We constantly hear that agents are a dying breed due to the internet.
On the contrary, we are getting busier, as most clients haven't got a simple itinerary (we don't sell SYD/MEL tickets for example)
Most of our consultants, work hard & earn good money & get a few perks.
Many people stupidly believe, if an airfare is found at an online search engine, it must be cheapest.
The reality is, almost 100% of the time, fares on different search engine sites are within a few dollars of each other.
We often get the emails that says something like …
we know you probably can't beat it, but we have found online, A to B return for $x.
We mostly only sell USA/Canada & mostly Xmas school holidays & we can always do better, if well in advance.
At last minute, which can mean different things, but we think of it, as inside 2 months before departure, there's very little left that's cheap.
Sometime, our clients have to cancel & with most of our tickets, we can do a name change for a fee paid to airline, so can onsell clients tickets who can't travel.
This is generally the only way we can offer cheap fares to USA/Canada within 2 months of departure for Xmas school holidays, the busiest period of the year, meaning from mid Oct.
That said, in the rare situation, where we haven't sold all of our allocation of seats(which we've paid for), 2 months out, then we may have some cheap seats.
Wow… I'm speechless. You do realise that in this one post you've made you've just betrayed everything you said.
Oh and I can fly return via Korean Air for $1500. Sure there's a 3 hour stop over but I don't mind those. Thinking I might stay in Seoul for a couple of days - never been. The $500 I save on airfare more than covers the hotel.
I guess you have a great price for one specific route in a very narrow 1 month window. You're basically useless.