Expereince of "phone only" flight agents such as DialAFlight

Folkpoet

While searching for online flights for New Zealand im bombarded by adverts from "phone deals only" agents which seem at first glance to be much cheaper than online booking.

Dial A Flight is one of these - they seem to have very good Trustpilot ratings from 10,500 reviews...
Dial$ Travel is another...far fewer ratings

Any advice on these or others?
Are they actually cheaper in the end or just touting cheap-looking prices to get you to call?
Any pitfalls to be aware of?

eskbanker

In terms of pitfalls, using any intermediary between yourself and the airline introduces risk in the event of changes or problems further downstream, in that you'd be subject to two sets of Ts & Cs (which potentially entails two sets of admin charges and gives much less leverage if needing a refund) and less protection from credit card providers, for example.

Westin

I haven’t heard bad reports about Dial A Flight.  At least they are a U.K. based business.

Might also be worth you looking at Trailfinders and Netflights.  Again, U.K. businesses with good reputations.

DullGreyGuy

Never heard anything negative about dial-a-flight, Flight Centre or Trailfinders either however their pricing has never been cheap when I've enquired but these have been basic return tickets... I understand they come into their own when you get into more complex arrangements

kten

I just came across this subject as I was following MSE recommendation to use Kayak/Momondo to find cheap flights and all the two sites had popups advertising agents of which Dial4travel.co.uk was one, all touting up to 30% lower prices for the same flight. But you must call them and pay a £50 deposit for the deal. By looking through their Ts&Cs, it seems to me they are doing a gamble at the customer's cost: if in the end, airlines have unsold tickets and willing to sell them at low price then the deal is a success as they may have some sort of internal access to those tickets. Otherwise, according to Ts&Cs, they would ask you to pay a higher than what they had touted originally and if you refuse then you lose the deposit. 
I think that's why MSE does not mention these sites for finding cheaper flights.

Marmaduke123

If it's just for flights, always book direct with the airline.  You really don't want to have a middleman in case of any type of problem with the flight, it just adds needless complexity. By all means search for flights in any way you want, but book direct with the airline.

comeandgo

I’m in the middle of a multi flight holiday.  Last flight was our eighth and more to go.  I always book direct with airlines as I believe it makes communication between you and airlines so much easier.  We have had lost luggage, late flights, cancelled flights but all have been dealt with directly and quickly.  At the moment we are also in New Zealand.

Doshwaster

Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. Always book direct with the airline or occasionally a reputable agency (e.g. Expedia), never with a company I've never heard of.