I've been organising a lot of flights lately and use sjyscanner as an option. Frequently travel agents are cheaper than the airlines directly. At first I thought this was due to no gst, but often it is more than nine or ten percent nd this is just for cheapie domestic one way flights.
Does anyone know how these travel agents can charge less than virgin, Qantas, jetstar, etihad, Emirates, etc?
It's to do with the buying power of travel agents.
Airlines will allocate them seats at a discounted price; cheaper than can be bought with the airline directly.
This is so that they can fill up as many seats on a plane as possible.
That is why it is possible to purchase the same seat at different prices. It also has to do with the timing.
Generally the more seats available the cheaper the ticket and vice versa.
I've never had a travel agent tell me a cheaper ticket price that what I can find from my own research online.
is that directly with an airline or another booking agent?
I usually get travel agents to match what i find online.
here here me neither and I have been on at least 200 flights domestically and internationally
Be aware that should you need to change flight dates it can be dearer to do that through an online agent or travel agent than through the airline.
Once you leave Australia the ticket belongs to airline and it is much cheaper to change dates with them directly. This applied to Thai airlines so I am assuming that it will apply to all. Certainly worth checking with airline office here before you fly should you need to make subsequent changes.
often for international travel,
I will go to a travel agent in a suburb that predominately are of that ethnicity. eg china town for flights to china. you'll find those agents will sell more flight to those destinations on particular carriers and airlines will often allocate more seats or give a bigger wholesale discount to those agents. so the likely hood of you getting a better price is higher.
you wouldn't go to Chinatown travel agent to buy a ticket to the middle east.
having said that, places like flight centre can sometimes yield good prices as they are offered different prices to other agents. just because they are flight centre.
flight centre has a pretty big stronghold in Australia in the travel industry.
Thanks fir that advice about going to ethnic centres.
That's really good advice - I always walk past the smaller ones as they do look a tad dodgy
Also, there's price matching so use that too. I always book direct with the ailrines and hotels once I know what the cheapest available is from any other source. Then, use Skype to contact directly to to state your preferences.
When a Travel Agent makes a booking for you with the Airline, that Airline will pay a commision to the Travel Agent. This can range anywhere from 5% up to 25% for certain airfares and promotions Airlines run from time to time. The discount that the Travel Agent gives you, will eat into their commision. Hence why some websites will take a larger cut out of the FARE but then charge a "Booking Fee" - I also beleive it's the same with hotels…. =)