Lastminute.com have been running top secret hotels for a while now, but on Monday they extended the offer to flights too.

In the case of top secret flight bookings, Lastminute.com “give you the departure and arrival city and tell you if your flight is direct or indirect. You won’t know the actual airports or the time but that’s the fun!”

So as an example I decided to look for flights from London to Reykjavik because I know that for direct flights to Reykjavik this could be one of two airlines, Icelandair or Iceland Express. This search didn’t bring up any top secret flights so I had another look  for return flights direct to Los Angeles instead. Still nothing. . .  OK last chance, I tried a search for flights to Dubai. Jackpot – I am offered direct flights from a top secret airline for only £189pp return including tax. Very nice thank you.

Looking further into the booking, I was offered carbon offsetting (£25), and travel insurance each of which could be removed from the booking. It wasn’t possible at the next stage to get any more details about the flights other than the departure date so if I booked I would have to be prepared to fly from any London airport and at any time – but I would be told this as soon as I booked so at least I could plan. From the booking form it was good to see I could still let them know a preference for aisle / window seat order a special meal or order special assistance.

I went to the checkout and was surprised to see I was now being told my flight was from Heathrow so this narrowed down the possible airlines to and took a lot of the “risk” out of the booking. I’m not sure whether this always shows up and whether Lastminute plan to remove this information but at the moment it’s there !

Comparing the results with a search on other flight websites I could see that the lastminute price was excellent and I think it would also be fairly easy to guess which airline it would be flying with. In this case I think it was Royal Brunei, depending on the route it could be easier or harder to work out which airline was involved.

My Verdict : A good way for airlines to seperate leisure passengers (price sensitive) from business passengers (departure time sensitive). The price was good, and it wasn’t hard to figure out which airline you would fly with (if you care).

Interested, as ever, to get your comments on this. Would you book a “top secret” flight ?, or a “top secret” hotel ?