Purchasing flight tickets

twopenny

I'd say still book direct with the airlines.

If anything goes awry then you have one company (per flight) to deal with.

Use a 3rd party and it's almost impossible to sort a problem out. Expedia won't sort a problem. the airline will say you booked through Expedia et al.

You can do multi city with one airline or book seperately with one or more.

Being days apart should give you options on prices.

The time to look for the same airline for 2 flights is if it's all one journey with a transfer. So if you were flying say US to France via London - booked with different airlines. If the first is late or the either cancelled you have to deal/pay for another flight.

For the future when you can be flexible or last minute sign up for the most useful ailines offers or sales. I know someone who does this with either one destination in mind or sees an unmissible price for somewhere and goes there. Too risky and complicated for multi cities in Asia.

Doshwaster

I would say almost always book directly with the airline.

I have occasionally used Expedia/Booking.com for lesser known airlines in Asia where I didn't trust their website. I didn't have an problem though I don't know if the booking sites (or even the airline) would have been any help if there had been a problem

Voyager2002

Doshwaster said:

I would say almost always book directly with the airline.

I have occasionally used Expedia/Booking.com for lesser known airlines in Asia where I didn't trust their website. I didn't have an problem though I don't know if the booking sites (or even the airline) would have been any help if there had been a problem

Good advice.

Note that if you use Booking you are actually using Gotogate (and adding yet another company in the way to give you further problems if anything goes wrong), and personally I would rather not use Gotogate.

I have used Expedia without problems (for airlines based in Turkey whose website behaved strangely) and also Trip.com. I think Trip are good but have posted before about additional fees I incurred because I used them. However I also found that it is possible to communicate with them in an emergency, and they are good for Asian airlines.

Doshwaster

Voyager2002 said:

Doshwaster said:

I would say almost always book directly with the airline.

I have occasionally used Expedia/Booking.com for lesser known airlines in Asia where I didn't trust their website. I didn't have an problem though I don't know if the booking sites (or even the airline) would have been any help if there had been a problem

Good advice.

Note that if you use Booking you are actually using Gotogate (and adding yet another company in the way to give you further problems if anything goes wrong), and personally I would rather not use Gotogate.

I have used Expedia without problems (for airlines based in Turkey whose website behaved strangely) and also Trip.com. I think Trip are good but have posted before about additional fees I incurred because I used them. However I also found that it is possible to communicate with them in an emergency, and they are good for Asian airlines.

Yes, the problem with some Asian airlines is that they don't put a lot of investment into their website, especially the English language version, so it may be easier to use a Western site like Expedia and also less likely to raise objections from your credit card company.