From AFTA:
AFTA_Official welcomes @Kogan who are now #ATAS accredited. Booking with an #ATAS agent means you can travel with confidence!
This is unexpected but will be interesting to see if he can apply the way he runs kogan.com to the flight booking industry (suppliers bidding). I took a guess and think the site will be called Kogan Travel. Nothing there yet. Watch this space.
Will they have a big launch promotion with some awesome deals?
big launch promotion ?
Hardly. Think you are getting confused with airlines having deals.
Agents are on tiny commission rates, but 1/2 the battle is finding someone who knows what they are doing & knows the destination you want to go to.
When I travel to USA every month, I get a real live travel agent to find me the best deal. The cheapest is not always the best deal.
She usually offers me 2 or 3 options. Via China is often cheapest, but don't want to do that ever & don't ever want to spend a whole day connecting somewhere.
I sometimes look online, but agent is always cheaper with better options. I usually fly Qantas, but sometimes my tickets are American Airlines ticket, flying Qantas or via Fiji. Did fly via Auckland once, but since Qantas dropped Auckland to LA flight haven't done that route. Heard that American Airlines are going to start flying Auckland to USA nonstop, so might look at that option, assuming connections are ok.
Frequent flyer points are also very important to me, as I can use them in USA on their domestic flights.
"I sometimes look online, but agent is always cheaper and with better options."
Seriously?
I have tried, quite a few times, to give agents the benefit of the doubt - but have never, ever had them find a flight I hadn't already found myself. Additionally, they were always more expensive (unless I made them price-match/beat a flight I'd already found).
Either you have an amazing travel agent, or you should learn to properly use internet search tools to find better flights.
you must be using the wrong agents.
We usually fly one airline to LA & another coming home. Have checked & can't book this type of fare with either airline & have never seen this type of fare online.
Think it's an agent only combination that the big agency group has negotiated.
90% of time, it's cheaper than anything else. Go an average of once a month & know dates usually 6 months or more ahead. Only occasionally do book a last minute trip, which is when tricky to find cheap.
Only times it's not cheaper, is when have left it too late to book & not much of anything left due to school holidays.
I think we have different methods. I never deliberately choose a certain airline, but just find the cheapest ticket (which has always been cheaper myself). I suppose if you insist on flying qantas, a travel agent could probably offer the same flight cheaper.
Can you give me a future quote, with dates etc?
@herzy: don't always fly Qantas, but usually cheapest direct and can easily use the Qantas point on flights LA to east coast, but usually cheaper than any Virgin option & want to avoid Sydney as that adds about 6 hours to trip each way.
Only Qantas & Virgin fly direct from Brisbane to LA.
Have got this Christmas off (last year had to fly over Christmas Day).
Am going December 12, back December 20 & again January 11 back January 20.
Both fares cost approximately $1470 return cash price. (don't have the tickets handy, but they were within $20 of this figure from memory).
One is actually an American Airlines ticket, but flying Qantas to LA.
On these fares, agent said the airlines don't accept credit cards & don't want to pay the extra merchant fees.
Just looked on skyscanner. Found flights for $1175 on 12 Dec, returning 20 Dec, Melbourne to LA. 17 hours on the way there, 19 hours on the way back, with Virgin and Delta. One stopover in Brisbane only.
@herzy: I reckon anyone claiming that travel agents are the greatest and you cant find cheaper on the internet might infact be a travel agent themselves. hanging on to any hope of having a job in the soon future once everyone realises it's easier and cheaper to do it themselves on the internet.
@herzy: Travel Agents have their place… Just not amongst the saavy Ozbargain community who are willing to invest the time for mining the best flight. Corporate travel, for example, where they don't watch every dollar like we do!
Have you ever tried buying American Airlines tickets using the 5% discounted gift cards from sites like www.cardcash.com?
I am considering doing that but want to make sure they are legit.
Terms and conditions say you can pay with up to 8 gift cards when booking flights with American airlines.
I used to do that with Virgin flights. Bought a bunch of credit off eBay saving like 15% off.
I find the cheapest Aus-US flights to the mainland tend to be United/Continental, Air NZ and occasionally Delta/VA. American/Qantas tends to be the more expensive option (way more than 5%). Problem is you never know where the next deal is going to come from!
I hope the flights times aren't similar to their shipping times.
DEP: SYD 16:00, 1 April 2015
ARR: LAX 08:00, 14 September 2015