Hi all,
I am intending to purchase an airfare for December 2014 departure to LA and return in late January. I came across this advert on gumtree.
http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/melbourne-cbd/bus-train-plane…
A typical fare around this time is in excess of A$ 2200..
Checked out the website, I am not sure if this is legit ???
Has anyone had experience or come across this website or has had any dealing with them.
Any advise is much appreciated
Thanks
G
Thanks guys for the feedback, I was looking at a 23rd dec departure and 17 jan return, for these dates I couldn't find a fare for less than 2k. Now that I know this is legit . I will try and call them to organize something .
G
think this was one of our adverts.
Guess where most of our clients come from ?
Law firms. Partners & their paralegals & secretaries.
No loss mentioning them as almost impossible for others to get to them unless they've dealt with them before.
One of our owners went to uni with many lawyers who are now owners/partners.
Teresa,
We don't buy group bookings that are cancelled at last minute.
We buy blocks of seats every February for Christmas school holidays, when we get the best deals & airlines then don't have to take the risk.
What risk you ask ?
The risk of another world event, SEP11, Sars, middle east blowing up again, terrorism causing people to not travel.
We ask for 400 outbound & 400 inbound seats every year, which we can then combine with general inventory or just simply combine the outbound & inbound allocations, so we have between 400 & 800 return seats, for departure mid-late DEC or early JAN, coming home early to late JAN.
We get them from BNE, SYD & MEL.
Then sometimes, when people cancel & don't have or can't get travel insurance(eg. pre-existing medical reasons), we can do a name change for a fee (that the airline charges, not us), as long as certain conditions are met.
We can then resell these tickets for clients, but origin issue date, determines when travel must be completed. Virtually all of our Qantas tickets have 12 months validity from date of issue, so the only difference between buying a "normal" ticket & one from passengers unable to travel, is that instead of having 12 months to use ticket from date of payment, have 12 months from date of original ticket issue.
So if someone buys a ticket for Xmas travel, anytime Feb to Nov, then if they can't go, the new ticket holder, would have to use that ticket by Feb to Nov (respectively) which doesn't really effect their travel if for Xmas school holidays. The only real catch is, if the 2nd ticket holder, then can't travel & window to travel could be very short.
If a client pays $1699 return in Feb for travel early Jan & they can't go & let us know say in Oct or Nov, when cheapest fares to USA could easily be $3000+ (never any cheap Xmas seats left by then), they may even get most of their money back.
We charge a $100 fee to sell these types of tickets.
How many do we get ? Sometimes very few, sometimes one person in a large family group can't go & so whole family doesn't want to go.
I put in random dates on skyscanner and found virgin $1692 return (3 Dec to 30 Jan)
Yeah, I was going to say the price doesn't look that great to me - even for this time of year.
I found $1854 on QANTAS without really trying.
Yeah but there's a bit difference in price between leaving early Dec and leaving late Dec, due to school holidays. If the OP is keen on leaving around 23/12, $1900 might be a good deal. OP, check earlier dates in Dec if that's an option for you
yep for departures from mid DEC on, all airlines will be 100% full, so fares are higher. They don't drop again until around 17 Jan, as then too late for families to go & get back for kids to start back at school 27 or 28 Jan.
If kids start 27 Jan, you need to depart USA by 24 Jan, as then arrive back in OZ 26Jan. Many families also want more than 1 day for kids to recover, so 20-23JAN most popular return dates.
no one is going to go all the way to USA for only a few days.
Hi G
My brother in law used these guys to the USA in Jan this year. All legit. They buy group bookings that are cancelled at the last minute and sell them cheaply.
Teresa