Hi,
I was searching for air tickets to Europe via Google Flights, KAYAK, Momondo, Skyscanner. There are good (ie comparatively cheaper) air tickets available with ticket agents such as MyTrip, GotoGate, Opodo, lol.travel, eDreams. However, these agents have really poor customer ratings and many people call them “scammers”.
What is the general take on booking with these travel agents?
What about Expedia and Booking.com?
Thanks
And when the Airline cancels one of your flights, you need to contact your travel agent. The Airline won't help you.
Also, the agent does a Seat Request, but not Seat Reservation. Only If you are lucky and incredibly polite, maybe the airline lets you reserve the seats.
I booked Singapore to Europe and booked all the seats for 4 people on the 2 legs each. Surely another $1400 on top of the tickets, but all worth it. You should see the look of the people when they walk past the "extra legroom" seat. Some seats have actually better legroom than Premium Economy.
I find that "Google Flight" prices are stale and not current. That is, after I find a cheaper date combination and try to select flights, the final screen says the price has changed!
This makes their matrix view not usable to find cheaper date combinations
Book direct with airline. It’s not worth it. Things are to uncertain, especially in Europe.
The tickets are cheaper to buy but a lot more expensive if/ when anything goes wrong.
They charge you a fee (on top of what the airlines charges) if you wanna change or cancel, they'd even charge you a fee if the airlines cancel your flight. They might hold on to your refund for as long as they can even though they have already received the money from the airlines. Not to mention the risks for them going bankrupted altogether.
I have used them in the past (in less uncertain times) and usually booking close to the time I intend to travel (reducing the risks that I would not be able to travel, the airlines changing its flight schedule & the travel agent going bankrupt before my trip). Wouldn't touch them since COVID though.
Those middlemen agents offer cheaper prices because their tickets generally have strict rules around changes/cancellations etc or they have add-on charges for such changes and thus can offer them cheaper originally.
Most people don't tend to realise this, because they don't read the T&Cs they are signing up to and just check the box. So when something goes awry and they want to make said changes and then find out they can't and/or have to stump up cash for it, they're suddenly shocked, outraged and complain with negative reviews.
Added to that, the companies reduce their overheads to offer better prices so do generally have shockingly poor to non-existent customer service which doesn't help.
Expedia and Booking.com network of sites are perfectly fine to use IF YOU READ the T&Cs and understand exactly what you're paying for. Having said that, there certainly are some other dodgy ones too.