Travelup / Travel trolley

sarah69696pink

Has anyone got any experience of the above?
Cheapest flights are with them. Don't want to book if likely to be issues, but don't really want to spend £200 more for exact same flight either!

Caz3121

a number of threads on the TipAdvisor Air Travel forums
note - the 'advertised' (cheap) price may not actually exist to purchase as they don't have live pricing
you make a booking request to purchase flight A for £x
credit card hold made for that amount
they attempt to purchase ticket...oops not available
either call to you to say, you need to pay £200 more or wait for your money to be refunded' or sometimes just allow the booking to auto-cancel due no payment

cubegame

What airline is it? Do they price match OTAs?

It is normally not recommended to not book with airline. Personally, I may consider for a £200 saving but I'd be very worried until I was on the plane!

Caz3121

If it a non-live fare you should be notified (asked for more £) within 24/48 hours.....the thing is the real prices could increase in this timeframe

Pollycat

Are you sure it really is the 'same flight'?
Some of these 3rd party flight sellers don't include luggage (although more carriers are now doing 'lite' fares that exclude hold luggage.
And they can be a nightmare if you need to make a change.
When you book a flight with these companies you agree to their t&cs, not the airline.
And if you're booking a connecting flight, they often cobble together an itinerary.
I'd advise you to look on TripAdvisor - there's lots of threads - and decide if you want to give them your money.

stevie11

I can echo the above comments. I would question how the OTA get identical flights £200 cheaper. You may be lucky and everything goes ok, on the hand you may wish you had booked direct with the airline.

Caz3121

good point re baggage (if you need it) - it is often cheaper to buy the standard economy that includes baggage rather than the basic/lite and then adding it on. Third party sites don't make baggage charges as clear as the airline websites

EveryWhere

Travel Trolley fine, as long as you don't want to make changes later on, as there may be admin charges.
Travel Trolley is the on-line name of the long established Southall Travel.
I don't know about after sales service, but they aren't the kind of business that put fake prices up.

I booked with TravelUp once and whilst there were no problems with the booking, they Spammed me horribly, even after I requested removal from their list. Had to block them manually.

sarah69696pink

thanks all for the advice. Definitely the same flight, and I've added the baggage on, so it definitely includes that too.
Not sure how it is so much cheaper....I asked flight centre to see if they could match (as booked with them before without any issue) and they couldn't.
Would normally prefer to go with airline direct - but may take my chances with this. Will try travel trolley I think.
Thanks so much again.

Westin

All valid comments already made.

Quite a lot of the complaints raised on sites like Trip Advisor from people using OTAs like TravelUp or Travel Trolley are from those who searched purely on the parameter of ‘cheap’ and did not read what they were about to purchase.

The cheap tickets have restrictions and OTAs often will not easily supply aftercare customer service. That’s why they are cheap. If you know your travel dates and know that they won’t change then you may find a saving.

Knowing how to spell your name is also a plus point. Just because your mates down the pub call you ‘Nobby’ doesn’t mean you book your airline ticket using that name. If you have the inability to spell your name correctly as it is shown in your passport do not be surprised or rant when you are asked for a fee to change it.

Many on line complaints come from those who buy a cheap non-refundable, non-changeable ticket and get upset when the agent will not change dates of travel, passenger names or refund the ticket. These are also the same people who don’t buy travel insurance but then shout Scam when the airline or travel company won’t give them a refund when they are poorly and can’t travel.

Good for you for checking for reviews and comments before purchase.

anna_1977

Travel Trolley fine, I have booked a number of flights with them as they really undercut BA for the same flight