of independence. The flight is the bones of a holiday, the functional bit. This is just the sort of thing that the internet is very good at. Travel sites should allow you to click and fly with the minimum of hassle, leaving you to settle into the non-virtual pleasures of eating out, sightseeing and reading fat books on the beach.
Links: travel.theguardian.com/cheapflights, lastminute.com, EasyJet, Expedia and Travelocity.
