AuntBetty.com.au is apparently the online wing of flight centre. Skyscanner is letting me book cheap tickets through them. But as per earlier discussions on ozbargain, normally 3rd party sites are riskier.
I would assume that this is relatively safe due to being a business of flight centre. Just wanting to know if anyone here has actually booked flight tickets from aunt betty and how was the entire experience.
I've even heard Flight Centre will still happily price beat them if you prefer.
EDIT: Aunt Betty's T&Cs look better though.
Flight Centre
Changes to Domestic/Trans-Tasman bookings will incur a fee of $30 per passenger per booking in addition to supplier fees.
Cancellations to Domestic/Trans-Tasman bookings will incur a fee of $50 per passenger per booking in addition to supplier fees.
Changes to International bookings (excluding Trans-Tasman bookings) will incur a fee of $75 per passenger per booking in addition to supplier fees.
Cancellations to International bookings (excluding Trans-Tasman bookings) will incur a fee of $300 per passenger per booking in addition to supplier fees.
Aunt Betty
Changes to Domestic bookings will incur a fee of $45 per passenger per booking in addition to supplier fees.
Cancellations to Domestic bookings will incur a fee of $45 per passenger per booking in addition to supplier fees.
Changes to International bookings will incur a fee of $55 per passenger per booking in addition to supplier fees.
Cancellations to International bookings will incur a fee of $55 per passenger per booking in addition to supplier fees.
Thanks for your tip. I walked into a Flight Centre office at lunch time today and they happily price matched with Aunt Betty without any hesitations :)
Better? They're worse in 3 of 4 scenarios, enormously so for cancelling an international flight. They're only better for changing a domestic/Trans-Tasman flight.
Urghhh. Obviously while formatting that the wrong brand ended up on top of the other's T&C… Aunt Betty is the better one.
So which is the best source to book international flights ?
Whichever is cheaper.
Honestly, booking through the airline is always the best in terms of making changes but usually the most expensive. Use search engines like Kayak, Momomondo, SkyScanner to find the cheapest fare and if you don't like the look of the business then price match it at Flight Centre.
Flight Centre prices are usually far from the best and the fees for making changes are quite high but they're great at providing extra details and if things to go wrong they're usually quite good at fixing and you have the opportunity to go there and eyeball someone if they made a mistake which isn't the case for online ticket sellers.
Stumbled upon AB via Iwantthatflight, and tried to complete a booking, however, keep getting error message that the flight's not available!!
Tried multiple times and gave up. Looks like they're just time wasters!
Eventually booked direct on the airlines site, as their advertisement kept popping up offering a 10% discount! Can't complain!
or try Flight Centre, they'll beat the price and you can find discounted FC Gift Cards around.
I did go FC to PB, but they couldn't find the fare! And they never heard of AB, their own company, bloody hopeless. So I left, and that night, Google ads from Etihad kept popping up on my browser, offering 10% off my flight. Holy cow! They've been tracking me and made the best offer! One time I'm not complaining about these ads!
Booked and flew to Phuket via Bangkok last month. Family of three and even FC were $400 more expensive than their own site. Paid for flight, then booked accommodation. By that time I had finished that, I had an email confirmation with the Thai booking number. Went on and grabbed seats. No problems at airport with tickets.
I would have no problems using them again for a straight forward booking.
Saw flights on Iwantthatflight.com as well, cheapest through auntbetty.com.au, called up flight centre and they beat the price by $1 after checking. Just felt a bit better going through them direct and it was no hassle whatsoever. As someone said, flightcentre own auntbetty so next time I might not be so paranoid
Wow after being recommended by 2 flight centre staff (this is supposedly a sister company of flight centre) this company is terrible. They do advertise cheap fares (much cheaper than some places) you go all the way through the process of entering your info including payment details, they take ur money then a message comes up saying fares have gone up and you no longer have a booking (even though I have a reservation number. I check my bank account and yep almost $5000 is missing - gone to Aunt Betty. I ring up the company and after being on hold for almost 30mins I am told that my reservation does not exist and they don't have my money. I am told to contact the bank and get them to reverse the charges. If needed Aunt Betty can advise the bank that the transaction should be reversed. I contact my bank who say the money has already been approved to Aunt Betty and to get Aunt Betty to email or fax a letter stating to cancel the transaction, Aunt Betty now say that they wont do this. So now my predicament I have no access to funds to pay the holiday my family were so looking forward too. Aunt Betty have also said they wont hold the fares I can still get online (at the same price that I was told earlier - that started this journey- no longer existed, although I can still find the exact same trip to book online) Seriously Aunt Betty get your act together, Flight Centre will not be happy to hear about this tomorrow. As a side note after being on the phone to Aunt Betty (and finally a supervisor) for 1.5hrs they finally admit they have my money, and strangely can now tell me my trip details. 3hrs later and I have finally put the phone down. No solution other than for Aunt Betty to say that their system is faulty (the manager I spoke with cant even look up package deals, even though I still can) He also said he could not say if you go through the whole process and pay your money that you will get you holiday. Read the other repeating views of this from other customers. DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY!!!!!
We just tried to use AB and after entering all of our details, it said the flight was no longer available - seems like a con.
FC said they might or might not price match, - "its up to head office"
Sales crap but it seems odd when they are the same company
They are fine. Booked some seats with them to Singapore last month (Like you, linked from Skyscanner) and flew out last week. No issues.