![]() ![]() Now, if you’ve booked through an online travel agency and need help from an airline all hope isn’t lost – but the airline may charge you a fee to ‘take over the ticket’ and that fee can be as much as $100. “ Debbie who is in resolutions department is no help and that lady should lose her job how she talks to people. If you didn’t book directly with the airline, and the airline had to pay a commission on the sale, they aren’t going to help out in advance most of the time (day of travel at the airport is a different I waited over 2 hours for them to tell me that I had to call Priceline, after I spoke to the customer service rep at price line to call American. Agencies are expected to service their own bookings. But the airline will say wait – this is an agency-booked ticket. The online travel agency may tell you to call the airline. Never believe you’ll actually get a promised call back. You may get put on hold again, or transferred, and have to start all over with your story. Once you finally get through to someone at the booking site, they may not understand your issue or how to fix it. Customer service is often outsourced, agents aren’t empowered, and wait times can be long. They spend a lot on advertising to get consumer eyeballs, and then try to service those eyeballs as inexpensively as possible. Generally speaking online travel agencies make money by automating the booking process. There’s Someone Standing Between You And Getting Help When Things Go Wrong Just got off a 45 minute call with and was told that my flight on that I paid a premium for was rebooked with a connecting flight and I will not get refund because of policy. Department of Transportation is clear that when airlines cancel flights, customers are due refunds for those flights – and that DOT refund rules apply to online travel agencies, not just airlines. The ‘OTAs’ wanted you to keep flight credits so they could keep their commissions. During the pandemic online travel agency sites became well-known for refusing to refund tickets for cancelled flights even when the airlines were willing to issue a refund. They might also refuse to refund a ticket when you’re entitled to a refund under fare rules. You might be entitled to a free change under airline rules, but the site you’ve booked through may charge you a service fee to make that change. When you book through an online travel agency, the agency may impose fees for changes on top of what the airline may charge. ![]() Online Travel Agencies Have Their Own Rules, That May Be More Stringent Than An Airline’s Two recent passenger tweets to American Airlines illustrate why. Instead, find the flights you want and then go straight to the airline to buy your ticket. While it can be useful for the average consumer to search flights with Expedia or the like, it’s not actually a good idea to buy travel from them unless they are able to construct complicated itineraries at a lower price than booking directly. Those sites didn’t limit you to booking flights on a single airline or its partners. Priceline was in part owned by its participating airlines as well. Orbitz, now owned by Expedia, actually began as a competitor owned by the airlines. They find the schedule and price they’re looking for, and then book what looks best. ![]() Most people use sites like Expedia or Kayak to compare options because they don’t start off knowing they want to fly American Airlines or United. I thought Google, with its ability to know a consumer’s habits and searches, would step into the breach through AI but that hasn’t happened. There’s a huge opportunity to improve the online booking experience and nobody has really done it. Something was lost in the process – expert guidance on what flights are best to book for reliability, like whether a one hour connection in Chicago during the winter is advisable or whether to take the last flight of the day. It largely took people (agents) out of the middle. When travel booking went online that put a lot of information in the hands of consumers and reduced the cost of booking tickets. ![]()
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