Consolidators still around?

[Mark in CA]

From 1995 to 2000 I flew regularly from SFO to BUD, and was always able to get airfares consistently several hundred dollars cheaper than the airlines' lowest published fares by using a consolidator. In fact, the one I usually used, Euro Lloyd, was actually a subsidiary of Lufthansa, and regularly discounted their tickets. I'm talking <$600 return in low season and about $800 return in the fall season for highly restricted economy class tickets.

Now I'm searching for a good fare for another trip from SFO to BUD, and even in the dead of winter, the lowest fare I've seen is about $860, and similar fares are available from various popular web sites. I don't see any "special" deals out there like I used to.

Are consolidator fares still available, and where should I look for them?

[Hartington]

Try the travel section of Saturday/Sunday papers.

[al446]

Try - http://www.skyscanner.net

Best I can do but that was looking for dep 13/12 return 20/12 came up with approx $950. Maybe can do better nearer the dates you want.

[Anansis]

In my opinion the internet has changed the way that tickets are sold. Airlines have shifted away from using brokers and travel agents in favour of selling directly to the passenger. Nowadays you can often book heavily discounted restricted airfares directly with the airline. Some airlines such as EK actually guarunteee that the price quoted on their website is the cheapset price you will find anywhere. In that sense there is not much scope for consoldators to do business.

Having said that it is my understanding that the big online travel agents such as travelocity, Orbitz, Expedia etc act as consolidators. One day last year I had to buy a return ticket to travel MAN-HKG the following morning. The airline (QR) were quoting £750 at the time. I managed to get the flight for £320 with Opodo.

I must stress that these are my opinions based on my experiences. I'm sure that someone more knowledgable will be able to shed some more light on the issue.

Try - http://www.skyscanner.net

Best I can do but that was looking for dep 13/12 return 20/12 came up with approx $950. Maybe can do better nearer the dates you want.

Agreed. Skyscanner will search EVERYTHING available, including the travel agents. Great website.

[Hartington]

Consolidators still exist. Even airlines like BA use them. Now, I'm going to get people in the UK saying "BA guarantee the lowest price on their website". True, but last time I checked that applied in the UK. While it may now apply in some other countries too I don't believe it's worldwide. But I accept that the main users of consolidators are some of the smaller, less well known airlines.

That said go to Flights - cheap flights, car hire, city breaks, cruises by Major Travel (v3) and look for Emirates flights London/Jo'Burg/London 4-20 Sep. When I looked a few minutes ago - £470 - Emirates site - same dates - £485.

Mark needs to look at the travel sections of the weekend editions of the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle/Examiner, Los Angeles Times.

[praa]

I came across this site from a German-based travel agent who claims that considerable savings are to be made by booking tickets via other countries, rather than the country of departure, as fares are often calculated to attract business from those places.
Flüge bis zu 30% günstiger bei den Flugprofis
The example they give is that they might book FRA-JFK through an agent in Slovenia. Has anyone heard of this method or used it?

[Hartington]

CAREFUL!

Check precisely what you're buying. It is often the case that a ticket A-C via B is cheaper than B-C. For instance it was the case that a BA ticket Prague/London/New York using Concorde London/New York was cheaper than London/New York. That's an extreme example but BA weren't at all happy when they caught some passengers boarding in London who had never used the Prague/London coupon. In that case they permitted the passengers to travel (after questioning) and then removed ticketing authority from the ticketing agency but I know of other examples where the passengers have been denied boarding. The airlines say that the ticket must be used in the correct order and completely.

So if the ticket is actually LJU/FRA/NYC even if the LJU/FRA coupon has been removed the airline will know it hasn't been used and that may (I would say will) cause problems.

However, if you travel to Slovenia and use the whole ticket no problem.

[Mark in CA]

As it turns out, I got the best fare directly from the Lufthansa USA web site. Even flights.com, which generally has good fares, was several dollars more for the exact same flights. The Lufthansa web site is actually pretty good at letting you choose the cheapest fare, providing a fare matrix display showing the cheapest fare for the specific dates you choose as well as dates around yours. I wound up paying $873 including all taxes and fees, and this is for the best flights (LH 455 and LH 454 across the Atlantic to/from SFO and FRA) and only one low-time connection in FRA each way. No multi-connections, strange overnight connections or 8-hour layovers, or flights operated by UA. Although there were marginally cheaper flights with other carriers ($20 difference), none were as convenient or of shorter duration.

[Ancient Observer]

Beware Airline lies

The internet has changed buying patterns. Airlines don't know how to respond.

Virgin just lie.

Virgin simply lie about their pricing on their website, - they claim that you cannot get it cheaper elsewhere. However, I recently travelled to Syd and back and Opodo were 100s of UKP cheaper. Virgin acknowledged the booking on their own web-site within minutes of me making the Opodo booking, so their computers were talking to each other.

So beware the "you can't get it cheaper elsewhere" line. In Virgin's case it is a deliberate terminological inexactitude.

[Scumbag O'Riley]

Don't know if it still works, but you could save significant money by buying the CO codeshare if you wanted to fly on VS metal.

[Anansis]

Yes!

I've just flown KLM MAN-AMS-IST return on a ticket booked with a website called sky-tours.com. The price I paid was over £50 cheaper than everyone else (including KLM) and the itiniery was unique- had a 5 hour layover in Amsterdam both ways, an option that was not available anywhere else. Checked a few other flights they had for sale and it seems that this was not just a one off.

It looks ameteurish and has some dodgy reviews on the net but I've just returned from my trip without any problems...

I know this marks a 180* shift from my previous position above but it is worth noting that i only found this website through skyscanner.net.

[Mark in CA]

Ah, to be 26 again, when 5-hour layovers are taken in stride . Good luck to ya! I remember putting up with Freddie Laker (anyone remember him?) and his standby flights to London from New York.

[Anansis]

Ha! I actually prefered the five hour layover- gave me plenty of time to jump the train to central Amsterdam and take in some of the sights!