This text is part of the special book Plaisirs
Jetcost, The Flightmaker, Flighthub, Cheapflight… There are hundreds of intermediary sites that sell plane tickets, often at lower prices than the airlines. What are the risks of booking on such a platform? Deciphering the trend.
You are going on vacation and are looking for the best price for your flights. Online, the airline’s site offers them for $2,000 each. But an intermediary booking site offers you the same seats for half the price… Is it a scam?
“Where you do your research for your plane ticket and where you book are two things,” says Andrew D’Amours, co-founder of Flytrippers, which lists low-cost flights from several Canadian cities. The worst thing anyone can do is always go to the same airline site. None of them can be the cheapest every time. »
Thus, the specialist in discount flights recommends first to do a search on an aggregator of plane tickets. After evaluating their options, a traveler can then book the one they prefer, directly on the airline’s website, or on that of an intermediary seller.
Discounts, but at what price?
It may seem counter-intuitive to go through an intermediary to lower the price of a plane ticket. But this is actually a tactic on the part of these sites to attract customers who will spend on other travel products, such as an overnight stay in a hotel or a rental car. “That’s what they hope you’ll do, and that’s how they’ll make money,” says D’Amours.
Some airlines also partner with these companies on occasion. “They make deals directly with these sites to give them discounts because they don’t want to put it on their own site and it’s too publicized,” he notes.
Intermediate sites also do lucrative business through flight cancellation and change fees. Thus, a passenger who goes through this type of platform would do better to make sure of the dates of his trip before concluding his transaction. “For people who are not sure and who are thinking of changing them, it becomes much more complicated when you have an additional intermediary,” notes Mr. D’Amours.
“The airlines are going to charge you fees for changes, cancellations, modifications. But intermediate sites will add their own, continues the co-founder of Flytrippers. Often, they will catch up with that, downright. »
The procedure can also be more complex when something unexpected happens that the passenger is not the cause of, for example when a flight is delayed or even cancelled. “The airline will say ‘you booked with a booking site, deal with them”. The booking site will say “it was the airline that canceled your flight, deal with them””, illustrates Mr. D’Amours.
And in some cases, such intermediaries do not even have a customer service department. “That’s why it’s cheap. They don’t need to pay for employees who respond 24 hours a day. They don’t have any, ”observes the man who often bought his plane tickets on intermediate sites before the pandemic. Since the resumption of flights, Flytrippers has also posted a warning on its website regarding reservations made through such sites.
But are these platforms all the same? According to Mr. D’Amours, those based in Canada generally have customer service and are easier to reach. Large sites known to the public, such as Expedia or Priceline, also have teams that respond to passenger queries, he points out. “It’s really for all the small sites that nobody has heard of that it becomes more complicated when something goes wrong in the itinerary,” he says.
But faced with a significant discount offered on a resale site, what choice should be made? For Mr. D’Amours, it’s a matter of risk tolerance. “I am ready to take it for a ticket sold at half the price. On the other hand, if the price difference is $50, do I want to rack my brains? Of course, everything is much more complicated if there is a delayed flight, he says. And if the price is the same, you have to book on the airline’s website. Still. »
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the To have to, pertaining to marketing. The drafting of To have to did not take part.