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’d like 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
- You generally earn points as well as elite credit for flights 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. As I said above, I generally don’t book through online travel agencies, and I consider the cons to outweigh the pros in most situations.
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 many airlines (at least most airlines in the United States) 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. At least some airlines offer decent self-service reservations options online, in the event of irregular operations or schedule changes.
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 several potential benefits, but they’re mostly pretty niche. 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.
Another 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. For that matter, in some situations, airlines may require you to present the credit card used to pay when booking directly, while that doesn’t apply when booking through an online travel agency (this is rare, and is almost always for non-US airlines).
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.
There’s also something to be said for the fact that online travel agencies will sometimes let you book tickets you couldn’t book directly with airlines. For example, when two airlines have an interline agreement, you might not be able to book a ticket between two non-partners through an airline website, but you might be able to book that through an online travel agency.
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. I’ll also do so in situations where a ticket can’t be booked directly through an airline, like if I’m booking an itinerary involving multiple airlines that have an interline agreement, but not a closer partnership.
There’s merit to using traditional travel agents
The above is framed in the context of whether one should book directly with an airline or through an online travel agency. However, there’s another booking option that I think is worth mentioning as well — rather than using one of the mega-online travel agencies, you can also book with an actual travel agent who specializes in air.
Not every travel agent books air, and for that matter, even if they do, you don’t actually want to book airline tickets with most travel agents. That being said, there are some agents who specialize in air, and are the savviest people you’ll find out there.
While there will often be booking fees for ticketing this way (since air commissions are often quite low, aside from some premium tickets), they can be invaluable in terms of their knowledge, monitoring of your itinerary, help in the event of irregular operations, etc.
Personally, I don’t find it necessary to book this way for simple itineraries, but for complicated ones, I think there’s lots of merit to booking in this way, if you can find the right match.
Bottom line
Personally I do what I can to book directly with an airline, rather than through an online travel agency. 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.
The one exception is that travel agents who specialize in air can add lots of value, especially for complex itineraries. While there might be ticketing fees for booking that way, they can help avoid a lot of headache, especially if you not someone who loves monitoring your own flights.
What’s your strategy — when do you book direct with an airline, and when do you book through an online travel agency?
The only agencies I sometimes book with is Amex or Chase. I usually do not redeem points through their travel agencies as they usually do not have the cheapest fares. Sometimes for business I need to use a specific agency but I tend to have your strategy of mostly going airline direct.
Basically the only flex points CC's in Canada are Amex and Bonvoy and Amex has 5 or so partners. So buying points is really the only option for annual long haul.
The last straw for *A was United going market price so most fixed points travel options are difficult if not impossible to find under 400k o/w business.
So this year instead of bouncing through 7 countries on 6 airlines over 3 days...
Basically the only flex points CC's in Canada are Amex and Bonvoy and Amex has 5 or so partners. So buying points is really the only option for annual long haul.
The last straw for *A was United going market price so most fixed points travel options are difficult if not impossible to find under 400k o/w business.
So this year instead of bouncing through 7 countries on 6 airlines over 3 days we booked almost direct using an OTA with a return package on an itinerary with AS, JAL outbound, open jaw and Garuda JAL WS on the return. YLW-BKK and DPS-YLW return business no overnight. Far cheaper than the minimum 117,000 AC o/w points would have cost on sale. Outbound was flawless. Fingers crossed for return.
OTA wanted to charge for seats etc but airlines customer service did everything for free. JAL owns the ticket so it's not likely we'd be screwed like we'd be if Qatar was involved.
Sometimes a "direct" flight has so much less to go wrong it's worth a little extra. Last year the FRA Wildcat screwed up our return and forced a crappy overnight in Muskat as well. All points credited to AS so good start on MVP.
I think demand pricing has really put the screws to points travel!
I once used actual travel agents back in the day. I'd do this again in an instant. I'm unsure I'd ever use an online-only travel agent. Ben identified a few ways where these could be helpful but... nah.
Agree with you mostly Ben.
My partner found an itinerary returning from Chile that he like on Travelocity so we booked it, despite my hesitation with OTAs,
This was Travelocity and their service was appalling.
We were booked Latam - Alaska and Latam had numerous schedule changes, including moving us to Wamos Air (subbing for Latam flights).
Each time we questioned Travelocity - it was an outsourced call center in India- they would...
Agree with you mostly Ben.
My partner found an itinerary returning from Chile that he like on Travelocity so we booked it, despite my hesitation with OTAs,
This was Travelocity and their service was appalling.
We were booked Latam - Alaska and Latam had numerous schedule changes, including moving us to Wamos Air (subbing for Latam flights).
Each time we questioned Travelocity - it was an outsourced call center in India- they would simply lie to you "Wamos Air is a subsidiary of Latam" and "You are travelling on a Latam flight".
The list was endless. I doubt many of their call centre agents have ever been on an airplane.
In the end, Latam had a final sked change cancelling our flight, at which point they took over the reservation and rescheduled us on an acceptable option.
Bottom line - Never ever again with Travelocity!
I book with the airline directly almost all the time. I stay at some hotels that offer good value, but are independent or small groups with no reward programs. I can book them through Expedia at the same or lower price than direct* and get Expedia $s. Once a year, I fly trans-Tasman on NZ. I use the Expedia rewards and get the flight for "free" (at the same gross price as NZ directly). I...
I book with the airline directly almost all the time. I stay at some hotels that offer good value, but are independent or small groups with no reward programs. I can book them through Expedia at the same or lower price than direct* and get Expedia $s. Once a year, I fly trans-Tasman on NZ. I use the Expedia rewards and get the flight for "free" (at the same gross price as NZ directly). I can load it in the NZ app, modify seating, check in, etc. with no problem.
* the hotels offer a low price guarantee, which means I can contact them and get the Expedia rate w/o Expefia (or any) rewards. Why go through the hassle?
So, what route do you typically take from Ohio to Oceania? Almost feels like the premise of that scene in Rain Man, where they’re trying to get from Cincinnati to Los Angeles… on Qantas.
Benefit of using an OTA ( sort of ).
Once in 2022, just after the big C global panic, after 6 months of back & forth trying to get a refund for an airline Business ticket, I was still getting the run around. Being polite and trying not to upset anybody's feelings was not doing the trick.
The airline telling me to call the OTA*. The OTA telling me to call the airline*....
Benefit of using an OTA ( sort of ).
Once in 2022, just after the big C global panic, after 6 months of back & forth trying to get a refund for an airline Business ticket, I was still getting the run around. Being polite and trying not to upset anybody's feelings was not doing the trick.
The airline telling me to call the OTA*. The OTA telling me to call the airline*. The OTA telling me the airline had not released the funds back to them. The airline telling me they had. So lots of lies being told.
Time for action. I managed to get onto an agent at the OTA's Indian call-centre and worked my way through to a Supervisor. She looked at my case and could see I had been getting an almighty runaround. She still insisted the airline had not released the funds for the ticket and it was the OTA's company policy to wait. However, she agreed as a once off, to refund me in full and they would sort it out with the airline.
Meanwhile, I did the same with the Airline directly. And guess what, after seeing the case on screen, they to agreed to refund the funds in full directly to me.
Jackpot! After 6 months of back and forth, between airline telling lies and OTA telling lies, I received refunds from both of them for the amount c. $USD 3000 each.
Did I feel guilty? Should I have owned up? The answer is an emphatic No. After the lies, the delays, my time, the expense to me, I thought bugger 'em. They stuffed me around for so long for no reason, they can pay me.
I rarely use OTA's for the reason Ben outlines. As soon as the going gets tough, they run a mile. The only rare occasion I would use one now is if a Business fare is substantially lower, and it has to be 25% or more which does occasionally happen. Aside from that, best only use the Airline direct. Especially if you have status, you have much more leverage when things go awry.
*OTA and airline names with-held to protect the guilty ha ha!
I disagree that they need to pay $3000 for your stress, but I do agree you don’t have to pay them for their mistakes. It’s their own mistake they paid you twice. So whilst I agree you can keep it I think framing it as lies delay expense and time is not realistic. They paid for their own accounting mistake.
Ben
i agree with you
deal directly with comcerned airlines
in the event a booked and paid ticket is cancelled xxed due to
unforeseen circumstances, getting a refund from a travel agency is
difficult sooner or may have to wait for a longer time
due to financial conditions and strains of the agency
agency has to submit the bimonthly or monthly return to iata office
or ARC as the case...
Ben
i agree with you
deal directly with comcerned airlines
in the event a booked and paid ticket is cancelled xxed due to
unforeseen circumstances, getting a refund from a travel agency is
difficult sooner or may have to wait for a longer time
due to financial conditions and strains of the agency
agency has to submit the bimonthly or monthly return to iata office
or ARC as the case may be, they will use your payment to make up
that fortnightly statement with fund remittance. you may have to
wait for a longer time, or some of the agencies are in the process
of winding up their entity and misappropriating all passengers
money without remitting to iata or arc and they will run away
putting a big lock for their office. the money is gone
no one can help
in case of refunds if you ask airline to refund they will you to go
to travel agency to process your refund. no one can help
this had happened during the tenure of my aviation carrier.
thanks for bringing up this issue for the benefit of travellers.
I definitely agree with you on booking with smaller airlines. That’s what we did for Air Tahiti and Air Moana going to Bora Bora. It was so much simpler going through Expedia than their own channels. Like you mentioned, they also have better flexibility than the airlines. I canceled a non refundable PAL flight beyond the 24 hours and was able to get it fully refunded.
I also appreciate Expedia and Booking.com for booking super...
I definitely agree with you on booking with smaller airlines. That’s what we did for Air Tahiti and Air Moana going to Bora Bora. It was so much simpler going through Expedia than their own channels. Like you mentioned, they also have better flexibility than the airlines. I canceled a non refundable PAL flight beyond the 24 hours and was able to get it fully refunded.
I also appreciate Expedia and Booking.com for booking super small places that may not necessarily have websites even. So there’s definitely value in them. My rule is to just stick to the big ones like the ones mentioned and have never had a problem. I’ve never really had to contact customer service anyways.
While I agree with most of it and prefer to book direct, I have to mention two incentives of booking through OTAs:
- for a small airline you've never heard of, your money is safe with the OTA of the airline gets bankrupt by the time you fly
- sometimes you have more credit card points when booking with the OTA (for example in Europe, Revolut Metal has points multipliers on trip.com at the moment, and had it with lastminute.com last summer)
This is a much larger discussion than is here - I would classify myself as an “air expert” probably the top 0.1pct of agents
Say 4 years ago and longer a lot of general terms would get folks 80pct of the way there - ie generally book a round trip for intl - look at hubs , ensure you do x and likely close enough is good enough
Reality is non of this...
This is a much larger discussion than is here - I would classify myself as an “air expert” probably the top 0.1pct of agents
Say 4 years ago and longer a lot of general terms would get folks 80pct of the way there - ie generally book a round trip for intl - look at hubs , ensure you do x and likely close enough is good enough
Reality is non of this applies in 2026 - to even train my staff is very complex and the underlying infrastructure is broken . Even point to point round trip domestic is a mess . As more “unbundling “ happens the more difficult things become - with new tech it may get there in next few years but that’s optimistic
I guess in short - good luck !
OTA can be a great help when booking around the world special tickets
One not stated here is that some OTAs may allow you to book combination of flights that are possible but don't appear on the offical website (though I would only do this with Expedia/Booking.com/Gotogate).
For a recent trip between Europe and India I was able to book my dad on a flight on Saudia that included 10/11 hour layovers in Jeddah in both directions. This was a flight combination that just didn't appear the official website but did appear on Booking.com
I have to criticize Google Flights for being an enabler of shady OTAs (names like "Flighthub", "Ovago", "Arangrant") listing flights for sale at highly discounted prices, which:
1) throws off your (my) searches and perception of suitable flight dates with results you would never book
2) dupes unsuspecting people into thinking these OTAs are a good deal.
At best, they are a slight discount (if your plans are certain and you will...
I have to criticize Google Flights for being an enabler of shady OTAs (names like "Flighthub", "Ovago", "Arangrant") listing flights for sale at highly discounted prices, which:
1) throws off your (my) searches and perception of suitable flight dates with results you would never book
2) dupes unsuspecting people into thinking these OTAs are a good deal.
At best, they are a slight discount (if your plans are certain and you will need absolutely no help). At worst, you will be charged hundreds of dollars to do any normal ticket modifications, even in weather circumstances where this should be free.
These OTAs give up their commission $ to get you these artificially lower prices, and then make it up by exorbitant / unreasonable fees to do anything requiring human help. They are located in places like HK, Singapore, PO boxes in Miami with shell companies, where I doubt you would be able to track them down if you had any real problems.
Buyer beware. And GFlights should vet and take some position on listing these places, hopefully in the sense of not letting them...
I'm not sure you should malign Flighthub.
I'm on their well priced ticket and have had no issues.
Still months before return so might have a surprise but so far all's well.
You don't have issues until something goes wrong with the airline/flight, and have to call the travel agency.
The answer is, like so often, price! Many OTAs (not only the obscure ones you may never have heard of) offer you a discounted price. Could be not worth bothering, but could be as much as around EUR 50 or more per person adding up quickly when two or more people are travelling together. Often they do that on their own account, just to get your booking and your details, so they can bombard you...
The answer is, like so often, price! Many OTAs (not only the obscure ones you may never have heard of) offer you a discounted price. Could be not worth bothering, but could be as much as around EUR 50 or more per person adding up quickly when two or more people are travelling together. Often they do that on their own account, just to get your booking and your details, so they can bombard you with attempts to sell you ancillaries afterwards. And that's the catch: Almost every add-on they may try to sell you afterwards will be much more expensive than booking this directly with the airline. So you have to be disciplined: Book the discounted fare from the OTA, wait until you get hold of the airline booking reference, then pull up your booking with that reference directly on the airline's website and book your seats, luggage or whatever directly there.
In Europe there is also consumer protection and if there is a schedule change or cancellation, the airline is not allowed to tell you to contact the OTA to sort this out. They have to help you directly.
However, you need to be pretty sure when booking that there will be no voluntary change from YOUR side, which will be costly and tedious, if an OTA is involved.
So, if you know what you are doing, you can save quite a bit.
The only time I use OTA's to book flights is when I have a long journey with secondary cities at either end. Think something like Winnipeg, Canada to Durban, South Africa. I found that trying to book a routing like that directly via an airline tricky with very limited options. An airline usually can get you to the primary hub at either end, but if it's secondary city to secondary city they struggle. So if...
The only time I use OTA's to book flights is when I have a long journey with secondary cities at either end. Think something like Winnipeg, Canada to Durban, South Africa. I found that trying to book a routing like that directly via an airline tricky with very limited options. An airline usually can get you to the primary hub at either end, but if it's secondary city to secondary city they struggle. So if it were Winnipeg to Johannesburg, you could easily book that on Air Canada.com. Or Durban to Toronto. But Winnipeg-Durban and it gets harder. Expedia, on the other hand, is usually able to cobble different options together on multiple airlines, making it easier. Exactly what the article says about OTA's being better at interline tickets or other complex combinations.
If I use a OTA it'd be only Trip.com. Not only they often have cheaper prices for China flights than even booking direct, but for many airlines they also offer ticket combinations options (luggage, free cancellation) that I can't find anywhere else even on the airline website
+1 on trip.com; I also like their "loyalty and perks system". One feature I would love to see them add is mixed cabin bookings.
One other major benefit of OTAs (and the only reason I would use one, in the rare circumstance when I do) is the ability to package unusual ticketing combinations such as open jaws or combination flights on different airlines from different alliances.
Additionally, many airlines impose surcharges on direct bookings originating in some countries which you can avoid by using OTAs that ticket on a SOTO basis. For example, it is invariably around 10-20% cheaper for me to book via any OTA when originating travel in Malawi than it is to book directly with Ethiopian Airlines for the exact same fare basis as ET levies a surcharge on direct bookings.
That kinda seems like a silly practice on Ethiopian's side Sean. Any idea why they'd do that? Other than because they can
It is fairly common for all airlines in markets where they can't easily accoess hard currency to repatriate their direct sales. When agencies sell, the agency is responsible for paying the airline so they prefer that.
Interesting insight, I didn't know that.
However, they could avoid that by pricing fares in a hard currency. For example BA prices anything ex-Turkey I. USD
Two comments :
* That may be illegal in many countries who require transactions in local currency.
* Simply holding hard currency in-country does not mean you can repatriate it.