Skyscanner and third-party companies

[trampslikeus]

I have used Skyscanner priced companies such as opodo, omega flight store, last minute.com as price was significantly cheaper than airline direct. Other times Airline have offered me the best option. Nothing is 100% secure as the TC issue has shown, and I would be happy to book with Skyscanner companies in the future.

[tspill]

Originally Posted by Procrastinator

Imo...

Larger companies like Expedia or netflights would fine. Random smaller companies i would not trust. Not so much in case they go bust, but because of woeful reviews on customer service. If you buy a connecting flight and obe leg gets changed it might be really difficult to sort it out via a 3rd party.

So i would book with the airlines or larger 3rd parties. The smaller ones if very cheap i would type their name and review in to google and see what is out there about them.

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Originally Posted by Nimbus

Funny that you should mention Expedia because they get a bad score on Trustpilot - 1.5 out of 5 - and get quite a lot of bad reviews. If anything, many of the random smaller companies get better reviews.

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My view would be similar to that of Procrastinator. I have used Expedia dozens of times and have found them excellent and would be my go to third party. However I have a very strong preference to not use third parties at all.
Also, I would want to be 100% sure any third party does IMMEDIATE ticketing and wont book with anyone who doesn't do this. If they don't issue the airline reference immediately, then to me that rings alarm bells.

[teamsingo134]

I've only ever used one of these third party companies Expedia once and never again.

Booked flights with KLM via Expedia and we wanted to add our unborn child on. Expedia said they could once born. Come child being born, Expedia said they couldn't do it we had to go via KLM, KLM said had to go through Expedia. Long story short we never did get to New York, the airport rang us half an hour before we were due to board to see why we hadn't checked in, and I got a full refund on my credit card.

[Nimbus]

Sooo, bit of a mixed bag there. The only reason I considered using Skyscanner was because I thought it was recommended here on the DIBB?

I was looking the other day at various options and direct flights with Virgin were coming up at about Ł650pp with some third-party companies on there. However, direct with Virgin they were still Ł1900pp (I'm hoping they will reduce). Normally, I'd only book direct with the airline (although I have booked through an intermediary with hotels in the past). A saving of over Ł1200pp looked very tempting - but perhaps too good to be true!

Thanks folks.

[giggler]

I think it boils down to what your comfortable with. I’ve used Expedia, Carlton Leisure, small independent agents, in fact I’ve only ever booked direct with a airline once. I got there and back each time!
The only rule I do follow each time is Use a Credit Card.

[Kraken]

I've used both Expedia & eBookers (actually the same company) in the past and have never had a problem.

Have always selected direct flights on the website with the Virgin Atlantic logo next to them & have been ticketed within 30secs of payment going through - along with the all-important 6 character booking reference to manage the booking online. As long as you book at least flight + accommodation you also benefit from ATOL protection too.

The one risk of booking with any 3rd party is that only they can make changes to your booking up until about 24hrs before departure, when the booking is released to airport control by the airline.

[Hmr89]

Used Netflights, Lastminute.com, Expedia, TravelUp, Ebookers & Orbitz in the past. Never had a problem with any and Netflights are my go to as I've found their customer service to be the best.
The only one that I would not recommend is Travel Trolley. Their call centre is based in India and the agent I spoke to had a very poor grasp of both spoken and written English. I had to be passed around the office in order to speak to someone who could understand me.

[Bozza]

My advice is broadly the same as others.

The likes of Lastminute, Expedia, Opodo etc are large highly-reputable companies. Yes, some may have the occasional bad experience with them, but people have bad experiences with the very best world-class organisations in all fields - it's just the way it goes.

There are a lower tier of agencies that I wouldn't book through. I always have been. and always will be, a risk-taker and I don't give a toss about losing money because, simply, I always pay with a credit card. If something goes wrong, the money will come back sooner or later, and I can pay for an alternative before waiting for money to return.

It's more the hassle and inconvenience with some of these chancers who clearly aren't tapping into live prices. If everyone else is pricing at X, but someone is pricing at half X, then that price is very unlikely to be genuine.

You're an smart fellow Nimbus - if you're spidey senses are telling you something doesn't seem right, it very probably isn't.

[KarenG]

So I have booked a few times through the likes of Travelup who offered much better prices - but also routes I couldn’t get myself from the airlines (direct).

They have always issued tickets immediately with me being able to see the booking ‘live’ on the airline website.

I always always pay with credit card.

It’s fine when it all works but when something happens (like a change in schedule) it is PAINFUL getting then to assist.

[discostu]

For probably our last 6 or 8 trips we have used SKyscanner or Kayak for our trips, last year we got Cork Man MCO for €478 return cheapest we have gotten in years. we have booked SNN Jfk TPA for 16th of July to 6th of August for €583 the delta.com price is currently €1352 delta/flight-search-...5-003f980e62a7
the Kayak price tonight is €581. Check EXACTLY WHAT you are getting is luggage included can you book seats. In our case this includes baggage we were given a Delta ref number on the eticket tweeted delta, they confirmed we were booked. Confirmed baggage and since we were travelling with an autistic daughter booked seats on all the flights, brilliant service for half the price We have never had a problem but always read the terms and conditions