Travel Agent Or Book Online Myself ?

[onzestan]

If you can travel a few days before, the price is Bath 66670, - with Qatar online, and the best thing is that I don’t need to contact the travel agency to find it out.

Thats correct but the 66670 is WITHOUT taxes and fuel surcharge, plus for that price on qatar's website you have a layover of 15:10 hours on the return flight.

My layovers are 1:45 each way.

Of course if you don't mind sitting 15 hours in the lounge that's upto you.

Anyway I'm all for a good travel agent because I have one, if not maybe I would prefer internet also.

No malice intended.

cheers

onzestan

[onethailand]

I just booked through a travel agent BKK/FRA/BKK Business class with Qatar for june at Baht 72.890,-

Try finding that fare on the internet. BTW this is NOT a promotion.

cheers

onzestan

To make a long story short, if you had found the right online agent, you could've had the exact same price or better. But, there are very few Thai agents with real-time online booking at the moment.

Also, Qatar always has great deals on flights to Europe, unlike just about any other airline.

[david96]

January 19, 2008

One airline is bucking the dubious trend of masking taxes and charges. Clive Dorman reports.

Singapore Airlines has become the first big foreign carrier flying to Australia to buck the marketing "virus" of deceptive airfare pricing.

The airline admits the move is in response to a customer backlash against so-called component pricing, where fares are advertised minus "taxes and charges" that, in some cases, are half the real fare.

The company's initiative is remarkable, considering its home base, Singapore, is a hotbed of component pricing, especially among low-cost carriers.

Even its subsidiary, Tiger Airways, will continue to use asterisked pricing for its Asian services because, it says, it is unwilling to give its competitors an advantage - even though, for its Australian services, it has fallen in line with the voluntary agreement by domestic airlines that has done away with the practice.

The airline's other Asian subsidiary, SilkAir, is also continuing to use component pricing.

"It would just murder us in the market," Tiger's Australian spokesman, Matt Hobbs, says of the reason the airline will continue to use asterisked pricing in Asia. "It would make our fares look not as competitive, even though we are actually undercutting our competitors."

But Singapore Airlines has decided to take a stand. "We will standardise our advertising practices to provide consumers with the full price in all advertisements, wherever we advertise," says its executive vice-president marketing and regions, Huang Cheng Eng.

"In some markets, this may mean we look more expensive than our competitors at first glance. But we think consumers understand that there are a variety of extras that form part of the ticket price now. And we think it's time the industry moved to do this across the board.

"In those markets where this practice is not adopted widely, we will take the lead, and give consumers the full picture."

In Australia, Qantas has been alone in advertising the full price of airfares on its overseas services. Even its subsidiary, Jetstar, dabbles in the practice. So does the Virgin Blue international subsidiary, Pacific Blue.

A Federal Government spokesman said last week the Government was committed to outlawing component pricing.

Jetstar spokeswoman Simone Pregellio points out that Jetstar uses the practice only at the first stage of an online booking. In the media, it advertises full fares including all taxes and charges.

Nevertheless, since most of Jetstar's international customers book online, their first inquiry gives the impression that the fare they'll book is hundreds of dollars cheaper than it really is.

(Warning: there's also a quirk in the Jetstar online booking process where, if you book a fare to Australia, departing from a point outside Australia, you are quoted the fare in US dollars.)

Virgin Blue spokeswoman Amanda Bolger admits Pacific Blue is continuing to advertise asterisked airfares against its will.

"We're in big favour of changing the law to make it illegal," Bolger says of the component pricing syndrome. "But we won't do it [abolish the practice] until everyone else does it, because it would put us at a competitive disadvantage."

[Felt 35]

onzestan, I stand corrected regarding the taxes and you beet me with Baht 495, -

However the layover I have got is 1:45 outbound and 2:25 inbound.

And so to the fact and the reason I personally have jumped from travel agencies to online booking. This based on living in Phuket. Haggling about a price with a travel agency you already have seen cheaper online is not a convenient way to buy flight tickets. 3% surcharge when paying with a Credit Card is another momentum, which not only are inconvenient but also illegal and on the top make the special travel agency offer more expensive. Travel to Bangkok to get one of the special offers (which usually not are so special when the conditions come off) advertised daily in Bangkok Post is already an extra cost. To transfer money from your bank account to a travel agency you never have met and located far away is inconvenient and unsafe.

If the travel agencies provided better service, standard and transparency, well I personally had stayed with them. For a period I always double-checked prices. Now I only book online. Got a price from the travel agency and one online and I not jump for a 2000, - Baht price difference, but when my preferred airline often have between 3-5000, - Bath lower price than the agencies. Well its all-very logic what any customer then will do.

[enyaw]

Do your research on-line, via people like ebookers or expedia, as well as the airlines' own web-sites.

Then visit your preferred local travel-agent, armed with the knowledge so far gained, to see whether they can get a better quote.

ie have the best of both worlds.

This is quite simply the best solution. With booking engines like expedia, ebookers and opodo and such, airlines own websites and travel agents, tour operators and consolidators who are able to offer IT (inclusive tour) and discounted net air fares we have never had it so good.

Except for the prices they are going up and up and up...........

cheers

onzestan

Well yes your right, the cost of a barrell of oil these days, the impact of terrorism and of course the extra taxes implemented for the sake of our enviroment but I was agreeing with ricardo's wisdom that we have best of both worlds, in regards to the OP we can now easily research or indeed book our own flights online and in any case we are armed with info that wasn't available to us before the days of broadband, in other words there is less of a chance of getting fleeced.

Edited January 19, 2008 by enyaw

[enyaw]

25-30 years from now and travel agencies are history.

Your absolutly right although I would say travel agencies are pretty much dead on their feet right now.

Only the specialist agencies will survive and good ones at that.. like bondage travel to kilomanjiro and shit like that..

Edited January 19, 2008 by enyaw

[asanee]

which again mainly means Australia is lagging behind...

Here in EU its now the normal rule, and though the nasties like Ryan keep on finding escapes, it is for 99% adhered to. I guess 9as this involves at least 7 local sites of Singy) that Singy found it too cumbersome to keep its OZzie-aimed site different!!??