[News] Flying from Heathrow today (Fri 21 March) or picking up please read

[Herr Tubthumper]

You misunderstand me. If the ticket is refundable or the flight is non operational the agent can claim the refund for you, you don’t have to try and call the Airline if they won’t let you do it on the app. I was just commenting on GB being unable to get through to BA, which could go on for a while I guess he already knows if it’s a refundable ticket or not under normal circumstances. Most agents have 24 hour phone assistance, we are no longer in the 70s

A mate of mine used to work for that student travel agent , STA I think it’s called. He was always stoned. Good luck with getting any use out of him on a Saturday morning . I doubt he’d know the difference between an airline ticket and a parking ticket after a Friday night.

 

[dazzer6666]

I rest my case that booking through a travel agent is the best option when these problems occur. However it could be that if you are on a non refundable ticket and your flight is scheduled to depart on time BA won’t refund anyway? In which case you’d just be handing the hassle of checking to the travel agent.

‘These problems’ (or anything like them) don’t occur very often at all so ‘resting your case’ on what is essentially an extreme example is a bit of a stretch. Having flown 20+ times a year with work and now doing almost a much with holidays, I almost always book direct now. In normal circumstances it’s easy enough to view/change/cancel anything, contact suppliers (although not usually necessary given virtually everything can be done online anyway) and I’ve had more issued with hotel bookings in particular through agents (missing bookings, wrong room etc) than when I’ve booked direct. I don’t have data but anecdotally would also say I’ve had far more upgrades and discounts by booking direct too.

 

[beorhthelm]

Confirmed ’no suspicious circumstance’. You may all remove your tin foil hats

ah, but they would say that

 

[Chicken Run]

Confirmed ’no suspicious circumstance’. You may all remove your tin foil hats

Indeed a few on here were a little excitable (just a smidgeon) at the prospect that Putin was the fire starter .

 

[Flounce]

‘These problems’ (or anything like them) don’t occur very often at all so ‘resting your case’ on what is essentially an extreme example is a bit of a stretch. Having flown 20+ times a year with work and now doing almost a much with holidays, I almost always book direct now. In normal circumstances it’s easy enough to view/change/cancel anything, contact suppliers (although not usually necessary given virtually everything can be done online anyway) and I’ve had more issued with hotel bookings in particular through agents (missing bookings, wrong room etc) than when I’ve booked direct. I don’t have data but anecdotally would also say I’ve had far more upgrades and discounts by booking direct too.

Fair enough, pays your money, takes your choice. Seems you may have been using a sub par agent from your experiences though

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Fair enough, pays your money, takes your choice. Seems you may have been using a sub par agent from your experiences though

I think my drone experience demonstrates that the absolute essentials in life are a smartphone, a good friend and a decent restaurant

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Confirmed ’no suspicious circumstance’. You may all remove your tin foil hats

One electrical engineer now packing up and going to the job centre on Monday.

 

[Guinness Boy]

I rest my case that booking through a travel agent is the best option when these problems occur. However it could be that if you are on a non refundable ticket and your flight is scheduled to depart on time BA won’t refund anyway? In which case you’d just be handing the hassle of checking to the travel agent.

It was refundable but I can’t check when that expired. BA can be 24 or 48 hours before.

It was for work and we don’t use a travel agent. We’re supposed to use skyscanner or Google flights or book directly using an app and then claim back.

In this particular circumstance I wholeheartedly agree I wish it had been through an agent!

 

[dazzer6666]

Fair enough, pays your money, takes your choice. Seems you may have been using a sub par agent from your experiences though

Multiple agents over the years. Most recent to **** up a few simple things was Audley.

 

[Balders]

I know you strongly support travel agents, which is fine, but needing one to help you check the type of ticket surely isn’t necessary? Can’t you just look at it? Or maybe even simply remember what it was you bought? Surely this is easier than waiting for the High Street travel agent to open and calling them, and hoping one of their lines is free?

Just coming to Flounce's defense (again) I 100% understand that booking direct is the preferred route of many but booking things, particularly flights isn't necessarily straightforward, unless you just book direct where the vast majority of the cheapest fares are non refundable, unless you select and pay extra for a "flex" ticket.

As has been stated before, Agents get access to many different fare types that are only available to the Trade (granted they are mostly for Scheduled Airlines and not Low Cost Carriers) If you are booking a flight with a ground arrangement, Agents can offer ITX fares which can be booked with a low deposit and are only ticketed a few weeks before - up to that point they can be cancelled for loss of deposit. There are also CAT35 fares for flight only and these can be cancelled for a low fee (fees vary by ticket type and airline) so there are advantages in booking these types of fare, IF it suits.

The sweeping "High Street Travel Agent" statement obviously suits the agenda. As I've said before, the Travel Agent landscape is changing and there are plenty of decent Agents that franchise from Consortiums, work from home and can offer a service that online and big direct companies cannot match.

Your statement about Smartphones and Technology is so right, but their use is not limited to people booking direct. I have my own small Agency Business which I franchise through the UK's largest Independent Travel Company - whatsApp is great and I use this with my customers when they are abroad - so many examples of how they can get hold of me (at all hours) and how things can be sorted.....

In my experience people are very split on how they book their own travel - those that book direct are predominantly vehemently against Agents, but likewise plenty of people are staunch supporters of agents. As the market shows, there is room for both and there is enough business out there for both distribution channels to thrive. Each to their own and all that.......

 

[PascalGroß Tips]

Just coming to Flounce's defense (again) I 100% understand that booking direct is the preferred route of many but booking things, particularly flights isn't necessarily straightforward, unless you just book direct where the vast majority of the cheapest fares are non refundable, unless you select and pay extra for a "flex" ticket.

As has been stated before, Agents get access to many different fare types that are only available to the Trade (granted they are mostly for Scheduled Airlines and not Low Cost Carriers) If you are booking a flight with a ground arrangement, Agents can offer ITX fares which can be booked with a low deposit and are only ticketed a few weeks before - up to that point they can be cancelled for loss of deposit. There are also CAT35 fares for flight only and these can be cancelled for a low fee (fees vary by ticket type and airline) so there are advantages in booking these types of fare, IF it suits.

The sweeping "High Street Travel Agent" statement obviously suits the agenda. As I've said before, the Travel Agent landscape is changing and there are plenty of decent Agents that franchise from Consortiums, work from home and can offer a service that online and big direct companies cannot match.

Your statement about Smartphones and Technology is so right, but their use is not limited to people booking direct. I have my own small Agency Business which I franchise through the UK's largest Independent Travel Company - whatsApp is great and I use this with my customers when they are abroad - so many examples of how they can get hold of me (at all hours) and how things can be sorted.....

In my experience people are very split on how they book their own travel - those that book direct are predominantly vehemently against Agents, but likewise plenty of people are staunch supporters of agents. As the market shows, there is room for both and there is enough business out there for both distribution channels to thrive. Each to their own and all that.......

Interesting post ... a quick question if you don't mind. We will shortly be booking flights to Barbados from LHR for next January. We have been looking at BA and Virgin - favouring Virgin. And also looking at a flex ticket as we have a son who has a medical condition which means plans sometimes have to change or be cancelled. Had to cancel a Caribbean cruise for my 50th some years ago for this reason. This will be our first 'long distant' flight as we are very much European/easyJet travellers.

Is there something that an agent could do for us that would be more flexible/advantageous than booking flights direct?

 

[Balders]

Interesting post ... a quick question if you don't mind. We will shortly be booking flights to Barbados from LHR for next January. We have been looking at BA and Virgin - favouring Virgin. And also looking at a flex ticket as we have a son who has a medical condition which means plans sometimes have to change or be cancelled. Had to cancel a Caribbean cruise for my 50th some years ago for this reason. This will be our first 'long distant' flight as we are very much European/easyJet travellers.

Is there something that an agent could do for us that would be more flexible/advantageous than booking flights direct?

Interesting post ... a quick question if you don't mind. We will shortly be booking flights to Barbados from LHR for next January. We have been looking at BA and Virgin - favouring Virgin. And also looking at a flex ticket as we have a son who has a medical condition which means plans sometimes have to change or be cancelled. Had to cancel a Caribbean cruise for my 50th some years ago for this reason. This will be our first 'long distant' flight as we are very much European/easyJet travellers.

Is there something that an agent could do for us that would be more flexible/advantageous than booking flights direct?

All depends on how much flexibility you need and at what cost works for you. In general terms a fully flexible ticket is going to cost a lot more money. The problem with the CAT35 tickets is that their terms and conditions vary depending on the terms offered by the airline. As an example a CAT35 ticket may be cancelled for a fee of £150 and you could also change dates for a £100 fee plus any difference in fare. Equally those fees could be £300 and £200 respectively - it's not just as simple as just looking at the ticket ITX fares where you also book accommodation with the flight can be cancelled up to a point for loss of deposit, I have some Tour Ops where you can book these for as little as £65 total deposit, but they become non refundable at 10 weeks prior to travel.

Also for your situation there is the fall back of Travel Insurance but pre existing medical conditions can make this a bit of a minefield.

There are also other advantages to booking a Package, most of the time with a low deposit. You get ATOL Financial Protection (financial failure) but more importantly you get the additional benefit of the Package Travel Regulations, which is basically if something goes wrong with the booking (flights cancelled, hotel burns down etc) then the Principal has to make it right at no extra cost to the customer (within reason, it's obviously a bit more complicated than that, but the theory is the customer is looked after!)

I do "get" people booking short haul for a couple of nights direct and tbh there's not a lot of money in those sort of trips for an Agent anyway!

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

‘These problems’ (or anything like them) don’t occur very often at all so ‘resting your case’ on what is essentially an extreme example is a bit of a stretch. Having flown 20+ times a year with work and now doing almost a much with holidays, I almost always book direct now. In normal circumstances it’s easy enough to view/change/cancel anything, contact suppliers (although not usually necessary given virtually everything can be done online anyway) and I’ve had more issued with hotel bookings in particular through agents (missing bookings, wrong room etc) than when I’ve booked direct. I don’t have data but anecdotally would also say I’ve had far more upgrades and discounts by booking direct too.

Yes sir

This is a once a year at most issue that no airline will be set up for, last year it was ATC going down, judging airlines by these events is foolish

I have no issue with travel agents at all, but I've seen my fair share of them binning off customers and saying not our problem, speak to the airline.

Having done time and both Virgin and BA in normal periods of the time the cancel and rebook process robot is 85-100 percent successful without customer needing to contact, in fact a large amount of contact is driven by people who already have the information !

Yesterday airlines would have called people in off holiday/days off and people would have stayed extra hours to help

 

[PascalGroß Tips]

All depends on how much flexibility you need and at what cost works for you. In general terms a fully flexible ticket is going to cost a lot more money. The problem with the CAT35 tickets is that their terms and conditions vary depending on the terms offered by the airline. As an example a CAT35 ticket may be cancelled for a fee of £150 and you could also change dates for a £100 fee plus any difference in fare. Equally those fees could be £300 and £200 respectively - it's not just as simple as just looking at the ticket ITX fares where you also book accommodation with the flight can be cancelled up to a point for loss of deposit, I have some Tour Ops where you can book these for as little as £65 total deposit, but they become non refundable at 10 weeks prior to travel.

Also for your situation there is the fall back of Travel Insurance but pre existing medical conditions can make this a bit of a minefield.

There are also other advantages to booking a Package, most of the time with a low deposit. You get ATOL Financial Protection (financial failure) but more importantly you get the additional benefit of the Package Travel Regulations, which is basically if something goes wrong with the booking (flights cancelled, hotel burns down etc) then the Principal has to make it right at no extra cost to the customer (within reason, it's obviously a bit more complicated than that, but the theory is the customer is looked after!)

I do "get" people booking short haul for a couple of nights direct and tbh there's not a lot of money in those sort of trips for an Agent anyway!

Thanks ...

We've already got accommodation booked with the flexibility we need.

This is what we're currently looking at with Virgin Airlines. The cost of 'Flex' is £120 a person - which would at least give us a bit of peace of mind.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Just coming to Flounce's defense (again) I 100% understand that booking direct is the preferred route of many but booking things, particularly flights isn't necessarily straightforward, unless you just book direct where the vast majority of the cheapest fares are non refundable, unless you select and pay extra for a "flex" ticket.

As has been stated before, Agents get access to many different fare types that are only available to the Trade (granted they are mostly for Scheduled Airlines and not Low Cost Carriers) If you are booking a flight with a ground arrangement, Agents can offer ITX fares which can be booked with a low deposit and are only ticketed a few weeks before - up to that point they can be cancelled for loss of deposit. There are also CAT35 fares for flight only and these can be cancelled for a low fee (fees vary by ticket type and airline) so there are advantages in booking these types of fare, IF it suits.

The sweeping "High Street Travel Agent" statement obviously suits the agenda. As I've said before, the Travel Agent landscape is changing and there are plenty of decent Agents that franchise from Consortiums, work from home and can offer a service that online and big direct companies cannot match.

Your statement about Smartphones and Technology is so right, but their use is not limited to people booking direct. I have my own small Agency Business which I franchise through the UK's largest Independent Travel Company - whatsApp is great and I use this with my customers when they are abroad - so many examples of how they can get hold of me (at all hours) and how things can be sorted.....

In my experience people are very split on how they book their own travel - those that book direct are predominantly vehemently against Agents, but likewise plenty of people are staunch supporters of agents. As the market shows, there is room for both and there is enough business out there for both distribution channels to thrive. Each to their own and all that.......

Put like this, I can see benefits. I admit I have not used an agent for about 25 years, the last time was a skiing trip with via an agent and using Crystal. It was awful. It seems things have moved on in this time .

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Interesting post ... a quick question if you don't mind. We will shortly be booking flights to Barbados from LHR for next January. We have been looking at BA and Virgin - favouring Virgin. And also looking at a flex ticket as we have a son who has a medical condition which means plans sometimes have to change or be cancelled. Had to cancel a Caribbean cruise for my 50th some years ago for this reason. This will be our first 'long distant' flight as we are very much European/easyJet travellers.

Is there something that an agent could do for us that would be more flexible/advantageous than booking flights direct?

I’d favor Virgin over BA any day, way more customer focused than BA these days imho.

 

[Flounce]

Just coming to Flounce's defense (again) I 100% understand that booking direct is the preferred route of many but booking things, particularly flights isn't necessarily straightforward, unless you just book direct where the vast majority of the cheapest fares are non refundable, unless you select and pay extra for a "flex" ticket.

As has been stated before, Agents get access to many different fare types that are only available to the Trade (granted they are mostly for Scheduled Airlines and not Low Cost Carriers) If you are booking a flight with a ground arrangement, Agents can offer ITX fares which can be booked with a low deposit and are only ticketed a few weeks before - up to that point they can be cancelled for loss of deposit. There are also CAT35 fares for flight only and these can be cancelled for a low fee (fees vary by ticket type and airline) so there are advantages in booking these types of fare, IF it suits.

The sweeping "High Street Travel Agent" statement obviously suits the agenda. As I've said before, the Travel Agent landscape is changing and there are plenty of decent Agents that franchise from Consortiums, work from home and can offer a service that online and big direct companies cannot match.

Your statement about Smartphones and Technology is so right, but their use is not limited to people booking direct. I have my own small Agency Business which I franchise through the UK's largest Independent Travel Company - whatsApp is great and I use this with my customers when they are abroad - so many examples of how they can get hold of me (at all hours) and how things can be sorted.....

In my experience people are very split on how they book their own travel - those that book direct are predominantly vehemently against Agents, but likewise plenty of people are staunch supporters of agents. As the market shows, there is room for both and there is enough business out there for both distribution channels to thrive. Each to their own and all that.......

Good post, you have gone into much greater detail than I could be arsed to

 

[Balders]

Yes sir

This is a once a year at most issue that no airline will be set up for, last year it was ATC going down, judging airlines by these events is foolish

I have no issue with travel agents at all, but I've seen my fair share of them binning off customers and saying not our problem, speak to the airline.

Having done time and both Virgin and BA in normal periods of the time the cancel and rebook process robot is 85-100 percent successful without customer needing to contact, in fact a large amount of contact is driven by people who already have the information !

Yesterday airlines would have called people in off holiday/days off and people would have stayed extra hours to help

It's a really interesting subject, so forgive me in "indulging" once again, based on a couple of comments above!

Technically, once an Airline cancels your flight, regardless of who you booked with, then you become the Airline's responsibility and if you have booked flight only with an agent, that's how it works, but a good agent will sort it all for you and depending on the airline, may have access to more options than you may see on an app or a website.

Where an agent can really add value is if the cancelled flights were part of a package as there are additional responsibilities, not only to get you away on holiday but also to get you back!

One good example of many, I had a customer book a package to go to Rwanda and then onto Dar Es Salam and finally on to Zanzibar. To get all the flights on one ticket (the most cost effective way) we booked Air Rwanda for all the legs, but the customer would get the ferry back from Zanzibar to Dar pick up the Air Rwanda flight home as they don't fly or codeshare out of Zanzibar.

Day before the return flight, Air Rwanda cancelled the flight - we knew before the customer so whatsapp sent to say we are working on it. Air Rwanda could only get him back 3 days later, but as this was a Package there was additional responsibility to get the customer back quicker, if possible. Rebooked the customer on an Ethiopian flight out of Zanzibar (no need for the ferry to Dar - result!) on the same day as the cancelled Air Rwanda flight - all at no cost to the customer and all sorted with the customer via whatspp.

If that was booked "flight only" the choice would be wait 3 days or cancel the Air Rwanda flight and wait for a refund and pay for the Ethiopian flight out of you own pocket.

 

[Flounce]

Yes sir

This is a once a year at most issue that no airline will be set up for, last year it was ATC going down, judging airlines by these events is foolish

I have no issue with travel agents at all, but I've seen my fair share of them binning off customers and saying not our problem, speak to the airline.

Having done time and both Virgin and BA in normal periods of the time the cancel and rebook process robot is 85-100 percent successful without customer needing to contact, in fact a large amount of contact is driven by people who already have the information !

Yesterday airlines would have called people in off holiday/days off and people would have stayed extra hours to help

I am sure there are a few sub standard travel agents, generally large ones.

As for airlines, Virgin I found to be OK. BA though, I’d never have dealt with them by choice as their attitude to agents stinks and from some clients experiences seems they are not much better with the general public. When I started in travel BA were brilliant at sorting problems, latterly the arrogance and lack of interest both astounded and annoyed me in equal measure. Absolutely fine….until you have a problem. Obviously there are exceptions and some very efficient and helpful BA staff but in the main, nah.

 

[Balders]

Thanks ...

We've already got accommodation booked with the flexibility we need.

This is what we're currently looking at with Virgin Airlines. The cost of 'Flex' is £120 a person - which would at least give us a bit of peace of mind.

View attachment 198870

I pride myself on honesty and this may come across as counter intuitive for an agent with a sniff of making some money, but if you are happy with the T&Cs of the flex ticket, I'd just book that as that's a really good price!