would you book with cheaptickets/orbitz/etc?

[monpetitchou]

I have another question about booking my flight. I swear I've traveled before and it shouldn't be this complicated, but somehow it is!

So we are traveling to Greece this summer. I almost always use kayak to search for flights, then book through the actual airline's website. Well this time I can get a flight through cheaptickets for $1485 pp or I can go through the airline's site for $1734 and up. That's a $250 difference and we are buying 3 tickets. Seems like a no brainer, but it makes me nervous not booking through the actual airline. Also, are you able to still earn miles if you buy through a discount site like that? Are there any other pitfalls I should be aware of?

To complicate matters, my parents are coming on this trip with us, but they live in another city. Our original plan was to meet up at our layover and fly the overseas portion together. This cheaptickets flight doesn't have an option out of their city though. They would have to drive 2.5 hours to our airport vs 30 minutes to their airport. So I guess my second question to you is what cost savings would make it worth the longer drive? They are also paying for 3 tickets.

I think we need to decide soon because prices seem to be rising and I'm skeptical that this <1500 ticket will be available for long.

Thanks!!

[GilliC]

I book through Orbitz all the time, because there are limited airlines serving our airport, and the best options typically mean switching airlines. Even among partners, the airline websites don't always offer the same multi-carrier flight options. I've also booked with Cheaptickets, Vayama, and some others.

There really isn't a huge disadvantage unless you think it's extremely likely that your plans will change. If that's the case it can be easier to deal directly with the airline, but I almost never change my plans once I've booked something. And for $250/ticket I would definitely go for it. For normal updates (seat assignments, meal preferences, etc), you can often do this directly on the airline's website using the booking reference number.

As for the drive, I think it's personal preference. How easy is the drive? How often do they do it? What time of day would they be driving, and how will it be driving after the flight back? I don't drive, but I have often taken a 2-hour bus ride to a neighboring airport so that I could take a low-cost flight.

[emilyinchile]

I have booked through Expedia, Travelocity, Cheapoair and Vayama, to name a few. The only slight hassle I've had was when I booked H's ticket through the airline with miles and mine through I think Cheapoair. There was a schedule change that he was told about, and it took Cheapoair a couple days to update their systems to even recognize the change and then put me on his same new flight. But for a price difference of more than a few dollars, I'll happily book on a third party site.

You get miles as normal. Most sites let you input a FF number when you buy the tickets, otherwise you can always add it when you check in.

Ditto GilliC on the drive. It's up to your parents whether savings of $750 is worth an extra 2 hours each way. It almost certainly would be for me, especially if I could break up the total travel time by going to your house the night before, for example, but I know people who'd rather have the convenience than the money.

[chicago]

I'll be the random naysayer. I book with Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity all the time and have never had a significant issue other than not being able to choose my seat ahead of time for some flights, resulting in 'middle middle' seats on some long flights. Got my miles no problem and felt good about saving some money.

Cheaptickets is related to Orbitz IIRC, but we had a horrible experience the first and only time we used them. Here's the Tl;dr version: they canceled one leg of our flight without telling us, sent us paper tickets in the mail, and we showed up at the airport to find out we couldn't depart Chicago because we had no reservation. We lost out on the entire vacation even though the rest of the reservations (flight and hotel) were intact and we had to fight with them to give us our money back.

This was something like seven years ago and I'm a more experienced traveler now, so I doubt this would happen to me again, but man I hate Cheaptickets because of what happened and how they handled it. Their customer service was atrocious!

[Deleted]

I would write down the flights sold on cheaptickets and try to book it myself. I bet you'll get close in price.

I had a sour experience with Orbitz and getting stuck somewhere where my flight was cancelled but i was willing to fly to an alternate airport and the airline told me I was SOL because I hadn't booked with them. Was that BS? Who knows. To this day, I use kayak and book on the airline.

[Deleted]

And I totally think your parents should drive or you should drove to cheapest airport.

[clseale]

Jan 9, 2014 21:47:41 GMT -5 smileyface said:

I would write down the flights sold on cheaptickets and try to book it myself. I bet you'll get close in price.

I had a sour experience with Orbitz and getting stuck somewhere where my flight was cancelled but i was willing to fly to an alternate airport and the airline told me I was SOL because I hadn't booked with them. Was that BS? Who knows. To this day, I use kayak and book on the airline.

Actually, something similar just happened on H&F. One of our girl's was trying to fly to Florence for a marathon, and it became one huge cluster fuck of changed flights, getting bumped, and an airline who was very poor at assisting with anything. She actually missed the race. Someone who works for an airline chimed in. She said that the flights are always overbooked, and that when bumping, the expedia/orbitz/whoever are the first travelers bumped every time. She advised to always book through the airline. 

ETA: I've used discount site plenty of times and had no issue, but it made me rethink our flight plans for Italy in September. 

[Wanderista]

I've used Cheaptickets for years and never had a bad experience. I have no hesitation about using them and yes, the miles count the same. I've also generally been able to pick my exact seat with them unless it was an obscure Eastern European national carrier in which case, I could just specify my preferences which were honored. I'm one of those people who use SeatGuru and pick my seats very precisely; I've never had a problem doing so because of using a site like this.

I don't fault anyone for not liking them due to bad experiences, but I've never had one. 

[anna7602]

I've never had a bad experience with orbitz/Expedia/bravofly. As far as saving money on driving to a more distant airport, I would do it. When I used to live in Philly, I took flights out of JFK and BWI many times because the savings over flights out of PHL were substantial.

[SJ]

I used to use Orbitz ALL THE TIME for international flights because you could mix & match airlines for various legs to get even cheaper prices.

[monpetitchou]

Jan 9, 2014 21:47:41 GMT -5 smileyface said:

I would write down the flights sold on cheaptickets and try to book it myself. I bet you'll get close in price.

I had a sour experience with Orbitz and getting stuck somewhere where my flight was cancelled but i was willing to fly to an alternate airport and the airline told me I was SOL because I hadn't booked with them. Was that BS? Who knows. To this day, I use kayak and book on the airline.

It's AirCanada and all week long the price on their website has been several hundred dollard more than the price on cheaptickets. Suddenly today it came down to match! yay! so I will be booking directly with them instead. My DH wants to wait for prices to come down, but I'm getting so nervous about the prices I don't think I can hold out much longer.

Another bizarre thing that came up while booking this flight - AirCanada won't let you book an <2 infant through their website. It says you have to call. So I called them today and the guy recommended I lie about his age while booking, so that I could get him a ticket too, and then call back and have them edit his birthday after the fact. Weird. My DS will be 15 months but we are buying him a seat since it's a ~10 hour flight.