It pays to try every avenue for flights

Viking_Man

I recently booked a flight to Denmark at Christmas. I followed the MSE method, trying the screenscrapers first. I tried travel supermaket and kelkoo and travel jungle, maybe another. They ticked away, scouring the entire Internet for cheap flights on my chosen dates. They all came back with the same flight, with SAS. The agents were different (Expedia, E-booker, Thomas Cook) but the flight was the same. So I investigated the various links to see what the prices were and, perhaps reassuringly, all had pretty much the same price. Although Thomas Cook wanted 2% to pay by credit card. And they all wanted GBP10 per adult as an booking fee.

Well just on a whim I went to the SAS site and found that they have a direct online booking system. So I tried it out, thinking that the fare would be much more if booked direct with the airline. But surprisingly the web site quoted a fare which was exactly the same as the ones found by Expedia etc. Not only that, but SAS did not charge me a booking fee. So the result was that the cheapest deal of all was obtained direct from the airline. I guess it sometimes pays to cut out the middle-man.

Another advantage for me is if something goes wrong I am dealing direct with the airline so it's clear where the responsibility lies, and theres none of this being passed from pillar to post between the airline and the agency.

So anyway just a reminder to not rely too heavily on those comparison web sites - they can identify cheap fights but you may get a better deal by booking direct with the airline.