Airport Websites For Flight Bookings

tamiami

Has anyone used any of the airport's website to book flights - I didn't realise you could book flights direct on airport website!

Are the flight prices any better?

richardw

No.

Book through the airline's website and keep things simple.

Alan_Bowen

Airports do deals with a specific agent, the sale isn't by the airport or the airline. As a general rule they are not the cheapest at all, you are paying agent who in turn has to pay a fee to the airport for the business, so keep away

InsideInsurance

tamiami wrote: »

Has anyone used any of the airport's website to book flights - I didn't realise you could book flights direct on airport website!

Are the flight prices any better?

Its likely that the majority have just done a deal with a travel agent to have a version of their site white labeled to themselves. How prices are will vary, sometimes may be a bit better, sometimes a bit worse etc.

There is no inherent advantage in doing it thats for certain.

richardw wrote: »

Book through the airline's website and keep things simple.

Not always a good thing to do. Had flights booked to Paris with Air France with an associate. Our flights were booked via an agent and theirs were booked directly with Air France.

Needless to say the flights were cancelled by AF due to the pilot strikes. I got a phone call from our agent at 10 am on the day the cancellation was announced (48hrs in advance) saying they could either refund or had already reserved us seats on the BA flight that left 15 minutes or so after the AF one had been due to at AF's expense.

Our friend gave up trying to contact AF after 8 hours of their phone system simply saying they are too busy so please call back later and so had to book BA flights himself (cost him another £400) and is now awaiting AF to decide if they will reimburse him or not etc

jpsartre

InsideInsurance wrote: »

I got a phone call from our agent at 10 am on the day the cancellation was announced (48hrs in advance) saying they could either refund or had already reserved us seats on the BA flight that left 15 minutes or so after the AF one had been due to at AF's expense.

Unfortunately that's a unique situation. Very few online travel sites would provide this kind of service.

InsideInsurance

jpsartre wrote: »

Very few online travel sites would provide this kind of service.

Mine was a telephone not online travel agent and wasnt suggesting its always going to be the norm but balancing the argument that it is always better to book via the airline direct.

When things go badly wrong - an airline cancels 80% of their flights - then contacting an agent is much easier than contacting the airline.

I really should stop booking Air France though as I had a similar issue ~4 years ago with them doing preemptive cancellations of flights due to predicted bad weather and whilst the agent didnt contact us that time we were able to get straight through to speak to someone at the agency when they opened -v- the hours I'd been spending trying to get through to Air France's line which had opened earlier than the agents.

Certainly wouldnt pay a premium for an agency booking but there can be some advantages in certain circumstances.