Flight, hotel, car: which do you book first?

transcript

Book a trip. A flight, a hotel and a car. All three, or none. So which one do you book first? The order decides what a failure costs.

Rank them by how hard they are to cancel. The car is held for 24 hours. The hotel only pre-authorises your card, for 24 to 48 hours. The airline charges immediately. And its change fees are expensive.

So start with the easiest to cancel. Reserve the car. Then pre-authorise the hotel. Then the flight. That's the pivot, the point of no return. After it, capture the hotel payment, and confirm the car.

Why this order? Say the flight booking fails. You void the hotel pre-auth. Then release the car. Both were holds. Nothing to refund, no change fees.

One more trap. The hotel pre-auth can expire after 24 hours. So the saga's deadline is 23 hours. Not done? Compensate everything.

Book in order of how hard each step is to cancel. Holds first. The step you can't take back comes after them.

Full breakdown in the lecture.