Which of these flight brokers would you recommend/avoid?

spud_work

Previously, I have always booked with the airline direct, but I am looking at flights to Denver in the school summer holidays next July/August and the prices coming back from brokers are over £200 cheaper than booking with the airlines direct (BA or Iberia BA codeshare). I have done some dummy bookings to ensure that taxes etc. are included, so that isn't what explains the difference in price and the fact that many brokers seem to offer this price suggests that it isn't a pricing error.

I know the usual wisdom is to book directly, but if i was to save over £200 per person which of the following would you put more trust in and are there any that I should avoid?

Brokers with prices which are cheaper by £200 or more than booking with the airline direct
Travelup
Ebookers
Edreams
Netflights
Opodo (although I have seen negative threads on them in this forum)
Traveltrolley

Travelbag also have the flights, but the saving there is around £170.

Your thoughts, suggestions and wisdom are, as always, appreciated

Alan_Bowen

Avoid E Dreams and Opodo, they are the same company and when you pay they add fees, they are based in Spain and the customer service is zilch. Travelup uses an Asian call centre that comes in for criticism, never come across traveltrolley. I have booked successfully with Netflights, they are based in Preston with no overseas call centres and ebookers seems to get reasonable reviews as well

callum9999

From that list I'd personally choose ebookers.

bagand96

eBookers and Netflights are the only ones in your list I would consider reputable.

eBookers are part of Orbitz, a huge American travel company with many of the internets major brands. Netflights were part of Thomas Cook until recently, they were sold to Dnata, who are massive in all things aviation and based in Dubai.

cubegame

Phone the airline and ask them to match the broker. I did this recently with American Airlines and had a reduction of £78 per ticket.

The only potential drawback is a phone booking charge but I even got this waived.

Kernow666

have used ebookers and couple times and also flightcentre which are great

got a flght booked with travelup for next april and although i have read a few horror stories everything is confirmed on the airlines website and i even contacted them to check and its all good

i will continue to use brokers as the prices are amazing sometimes

Obviously_the_best

eBookers and TravelTrolley are both fine.

zerog

Try lastminute as well and don't forget topcashback/quidco

jdsurfer1968

[FONT=&quot]AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS. Just received a e-mail saying that my booking has been cancelled by Jet Airways the crappy airline that took my money because of a technical issue with the pricing . My only options are to either pay another 400+ Euro per person to continue with my booking and get a full refund . Obviously I’m going for the full refund so I called E-bookers and after 3 phone calls spoke to Sean a Senior Supervisor at Ebookers . All he could say after a 30 mins phone call was that it could take a month to get my money back and offered not one little bit of compensation for ruining a family of four trip of a life time . [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]This company is not interested in their customers and putting things right when thing go wrong only how much profit they can make out of you . Obviously it’s your choice if you use this company though don’t always expect that the amount they show on their website is the amount you will pay . You might want to think about using a company that thinks of their customers and not just their bottom line like Ebookers [/FONT]

Caz3121

Is there a reason you did not book direct with the airline? I assume Ebookers were showing an incorrect fare so they appeared to be €400 cheaper per person that the correct fare.
Hopefully it will not take 30 days to get the money back but many of these 3rd party agents do not have live pricing so come back and ask for more money to complete the booking, if you want price certainty then book direct with airline

Voyager2002

jdsurfer1968 wrote: »

[FONT=&quot]AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS. Just received a e-mail saying that my booking has been cancelled by Jet Airways the crappy airline that took my money because of a technical issue with the pricing . My only options are to either pay another 400+ Euro per person to continue with my booking and get a full refund . Obviously I’m going for the full refund so I called E-bookers and after 3 phone calls spoke to Sean a Senior Supervisor at Ebookers . All he could say after a 30 mins phone call was that it could take a month to get my money back and offered not one little bit of compensation for ruining a family of four trip of a life time . [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]This company is not interested in their customers and putting things right when thing go wrong only how much profit they can make out of you . Obviously it’s your choice if you use this company though don’t always expect that the amount they show on their website is the amount you will pay . You might want to think about using a company that thinks of their customers and not just their bottom line like Ebookers [/FONT]

The problem could well be the airline's fault... Ebookers is a reputable agency, although what you have described is a typical experience with eDreams and Opodo.

Rather than waiting a month, ask your card to do a chargeback since the vendor is not honouring the contract.