Holiday Genie - any experiences

[A2QFI]

I need flights to Canada in June/July for my partner. Air Canada want £700 for exactly the same flights that Holiday Genie are offering for £369. Both organisation are quite firm on the fares they are offering and on-line reviews of the Genie range from 0* to 5* but with nothing between - they are either a nightmare or perfection.

Does anyone have any experience of them please? PM me if it is too rude to post. Also, is it likely that any agent or fare broker can knock £230 off a £700 fare? Alarm bells are ringing. Thanks.

[tb10er]

Recently travelled with them from MAN-LAS using LH and UA.

No complaints whatsoever.

They are also known as Flying Eagles.

:ok:

[Hartington]

Do you mean literally the same flights (same flight numbers, same date, same class and same facilities) or do you mean they can both get you between the same cities on the same dates for different prices? If it's the first I'm a bit sceptical. If it's the 2nd and you can deal with whatever routing and airline(s) they throw at you, go for it.

Here's my thinking. These days, Air Canada has a slightly interesting and unusual pricing model. Like many other North American airlines they charge for certain things that other airlines include in the fare but the way they do it is a bit more up front. I think it's unlikely but not impossible that the Air Canada fare you're looking at includes all the goodies and the consolidator fare excludes them all.

I'm guessing that the more likely scenario is that the consolidator isn't offering Air Canada. In which case, as I say, if you can deal with the alternative routing and airlines fine. Juest remember that if the consolidator routing goes via the USA you have to enter the USA (customs and immigration) then drop your bags off for the next flight, possibly change terminals, go back through security and finally board so make sure you have plenty of time.

If they really are offering identical Air Canada flights and services it's not impossible but the discount does sound a bit too good to be true.

[Hotel Tango]

Or, the consolidator bought all the cheap seats up at an early stage leaving only the more expensive ones remaining on the airlines reservations system.

[UniFoxOs]

Doesn't always work - just got a quote for a return BHX-EWR week after next, Holiday Genie £410 all in, Continental £397, same flight and class in either case.

Cheers
UFO

[Hartington]

HT - that's not the way consolidators work; at least not in the UK. They may well contract to sell a number of tickets but they then sell from normal availability. With the sophitication of airline yield control systems these days the airline can closely control how many seats are sold not only in each bucket but who to. It's quite possible for an airline to say "I'll sell up n tickets in class x to agent 1, n-10 in class x to agent 2 and zero in class x to agent 3 on a speicific flight". Using that kind of control they can feed space out to consolidators as and when it suits their yield management.

A2 - that sounds to me like Holiday Genie don't have a del and are simply selling the normal fare and then, because they don't have a deal and agents don't earn commission (generally) from airlines these days adding a fee to cover their costs.

----

There's another, more general point in all this. Where an airline has good brand recognition in a market it has less need to use consolidators than an airline with little brand recognition or (dare I say it) negative recognition. Why would Air Canada sell seats cheaply via a consolidator when it can probably sell them through its' own website at a higher fare?

[Capetonian]

Everything Hartington has said is spot on, except this :

They may well contract to sell a number of tickets but they then sell from normal availability.

Some consolidators have 'negotiated space' and sell from an allocation. In fact some airlines even used negotiated space to control sales from some of their own stations. That said, it's a pretty unwieldy and crude way of controlling sales.

[A2QFI]

Hartington - many thanks for your thoughts. Yes, it was the same flights, airline, routing etc - just a very different fare. It was not available 24 hours later when I looked! My partner has given up on BA (doesn't like even the chance of disruption and hassle), doesn't like T Cook's baggage arrangements and thinks that Air Canada's 4 flights a day in each direction give her a useful fall-back position so she has actually paid £700 return to fly with them. Thanks to all for their input