Adding hold luggage on flight bookings

aroominyork

I am booking some international flights and most options on comparison sites (Kayak, Opodo) show 'hand luggage only'. I am also getting quotes from a travel agent and he tells me that after booking hand luggage only you can go to the booking on the airline's site and add hold luggage. He says this is standard practice now - "payback time for passengers". Can people confirm this is always the case; are any exceptions which could leave me with a ticket but unable to add luggage?

Westin

Those meta search comparison sites will indeed normally display the base economy fare (hand baggage only) so you do need to have your wits about you.  Many will however have an option to show prices with a checked bag, or as you say you ‘might’ be able to add later.

I have no idea why the comment “pay back time for passengers”.  These sites have adapted to strip every thing out and display the cheapest price - as most people seem to think only ‘price’ and not ‘value’. Many then seem to forget this and then moan that they have no baggage allowance or no meal inflight when they bought a cheap ticket.

You have not mentioned the airline but in I think the vast majority of cases a checked bag can be added later post booking.  It might however cost more than if you bought this way in the first place.

Fine to use Opodo/Kayak as a search tool to look at options but I would personally not recommend booking with them.  Simply search Opodo reviews or pop over to Trip Advisor to read the daily posts of despair from those who bought from them and then have issues. Instead either book direct with the airline or use a good UK based travel agent or flight seller.

aroominyork

Thanks, Westin. Yesterday and today I was looking at airlines' own sites (Air France, Lufthansa) and have been pleasantly surprised by the fares they show. I assumed direct = dearer, but that no longer seems necessarily to be the case. If I can book direct I definitely would, even if slightly more expensive.

TELLIT01

The likes of Opodo and Kayak are unlikely to have access to fairs which aren't available direct with the airline.  As has been said, they tend to strip everything out to show as low a base price as possible.

Sandtree

aroominyork said:

I assumed direct = dearer, but that no longer seems necessarily to be the case. If I can book direct I definitely would, even if slightly more expensive.

Hasn't been for decades for the majority of large carriers, some smaller country flag carriers can still be poor on direct offerings. 

The main difference is that you obviously wont see hack fares which obviously can be cheaper but introduce the risk of non-continuous tickets. 

As to direct -v- agent... I'd go direct -v- some budget agent however have certainly had the benefit of a high quality agent when a flight was cancelled and friends who'd booked direct took hours to try and get through to the airline and ultimately had to abandon their trip whereas we'd booked via an agent and within 45 minutes we'd been rebooked on another airline at the original's expense.

Voyager2002

I did once buy an air ticket and then found myself unable to add hold luggage. The flight was with BA but I bought from a cheap OTA.