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I’m still confused. > You probably have noticed that you often buy your flight from a different company than the airline itself. What? No, never. I figured ou

I’m still confused. > You probably have noticed that you often buy your flight from a different company than the airline itself. What? No, never. I figured out long ago that one carrier always has the best rates for my city, middlemen rarely/never cost less, and I've got the frequent flier card and the points. I thought everyone who flew domestically more than twice a year did that. I thought the check-in was just to confirm "yes I'm really really going to fly tomorrow" so they can try to fill any unclaimed seats.

iams 5y ago
> I thought everyone who flew domestically more than twice a year did that. Not at all, I've never seen a flight cheaper direct with the airline than going through an agent.
- raverbashing 5y ago
  So, the answer is: "it's complicated" You can get a cheaper ticket with an agent than with an airline but this would be a ticket attached to certain conditions (for example, it can only be sold together with a hotel room) Another possibility is that you do a search and find it per X and then go to an agent and they find it cheaper but because they know how to look around your dates and possibilities you might not know (connection alternatives, etc). But to be fair, even if it's a little more expensive I prefer the peace of mind of dealing with one vendor instead of two vendors if anything happens.
  - goblin89 5y ago
    > You can get a cheaper ticket with an agent than with an airline but this would be a ticket attached to certain conditions (for example, it can only be sold together with a hotel room) Ticket pricing is unpredictable and really depends on your location and route. A few times I used Expedia instead of the airline, and it was both cheaper and allowed flexible total unconditional cancellation within a short time after buying. Quite helpful when you need to arrange multiple bookings, hotels, etc. on short notice with changing availability. Plus there’s that time I literally bought a same day ticket just to enter HKIA and meet arriving friend (a ticket was required due to protests). Returned it as soon as I passed the guards. With that low-cost airline it wouldn’t be possible directly, and even if somehow it was the ordinary refund would’ve taken days. (After I saw their ticket verification procedures I realized a even a well-done fake might have sufficed, but you don’t want to leave stuff like that to chance.) That said, in some countries I have never seen agents offer better options than airlines.
  - joatmon-snoo 5y ago
    The problem is that you're not dealing with one vendor though: you're actually dealing with N+1, where the +1 is just an opaque intermediary to the N services it's brokering/reselling. When there are no issues, this works fine. If there are issues? Be prepared to do the customer service tango, and hope that the person at check-in understands how $intermediary actually resells their stuff and knows the right knobs to twiddle, because otherwise you're shit outta luck.
techsupporter 5y ago
> one carrier always has the best rates for my city, middlemen rarely/never cost less Couple of things: First, the post is from 2014 which was still during the rise of online travel agents like Expedia and Orbitz and Travelocity and all of their kin. There was a lot of money sloshing around in those companies to try to give "exclusive discounts" to customers so that people would become accustomed to using the online travel agent instead of booking direct. Bundled travel packages are still very much a part of this and the spiff from a hotel being included can be used to buy down the cost of your ticket so the package looks cheaper. Second, if you are in a city where one carrier is in a position to dominate the rates for your area, an online travel agent isn't going to help you much and the carriers to your area know this so there's little incentive to try to slash prices to compete. But related to this is that a lot of people don't know that, so they still go to the sites they see advertised on TV or elsewhere and plug in a starting point, a destination, some dates, then sort "lowest to highest" and pick the smallest number next to the $ sign.
pxx 5y ago
> I figured out long ago that one carrier always has the best rates for my city, middlemen rarely/never cost less Is this WN out of Burbank or something? Your experience (to the first point) is not typical. To the second point, even restricting to one carrier, using a different ticketing carrier can indeed be advantageous, especially if you're using credit card-derived points. Now, if you're at an airport only served by a single (U)LCC I can see both points but that seems rare.
CPLX 5y ago
You've never once flown an itinerary with two airlines on it? That's a very routine use case, for example hop on an American flight to London connecting to a BA flight to Glasgow or something? In that case you bought your ticket from a different company (AA) than the airline you're flying (BA on the second leg). That's just one of a million examples. For complex travel arrangements it's just normal.

iams 5y ago

> I thought everyone who flew domestically more than twice a year did that. Not at all, I've never seen a flight cheaper direct with the airline than going through an agent.

raverbashing 5y ago
So, the answer is: "it's complicated" You can get a cheaper ticket with an agent than with an airline but this would be a ticket attached to certain conditions (for example, it can only be sold together with a hotel room) Another possibility is that you do a search and find it per X and then go to an agent and they find it cheaper but because they know how to look around your dates and possibilities you might not know (connection alternatives, etc). But to be fair, even if it's a little more expensive I prefer the peace of mind of dealing with one vendor instead of two vendors if anything happens.
- goblin89 5y ago
  > You can get a cheaper ticket with an agent than with an airline but this would be a ticket attached to certain conditions (for example, it can only be sold together with a hotel room) Ticket pricing is unpredictable and really depends on your location and route. A few times I used Expedia instead of the airline, and it was both cheaper and allowed flexible total unconditional cancellation within a short time after buying. Quite helpful when you need to arrange multiple bookings, hotels, etc. on short notice with changing availability. Plus there’s that time I literally bought a same day ticket just to enter HKIA and meet arriving friend (a ticket was required due to protests). Returned it as soon as I passed the guards. With that low-cost airline it wouldn’t be possible directly, and even if somehow it was the ordinary refund would’ve taken days. (After I saw their ticket verification procedures I realized a even a well-done fake might have sufficed, but you don’t want to leave stuff like that to chance.) That said, in some countries I have never seen agents offer better options than airlines.
- joatmon-snoo 5y ago
  The problem is that you're not dealing with one vendor though: you're actually dealing with N+1, where the +1 is just an opaque intermediary to the N services it's brokering/reselling. When there are no issues, this works fine. If there are issues? Be prepared to do the customer service tango, and hope that the person at check-in understands how $intermediary actually resells their stuff and knows the right knobs to twiddle, because otherwise you're shit outta luck.

techsupporter 5y ago

> one carrier always has the best rates for my city, middlemen rarely/never cost less Couple of things: First, the post is from 2014 which was still during the rise of online travel agents like Expedia and Orbitz and Travelocity and all of their kin. There was a lot of money sloshing around in those companies to try to give "exclusive discounts" to customers so that people would become accustomed to using the online travel agent instead of booking direct. Bundled travel packages are still very much a part of this and the spiff from a hotel being included can be used to buy down the cost of your ticket so the package looks cheaper. Second, if you are in a city where one carrier is in a position to dominate the rates for your area, an online travel agent isn't going to help you much and the carriers to your area know this so there's little incentive to try to slash prices to compete. But related to this is that a lot of people don't know that, so they still go to the sites they see advertised on TV or elsewhere and plug in a starting point, a destination, some dates, then sort "lowest to highest" and pick the smallest number next to the $ sign.

pxx 5y ago

> I figured out long ago that one carrier always has the best rates for my city, middlemen rarely/never cost less Is this WN out of Burbank or something? Your experience (to the first point) is not typical. To the second point, even restricting to one carrier, using a different ticketing carrier can indeed be advantageous, especially if you're using credit card-derived points. Now, if you're at an airport only served by a single (U)LCC I can see both points but that seems rare.

CPLX 5y ago

You've never once flown an itinerary with two airlines on it? That's a very routine use case, for example hop on an American flight to London connecting to a BA flight to Glasgow or something? In that case you bought your ticket from a different company (AA) than the airline you're flying (BA on the second leg). That's just one of a million examples. For complex travel arrangements it's just normal.