3 ms·

I've never understood the comments on all of the posts like this advising people to never book via a third party. Is it an American thing? I've probably been o

by mmsc 2y ago

I've never understood the comments on all of the posts like this advising people to never book via a third party. Is it an American thing? I've probably been on around 250 flights in the past 7 years in Europe and I can't remember one time that it was cheaper to book directly than through some third party. Sometimes it's the same price to book direct, but it doesn't matter either way: the support you're going to get is the same, and the insurance or whatever depends on... exactly whatever you've paid for already.

returningfory2 2y ago
> the support you're going to get is the same I think this is not true. In my limited experience, if you book a flight through a third party or even a code share agreement, you don’t get full access to the flying airline’s UI and things like changing your flight or dealing with cancellations are a real hassle. Just last week I had an issue where I had booked an Iberia code share flight through American Airlines, but then Iberia bumped me from the flight onto an AA flight. Of course, both Iberia and AA support initially claimed it wasn’t their problem and that I needed to contact the other airline. Maybe in Europe it’s not as much a problem because (1) modifiable flight tickets aren’t as common and (2) passenger rights in the case of delay and cancellations are stronger.
- cozzyd 2y ago
  Yeah, due to thw Fly America Act, I (usually) have to book through a US carrier even if it's a code share for work travel and run into this problem often...
barrkel 2y ago
It's often slightly more expensive to book direct but if you want to e.g. buy extra baggage at a discounted online rate (i.e. not an airport mugging), there is no guarantee that a third party will have a UI for that.
- mmsc 2y ago
  I've also never booked a flight through one of the 3rd parties where I couldn't access the booking on the airline's website. Some time again (as discussed in this thread), Ryanair had some spat with resellers. So I had to upload a picture of my ID to the Ryanair website in order access my booking that way.

by mmsc 2y ago

returningfory2 2y ago

> the support you're going to get is the same I think this is not true. In my limited experience, if you book a flight through a third party or even a code share agreement, you don’t get full access to the flying airline’s UI and things like changing your flight or dealing with cancellations are a real hassle. Just last week I had an issue where I had booked an Iberia code share flight through American Airlines, but then Iberia bumped me from the flight onto an AA flight. Of course, both Iberia and AA support initially claimed it wasn’t their problem and that I needed to contact the other airline. Maybe in Europe it’s not as much a problem because (1) modifiable flight tickets aren’t as common and (2) passenger rights in the case of delay and cancellations are stronger.

cozzyd 2y ago
Yeah, due to thw Fly America Act, I (usually) have to book through a US carrier even if it's a code share for work travel and run into this problem often...

barrkel 2y ago

It's often slightly more expensive to book direct but if you want to e.g. buy extra baggage at a discounted online rate (i.e. not an airport mugging), there is no guarantee that a third party will have a UI for that.

mmsc 2y ago
I've also never booked a flight through one of the 3rd parties where I couldn't access the booking on the airline's website. Some time again (as discussed in this thread), Ryanair had some spat with resellers. So I had to upload a picture of my ID to the Ryanair website in order access my booking that way.