When you’re booking a revenue ticket on an airline (as opposed to redeeming miles), are you better off booking directly with that airline, or through an online travel agency? In this post I wanted to address that topic, since the answer isn’t obvious to most.
For those not familiar with online travel agencies (often referred to as “OTAs”), these are websites like Expedia and Orbitz, which let you book flights, hotels, rental cars, and more. Let me start with a couple of things upfront that should be the same regardless of whether you book directly with an airline or through an online travel agency:
- The prices of flights should be the same regardless of whether you book directly or through a mainstream online travel agency; in some cases you may see slightly lower prices through online travel agencies you may have never heard of, though I’d recommend exercising caution when using them
- For flights you generally earn points as well as elite credit in the same way regardless of whether you’re booking directly or through an online travel agency (there are a limited number of exceptions, like JetBlue TrueBlue, which awards fewer points for third party bookings)
With that out of the way, let me share the pros and cons of booking through an online travel agency, and my general strategy (which I’ll say upfront is that I book directly with an airline, unless there’s a strong incentive not to).
In this post:
Downsides of booking through an online travel agency
Let me start with the downsides of booking through an online travel agency, since the cons outweigh the pros for most.
Online travel agencies can be a bit of a curse when things go wrong, and there are issues with your ticket. If you have a schedule change, face irregular operations, need to change your ticket, etc., the airline might tell you to contact your travel agency, while the online travel agency might tell you to contact the airline. You could end up in a never-ending loop of misinformation, and I’ve certainly had it happen before, and it couldn’t be more frustrating.
It’s a total pain when you want to get something fixed but are just getting the runaround. Nowadays so many airlines offer ticket flexibility, where you can cancel a ticket and apply a credit toward a future flight. In these situations, it’s much easier to just deal with the airline directly, since it limits how much can go wrong.
Furthermore, I find that most online travel agencies have horrible phone customer service. They all seem to use outsourced call centers with very little training, so don’t expect much of a resolution if things go wrong. Of course there are also plenty of airlines with horrible customer service, though that’s more variable.
Furthermore, sometimes it’s easier to book through an airline’s website in terms of selecting seats, entering your frequent flyer information, etc. With most airlines it doesn’t make a huge difference since technology has greatly improved, but there are some airlines that let you select seats at booking, but otherwise require you to call to select them.
Benefits of booking through an online travel agency
So, why should anyone even consider booking through an online travel agency? If you ask me, there are a couple of potential benefits. While airlines have a 24-cancelation policy for flights in the United States, there are some limitations to those regulations, including how far in advance you have to book to qualify for that.
In my experience, online travel agencies have much more flexible 24-hour cancelation policies, and many will allow you to cancel within 24 hours even if you’re ticketing your reservation the same day of travel. You’ll of course want to consult the website of the online travel agency (and even take screenshots), though I find this is sometimes flexibility that comes in handy.
The other potential benefit of online travel agencies is that the booking interface is easy to use, or at a minimum, familiar. If you’re booking a smaller airline you don’t often travel with, you might find that using an online travel agency is just easier. I also find there are fewer issues with credit card payment and general website error messages through online travel agencies, compared to the website of a small airline I’ve otherwise never flown before.
Furthermore, when flying a small airline, it’s nice to know that you can at least reach customer service at a major online travel agency 24/7, even if they’re not necessarily that well trained.
Lastly, while I wouldn’t consider these to be traditional online travel agencies, it’s worth keeping in mind that premium credit cards sometimes offer credits or bonus rewards for booking through their portals. So that could be an incentive to use something like the Capital One Travel Portal or Chase Ultimate Rewards Travel Portal.
My online travel agency booking strategy
Unless I have a compelling reason not to, I’ll always book directly with an airline. That minimizes the odds of getting frustrated if any ticket changes are required, or if there are irregular operations. It also makes it easiest if I need to cancel my ticket, and want to use a credit toward a future flight.
The only time I’ll consistently book through an online travel agency is if I think I might want to cancel within 24 hours, and booking directly with an airline wouldn’t qualify for that. Furthermore, in some situations I’ll book through an online travel agency if it’s an airline I don’t often travel with, and I’m having issues with their website.
Bottom line
Personally I do what I can to book directly with an airline, rather than through an online travel agency or another third party. By all means use websites like Google Flights to look up fares and schedules, but then I’d highly recommend booking directly with an airline. That’s mainly because this simplifies matters if there’s any sort of schedule change, irregular operations, the need to cancel, etc.
What’s your strategy — when do you book direct with an airline, and when do you book through an online travel agency?
This is all good in theory. But we fly long haul as a family twice per year as a family and usually in Premium or Business if we can find a good deal. The savings of using an OTA is usually over £500, and occasionally as high as £2500. Even at £500 extra times by 2 flights per year that is over £1000 per year saved. In theory we would book with the airline every time, but £1000+ per year could be spent on a short haul week away.
I have used discount, never heard of you, but you have been around for a number of years, discount brokers. To-date, I have never had an issue, received full miles, my status benefits, etc.. The only time I had an issue was with Expedia. When there was a flight issue, the airline dumped me to Expedia, who ended up doing a change, a downgrade to economy. It was not great.
Agree with the general rule of booking directly. There are a few instances which led me to recently book on an OTA (expedia.com or expedia.it)
1) Interline tickets which AF would not find, not even via an agent on chat
2) Some airlines require you to show the credit card used to pay. This wasn't possible as I was booking for someone else, so I booked through an OTA and then it's like it's...
Agree with the general rule of booking directly. There are a few instances which led me to recently book on an OTA (expedia.com or expedia.it)
1) Interline tickets which AF would not find, not even via an agent on chat
2) Some airlines require you to show the credit card used to pay. This wasn't possible as I was booking for someone else, so I booked through an OTA and then it's like it's been paid by the travel agent and not directly by the passenger so the problem is avoided.
I posted this in your other thread about discrepancies before you created this article, but this is worthwhile to keep in mind.
I have the capital one venture X which gives you $300 a year in travel credit booked through the capital one travel portal. I'm finding that this portal kind of really sucks when looking for anything but the most basic travel. For starters, when specifying the flight you want to book, it doesnt...
I posted this in your other thread about discrepancies before you created this article, but this is worthwhile to keep in mind.
I have the capital one venture X which gives you $300 a year in travel credit booked through the capital one travel portal. I'm finding that this portal kind of really sucks when looking for anything but the most basic travel. For starters, when specifying the flight you want to book, it doesnt let you specify which cabin you're looking for - such as first/business/coach/lowest fare, or some variation.
I had a specific flight in mind I wanted to book using the $300 - a one way fare from Dubrovnik to Madrid on iberia in business class. iberia would sell it to me and showed availability and the fare. I then looked at Capital One. The flight shows up as a coach ticket only, but there's literally no way for it to show business class. I've tried every which way with the portal and it does not show or offer business class, even though Iberia is selling it. Shouldnt the capital one travel portal have this availability?
Ben agreed with me that this was frustrating, so I decided to switch gears and look at a simple domestic ticket - DCA to MIA roundtrip. Here, the portal, for the exact same flights that AA offered, was pricing both coach and first class significantly more than AA.com was.
Not sure how worthwhile this benefit is when the portal either doesnt have what I'm looking for (even though it's for sale through Iberia and the Chase travel portal (i double checked), or has fares that are higher than the airline offers. What a ripoff.
Use the $300 credit for hotel bookings. I'm not loyal to any particular program so status / elite recognition is not something I care about.
That's a great recommendation and one that I've heard from others. I normally use a travel advisor who has virtuoso, etc for hotel recommendations (yeah I'm fancy...) but I guess I can use it for hotels i dont care about. I dont care about hotel status either.
I saved 700 dollars booking Singapore Airlines business class tickets after they price matched to a sketchy ota. It was a great savings over booking direct.
You grossly underestimate the potential savings in using an online travel agency. If the saving is small, I agree that it's worth paying a little extra for the reasons you state but, in some cases - international long haul business class, obviously - savings can comfortably exceed €500 per person and the airline does not always have the options offered up by Skyscanner.
I dont think there are any advantages of booking thru an ota other than sometimes getting a cheaper ticket cos theyre selling tickets that shouldnt actually be sold as stand alone tickets.
Ive never seen any of the OTAs have better cancellation policies, most of the random ones will charge for absolutely anything from the second the ticket has been purchased and theyre absolutely horrible to deal with.
I don’t book with third-party agencies, but I often use Expedia to learn the booking class (specific fare bucket) for a flight I’m hoping to book. (I usually have to proceed as if I’m booking the flight, and then it shows me the fare bucket near check-out.) I do this to know what credit I’ll earn when crediting other airlines’ flights to Alaska or United. I usually can’t find the specific fare bucket on the actual carrier’s website.
Some interline itineraries can only be booked via OTA’s.
Airline websites often don’t want to include other airlines, while they have fares loaded that allow it.
Some airlines don’t even allow booking open jaws or multi city on their own website.
The only reason to book OTA is price
I once went cheap and booked a Lufthansa itinerary with an OTA, hoping I could still add my Star Alliance frequent flyer number to get pre-check-in benefits. There was no way to do it on the OTA's website, no way on Lufthansa's website, and no way with Lufthansa on the phone (who told me to contact the OTA). When I finally called the OTA, the phone agent had never heard of a frequent flyer number...
I once went cheap and booked a Lufthansa itinerary with an OTA, hoping I could still add my Star Alliance frequent flyer number to get pre-check-in benefits. There was no way to do it on the OTA's website, no way on Lufthansa's website, and no way with Lufthansa on the phone (who told me to contact the OTA). When I finally called the OTA, the phone agent had never heard of a frequent flyer number before, and was incredulous anyone can earn anything just by flying. After explaining what it was for ten minutes, the agent "explained" Lufthansa did not have such a program and hung up.
I pulled up my Lufthansa reservation on Air Dolomit's website and added my united number there. It's stupid that you need this workaround, but it was a quick solution to my problem.
Many times (atleast in india) nice interline itineraries never comes up directly in airlines but comes in OTAs. Eg. Back days Jet Airways interlined with lufthansa group to connect from other Indian cities in Delhi / Mumbai lufthansa long haul but it never comes up in lufthansa site but in other OTAs
It should be noted (and not to be Tim Dunn about this), but using a shot of Delta planes for the caption about 24 hour cancellation is ignoring that DL is one of the few airlines that applies 24 hour cancellation for full refund on day-of bookings and in practice has a 24 hour period that's as long as 47 hours, 59 minutes.
I frequently am on domestic airlines in 3rd world countries. Some of these will not take a US based CC (looking at you, Batik & Lion Air).
Pretty much forced to use a booking site. Unfortunately it finally bit me in the butt. I booked a number of connecting flights with Batik in Indonesia with a 3rd party seller.
Batik changed my flights to be taking off before I arrived in country. Weeks of...
I frequently am on domestic airlines in 3rd world countries. Some of these will not take a US based CC (looking at you, Batik & Lion Air).
Pretty much forced to use a booking site. Unfortunately it finally bit me in the butt. I booked a number of connecting flights with Batik in Indonesia with a 3rd party seller.
Batik changed my flights to be taking off before I arrived in country. Weeks of arguing with 3rd party, was forced to cancel flight.
Two months later, still no refund of a couple of thousand. And no way to get to them. Their customer service doesn't exist.
Imagine in 2023, not taking the CC in a country mainly made up for international tourism.
Tokopedia for domestic Indonesian flights is great.
Speaking of not taking credit cards, slightly off topic, two of my kids in Canada had to renew their US passports. The US passport folks would only accept as payment a check drawn on a US bank, which was unobtainable in Canada where they live. We had to have my son in Chicago write checks and mail them to Canada so the kids in Canada could use...
Tokopedia for domestic Indonesian flights is great.
Speaking of not taking credit cards, slightly off topic, two of my kids in Canada had to renew their US passports. The US passport folks would only accept as payment a check drawn on a US bank, which was unobtainable in Canada where they live. We had to have my son in Chicago write checks and mail them to Canada so the kids in Canada could use hem for their passport renewals. Crazy stuff!
Also, the airlines you refer to accept my Singapore credit cards. Curious why they don’t accept American ones.
Tokopedia in Indonesia is good for plane tickets. And interestingly, the airlines you mention take Singapore cards. Curious why they don’t take American ones.
For Indonesia, a lot easier to book through OTA like tiket.com or traveloka.com. Easy and fast and allow you to do online flight change/cancellation online.
Lion Air group (Lion, Batik, Super Air Jet) have a big history to do flight cancellation and rebook you to the earlier or later flight.
100%! We use Traveloka all the time.
I've used Tiket in the past. But when I went to use them for our upcoming trip, everything I got to checkout, the price suddenly doubled. No explanation.
Yeah. Batik moved us to an earlier flight with no explanation, meanwhile still offering the original flight. We tried to change, even though they jacked the change fee up, then refused to change us back.
Ended up having to cancel. It's been 3 months and NO refund...
I've used Tiket in the past. But when I went to use them for our upcoming trip, everything I got to checkout, the price suddenly doubled. No explanation.
Yeah. Batik moved us to an earlier flight with no explanation, meanwhile still offering the original flight. We tried to change, even though they jacked the change fee up, then refused to change us back.
Ended up having to cancel. It's been 3 months and NO refund in sight.
Ended up paying premium to get Garuda flight. Wish Garuda hadn't run themselves into the ground.
If you have Amex Plat, sometimes their international business class fares are lower than directly purchasing on the airline’s website. That’s a reason I sometimes book flights there n
I use them quite often when their fees are significantly lower than booking direct. Have saved thousands of dollars over the years.
Some airlines, like United, require tickets to be booked in the currency and location of the billing address of the credit card used. This usually isn't the case for OTAs, which is sometimes a benefit.
Where are restrictions like this documented? I once had a travel agent in Turkey book us RT tickets to Turkey from the US on LH using Turkish liras. It saved us a fair amount of money vs. me buying the same tickets with dollars on LH's website. No one indicated that this might be a problem.
YMMV, but that has never been my experience with United, or indeed with any airline that I have booked directly with.
AA did that to me, I reached the payment page on a JFK-MCO ticket and it booted me out and diverted me to their AU site when I entered my AU CC details. I had to restart the whole process. The AU fare converted to the same amount as the US one but the AU site didn't offer the MCE upgrade option as part of the booking process. Rather, I had to pay it separately...
AA did that to me, I reached the payment page on a JFK-MCO ticket and it booted me out and diverted me to their AU site when I entered my AU CC details. I had to restart the whole process. The AU fare converted to the same amount as the US one but the AU site didn't offer the MCE upgrade option as part of the booking process. Rather, I had to pay it separately when I selected my seats after I'd ticketed the flight. (The price was $US50 for the two segments on the US site but I paid $AU50 for the JFK-MIA segment and skipped it for the connection to MCO.)
Happens to me often. Last month I found a great United fare on the US site. When I tried to pay it switched me to the Singapore site and the fare doubled. Solution: I used my son’s US credit card and got the lower fare.
Indeed. Last month I found a great fare from Indonesia to North America on United’s site. When I went to pay it switched me to the United’s Singapore site and the price doubled. Solution? I used my son’s US credit card and got the cheaper fare.
While i prioritize booking directly with the airline, I've found out in some cases the OTA price can be way cheaper (like 30% cheaper) than the airline price (happens sometimes with Opodo and Air France), in which case i ll book with the OTA.
Maybe a complex International itinerary. Domestically probably not. The only thing I think that they could do that I could not do as easily domestically is rebook travel on another airline during interruptions.
I've used Chase Travel and Amex Travel. The problem with both is that you cannot reach them from overseas easily if you have to change your itinerary. I was in the UK on vacation when my father passed away in Asia, my tickets on British Airways were booked via Amex Travel (I forgot why I did it that way), and I had a hell of a time trying to reach Amex Travel from the UK...
I've used Chase Travel and Amex Travel. The problem with both is that you cannot reach them from overseas easily if you have to change your itinerary. I was in the UK on vacation when my father passed away in Asia, my tickets on British Airways were booked via Amex Travel (I forgot why I did it that way), and I had a hell of a time trying to reach Amex Travel from the UK trying to find out what I can do (i.e. return to the US and then fly to Asia or change my itinerary and fly to Asia from the UK). I ended up calling British Airways directly to ask about my options. I was told that because I booked with a travel agency, I could not change my itinerary directly with British Airways. It was just awful. People should know the limitations of booking with a travel agent in case you need to reach that travel agent in case of emergency.
Buy an Skype subscription....
Get Google Voice, you can use it to make calls from your US Google Voice number on wifi anywhere in the world.
I am surprised no-one mentions using a local brick-and-mortar agency.
Sounds old-school? Granted, many don't know much about airline ticketing or don't bother. But if you find a good agent, they are worth a million when things go wrong.
Flight chaos like in the past weeks? Good luck having the airline take care of you ... A versed travel agent with ARC / IATA accrediation will rebook you before you even know your flght was...
I am surprised no-one mentions using a local brick-and-mortar agency.
Sounds old-school? Granted, many don't know much about airline ticketing or don't bother. But if you find a good agent, they are worth a million when things go wrong.
Flight chaos like in the past weeks? Good luck having the airline take care of you ... A versed travel agent with ARC / IATA accrediation will rebook you before you even know your flght was cancelled.
Does it cost extra? Yes. Is it worth it? You decide. ;-)
Another pro for OTAs/CC travel portals is that a lot of airlines have really, really horrible websites and even worse booking engines. If you don't have a simple one-way or roundtrip itinerary, you physically can't book it direct. Even their call centers have trouble, and that's on top of paying for the call center fees.
With OTAs/travel portals, you can often book specific flights for a multicity or open-jaw itinerary without much trouble and for...
Another pro for OTAs/CC travel portals is that a lot of airlines have really, really horrible websites and even worse booking engines. If you don't have a simple one-way or roundtrip itinerary, you physically can't book it direct. Even their call centers have trouble, and that's on top of paying for the call center fees.
With OTAs/travel portals, you can often book specific flights for a multicity or open-jaw itinerary without much trouble and for the right price. When the options are an exorbitant price (or no option at all) through the airline call center or a normal price through an OTA, I begrudgingly book through the latter, despite all the cons.
Good luck getting assistance when something goes wrong with one of those flight segments. I would never use an OTA other than a few extreme cases, but with a complicated itinerary - absolutely never. All it takes is one IRROPS...
I've had an easier time reaching capital one's customer service for their travel portal than many airlines. They've been able to fix my issues every time.
I would never book with an OTA. All downside if there are problems or cancellations. I know friends who were never reimbursed by OTAs for flight and hotel cancellations due to the pandemic.
Some other cons booking through OTAs:
- It is often not clear what booking class you are getting, which may make a big difference when trying to qualify for elite status.
- It is also not always clear what type of ticket you are getting (basic, classic, flex, ...), and trying to figure it out based on what changes you can and cannot make is not clear, since, as mentioned, the OTA charges for things...
Some other cons booking through OTAs:
- It is often not clear what booking class you are getting, which may make a big difference when trying to qualify for elite status.
- It is also not always clear what type of ticket you are getting (basic, classic, flex, ...), and trying to figure it out based on what changes you can and cannot make is not clear, since, as mentioned, the OTA charges for things that the airline may allow for free,
I'm curious what you think of Amex Travel as an OTA - with some cards, you get an annual travel credit, so using their services sounds like it would make sense at least in some cases?
"Furthermore, when flying a small airline, it’s nice to know that you can at least reach customer service at a major online travel agency 24/7, even if they’re not necessarily that well trained."
So that they can call the airline, and not reach airline customer service themselves while you sit on hold?
The only reason I can think of to use an OTA is if something about the airline's site isn't working, like they don't...
"Furthermore, when flying a small airline, it’s nice to know that you can at least reach customer service at a major online travel agency 24/7, even if they’re not necessarily that well trained."
So that they can call the airline, and not reach airline customer service themselves while you sit on hold?
The only reason I can think of to use an OTA is if something about the airline's site isn't working, like they don't take your credit card, they're asking for some national ID that you don't have, etc.
You forgot a very big negative, on several occasions with both Citi & Chase travel depts after I purchased the tkt and <5 mins passed I saw a better itin. I called up and was told there was a $75 fee, I said the airlines have a free CX within 24 hrs, they agreed and then said but we dont and its our fee not the airlines!
Another big negative is that if something goes wrong, Amex won't let you do a chargeback against Amex Travel.
Not sure if they still do it, but the OTAs do sometimes have special deals. I saved a lot using Orbitz to book a business class trip to Japan several years ago because they had a special deal on AC flights. But I generally agree that booking direct can save a lot of headaches
For simple domestic itineraries, I'll use the Cap1 portal. The 5x points earning, price-drop rebate, and the new ability to purchase a refundable-for-any-reason ticket at a slight upcharge are worth it.
International travel I try to book with points which oftentimes means booking direct or though a partner airline. If neither of those are available, then just book direct.
There are no pro's ever. Book direct always.