A friend of mine booked a package tour for next month with a major tour operator a few months ago. Last week, his wife forgot that airline tickets were included in the booking. So she went online and, I am guessing, typed one of the airline names she wanted to fly with into an online search. What she ended up with was a toll free number for some company she mistook for the airline. So she went ahead and booked tickets with them and paid, only to discover almost immediately afterwards that she had made a mistake and double booked the flight tickets. She then contacted back that company that sold her the tickets. I saw the original booking confirmation email they sent her. They have no proper company name, just a toll free number in the US. The agent doesn't even sign the email using his surname. No company logo and a dodgy sounding, non-descriptive internet domain name. Fast forward, the booking agent immediately refused to cancel the reservation, saying it was already past the 24 hour cancellation window. But the wife was sitting there looking at the original confirmation email they sent her, and it had been sent less than 20 hours earlier. Naturally, she objected and demanded a full refund. It went back and forth a few times, and eventually the booking agent agreed. But now there is a portion the guy claims they are still “trying” to get refunded from the airline, which the travel operator says is not within their control and requires approval from the airline. I think it is all nonsense and looks like he's still trying to profit from this. If you cancel within 24 hours, it is usually accepted by any major airline. At least, they should be getting about 80 percent of the total money back that they paid, and maybe the rest eventually, but what a pain in the backside. I also checked on KAYAK what those tickets would have cost if she had just booked them directly, and it would have been about half the price. So it brings me to the point of this post. Why is the travel industry always such a dodgy hustle? They are often trying to rip people off, constantly charging more than they should. If you book directly with airlines, it is usually fine, but the moment someone inserts themselves in the middle as a "travel agent", you are likely getting taken for a ride. I think it could be partially the airline industry's fault for making flight bookings so highly commission driven. I still do not know exactly how my friend’s wife ended up contacting this company, but I am guessing these operators target and squat on specific Google keywords so they appear at the top of search results when people search for airlines, making it look like they are the official contact. It is a classic bait and switch setup in the online travel world, and probably goes on in many other industries as well. But why can't buying a plane ticket or booking a hotel not be as straightforward as anything else? Even with online hotel bookings, you can check half a dozen different sites and all of them will show different prices for the exact same room. If you do not spend time carefully hunting around and comparing, you can easily end up paying far more than you should. At some point, hopefully the industry will evolve and buying a plane ticket or booking a hotel room will become as straightforward as buying a carton of milk.
