Which of these flight brokers would you recommend/avoid?

Bri1

Not on your list but have found Holiday Genie to be straightforward, showing the correct priced actually bookable flights, no sneaky extra's or price hikes when you book, upfront info & direct Airline login code sent within a very short time of paying, also mine have been a fair bit cheaper than the Airlines own sites

getmore4less

Check out holidayprirates for options on ways to get good prices.

Also consider american consolidtors,
I Use 1800flyeurope for 1 ways back from America.
Also had good prices with Best travel store.
There are others

Another thing to do is look at the alternative main sites sometimes there are better deals using .aus or .nz or .....

langlandmoney

cubegame wrote: »

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.

I really don't understand this price matching culture.
If you see a flight at a much better price why don't you book it with the agent, who are offering that price, by asking the airline to price match it you are restricting the agents ability to bring prices down for everyone.
If the agent goes out of business because people just ask the airline to price match pretty soon the airline will be able to overcharge with no fear of agents offering lower prices

jpsartre

langlandmoney wrote: »

If you see a flight at a much better price why don't you book it with the agent, who are offering that price

Because there several downsides to doing so.

peachyprice

langlandmoney wrote: »

I really don't understand this price matching culture.
If you see a flight at a much better price why don't you book it with the agent, who are offering that price, by asking the airline to price match it you are restricting the agents ability to bring prices down for everyone.
If the agent goes out of business because people just ask the airline to price match pretty soon the airline will be able to overcharge with no fear of agents offering lower prices

I really don't understand the using a third party to book a flight culture.

When things go wrong on flight only bookings it's those who booked through a third party that are at the bottom of the pile when it comes to sorting it out and it's those who the airline won't deal directly with leaving them with another tier of communication to get through before they get a resolution.

Agents are only offering lower prices because airlines are offloading their unpopular seats through them, agents can't offer lower prices on routes than the airlines can sell themselves, there will always be routes that airlines want to dump on to agents, asking an airline to match a price isn't going to stop that.

callum9999

peachyprice wrote: »

I really don't understand the using a third party to book a flight culture.

When things go wrong on flight only bookings it's those who booked through a third party that are at the bottom of the pile when it comes to sorting it out and it's those who the airline won't deal directly with leaving them with another tier of communication to get through before they get a resolution.

Agents are only offering lower prices because airlines are offloading their unpopular seats through them, agents can't offer lower prices on routes than the airlines can sell themselves, there will always be routes that airlines want to dump on to agents, asking an airline to match a price isn't going to stop that.

And I really don't understand what you find so difficult to grasp about people preferring to get something cheaper...

I've taken 104 flights over the past 5 years - only one of them has gone wrong (it was cancelled) and the airline automatically dealt with it at the airport.

While you stay baffled, I will continue to book with third parties getting bargains such as £110 return to New York and £229 return to Johannesburg (both on BA).

Bri1

Once you have booked & paid for the flights cheaper through a third party site (always baffles me how they can undercut the same flights on the airlines own site anyway, but hey, money saved ), you get the Airlines own website access code almost immediately & never deal with the booking site again, the airline just deals with you as their customer for anything in my experience


This is a site dedicated to saving Money & getting the best value deals, so why would you want to pay more, maybe it's the wrong place for some?

jpsartre

Bri1 wrote: »

, the airline just deals with you as their customer for anything in my experience

That's incorrect, the airline will send you back to the agent for anything that involves a change to your booking.

To comment on the post before yours, of course some people use 3rd party bookers because of the price and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that most people are, one, unaware of the downsides that come with doing this, and two, do not realize that many 3rd party sites are incompetent and/or dishonest. If one were to make a list of every airtravel related complaint posted on forums like this or Tripadvisor you'd probably find that 90% stem from issues directly relating to going through a middleman.

Bri1

jpsartre wrote: »

That's incorrect, the airline will send you back to the agent for anything that involves a change to your booking.

To comment on the post before yours, of course some people use 3rd party bookers because of the price and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that most people are, one, unaware of the downsides that come with doing this, and two, do not realize that many 3rd party sites are incompetent and/or dishonest. If one were to make a list of every airtravel related complaint posted on forums like this or Tripadvisor you'd probably find that 90% stem from issues directly relating to going through a middleman.

Fair enough, but I must have been really lucky then if that's the general case, I was only commenting on my actual experience, have booked quite a few flights this way also sometimes direct.



But I have dealt directly with the airlines for a couple of minor problems which they happily addressed, Have booked seats, extra bags etc with no problems thus far, with some quite substantial savings.


I am aware that some brokers are rubbish hiking up the price when you try to book a good deal, & sometimes they have hidden charges that are sneakily added on at the end, these I have learned to avoid

callum9999

Bri1 wrote: »

Fair enough, but I must have been really lucky then if that's the general case, I was only commenting on my actual experience, have booked quite a few flights this way also sometimes direct.



But I have dealt directly with the airlines for a couple of minor problems which they happily addressed, Have booked seats, extra bags etc with no problems thus far, with some quite substantial savings.


I am aware that some brokers are rubbish hiking up the price when you try to book a good deal, & sometimes they have hidden charges that are sneakily added on at the end, these I have learned to avoid

Yes you will deal with the airline with day-to-day stuff like choosing seats and adding baggage, but the travel agent is in charge of the major stuff. If, for example, your flight is cancelled and so you need to change it to a different one, the airline may refuse to talk to you about it and insist you rearrange it with the travel agent (which may or may not be easy depending on the agent).

I'm happy to take that risk as any issues like that are most likely to take place while you're actually at the airport - and you can almost invariably liaise directly with the airline at that point, regardless of it being a travel agent booking.