Welcome to this series of hints and tips designed to improve your travel experience. This client asks how safe it is to book international travel online. A question is should you be worried about booking your travel activities online and in particular international flights. The first point to notice is that the major carriers are secure. If you make an online booking through a major airline or a cruise company, then your booking can be considered as secure. These carriers will cover the same level of consumer protection as major travel agencies. The booking will be made directly on the payment of the fare without any time lag. Online booking is a secure as booking over a telephone. An online booking is secure as a telephone booking which is made to the same carrier. But make sure that the address on your web browser is the correct one for the company you are booking with. And the address line shown at the top of the browser should exactly match the address on the company's own website. Is your credit card secure? The browser's address line at the time that you provide confidential personal and financial data should start with the carrier's HTTPS colon and then two four dashes. That indicates that any information you provide is encrypted before it travels over the internet. And that makes it then secure from prying eyes. Your browser will also display a padlock image to indicate that the data transmission is secure. Is the agency protected? If you make a booking through an online travel agency, then we advise that you should first ensure that your payment is protected. In many countries, registered travel agents are required to ensure their customers through some form of a travel compensation fund. This protects your money in the case that the for some reason the agency isn't able to pay its debts. You should check that your online service provides this form of protection before transferring your funds. Is the travel that your booking going to meet your needs? Many online bookings are either non-refundable or have a cost involved in changing or canceling your booking. For this reason, we would advise that you delay paying for such bookings until you are certain that the booking will meet your requirements. You can, of course, bookfully flexible fares online, but of course this is at a significantly higher cost.