Hi all,
Found this deal departing Melbourne - London (Heathrow) Return for $962 with Garuda Indonesia - play around with other shouldering dates.
They have a decent Airline Ranking
Finished 10th in the Skytrax Airline Rankings FWIW
Pretty direct too, with only 1 short layover each time in Indonesia.
A little chilly in London this time of year, with the weather no higher than 10°c
Why?
Flight Centre are only good if you want to pay in cash. Otherwise they are pretty bad. I used to play a game where I would try and have them beat the fare that I already had sorted and they never did. I always got frustrated and just got a price beat.
Their whole promise of how they will give you a townhouse in Redfern if they don't beat the price or whatever is bullshit. You give them the quote and they beat it by a dollar. I once challenged them on it and they did some serious mental gymnastics and were fuming by the end of the discussion - I only left because my bus arrived.
"So you give me a thousand bucks if you can't beat the fare"
"Sure!"
"But I have to show you the fare and then you can just beat it by a dollar"
"yeah but if we don't…"
"Why wouldn't you?"
"Well we always beat the prices!"
"Then who gets the $1,000?"
"Well, if for some reason we can't beat it…"
"But you would beat it by $1 to avoid giving me $1,000"
"Yes but if we couldn't…"
edit: That was Student Flights but they are the same dirty company.
what did I just read? o_O
@tommyc: Student flights will give you $1,000 if they can't beat your fare. But there is no reason why they can't beat your fare, because you show them the fare and they just straight up beat it. It's a false promise and a misrepresentation of their service.
But yeah, y'all could just neg me instead.
Agreed - Never have I ever seen Flight Centee with the lowest advertised fare and nor do they deserve a customer's business after making them go through the hard work of proving it
@krunchymoses: Not affiliated with Flight Centre, but your argument is like going to a shop having a banner "Your item is free if we don't give you receipt". Of course they will give you receipt to avoid giving free items, why would you force them to not giving you receipt?
@tukanglistrik: I reckon they shouldn't be allowed to make a claim that is a logical fallacy. It's just weird false advertising.
If you have an expensive flight (eg, J-class).. they may rather just give you $1000 instead of matching the offer
@Thrawn: That is actually a good point. Although theoretically if I can get the flight and can show them how I got it, then they can just book it there and break even (well, bar the $1 price beat).
If you are booking one of no-frills, no-change,no-refund flights, it would seem that you have nothing to lose by using Flight Centre, even if they only beat the going rate by a dollar. But if it's a flight with the provision to cancel for a fee, then beware Flight Centre. They may not only charge you the cancellation fee imposed by the airline, but they may add their own cancellation fee on top of that, and that fee can actually be more than the airline's fee was… So much more, in fact, that you may eventually end up with, effectively, nothing at all on a flight where you ought to have got most of your money back. Even on a simple flight like Sydney to Melbourne, always ask about the TWO cancellation fees before you buy….it may pay you to do it yourself, on-line.
Garuda, Jamaica, ooohh I wanna take ya,
Bazooka, Banana, come on pretty mama
Garuda, Air Asia Indonesia…. please obtain good personal & travel insurance first.
For the sake of $1 I would prefer to not fund that evil organisation.