After two years of cancellations, deferments and marathon sessions with airline customer service, many travelers are hoping to book summer trips that actually pan out this year.

“I had the month of May 2020 completely off work,” says Katharine Ng, an engineering program manager in Los Angeles . Ng planned to visit Europe and Morocco but had to cancel and rebook for the following year, 2021. Those new plans were eventually scuttled because she wasn’t yet fully vaccinated by May, and travel restrictions got in the way.

“Thankfully, canceling the trips was easy because of the COVID cancellation policies,” Ng says. Yet while getting a refund was nice, it didn’t scratch the itch for taking an actual vacation.

Many travelers, twice bitten by summer plans gone awry, remain shy of making them again this year. Even the experts have given up trying to predict what twists the pandemic will take next. But regardless of what happens, travelers can maximize their chances of summer travel success with a few simple steps.