Flight Center/Student Flights price guarantees

Related Stores

Universal Traveller (Formerly Student Flights)

• 

  neil on 20/07/2011 - 16:14

  I think it may have to do with stores not honouring the pricematch. For example, Officeworks offers pricematching but sometimes they won't pricematch for made up reasons (no printout offered, store too far away). Years ago before their guarantee, I tried a price match at Flight Centre and they didn't want to price match. I let it go as it wasn't a big deal.

  If they do in fact pricematch (or else face offering free flights), then Flightcentre often have gift cards available on eBay and rewards services at a discount. It may be a way to save further on your flight.

  • 

    punk on 20/07/2011 - 17:39

    flight centre sucks. student flights and flight centre are the same company if one stops trying to beat each others quotes.

    the whole point of this marketing plan is to get your service as most people generally want more than just flights, ie car hire, hotels etc and thats where the money is at. the fact there's a possibility you could fly for free brings in business for them. if they don't beat it you'll see the consultant losing out by "paying" for those flights(or lose their job lol)

    they will take a loss if they can't some how beat an legitimate price. they will ring up some loser to figure out what they can do. it's always on flights departing australia and competiting registered australian websites. you also need to provide them a quote. they'll sometimes ring up the competiting company just to see how they got the price. my mate gets them calling all the time.

    to get the best deal, visit a competiting company. go to flight centre tell them to find you the cheapest flight with that quote from that same day in hand. if you're booking more than one thing get them to price it all out separately or they'll screw you over, who cares if you're getting cheap flights if accommodation is 200 dollars more expensive knocking out any saving you did have. they'll try and beat the accommodation to if they can.

    In the end. do your research then take it to a consultant. It's a pain in the butt trying to do it all yourself if you run into problems before and after your trip.

• 

  saine on 20/07/2011 - 21:50

  I've had Flight Centre refuse to price match before (flights to Vietnam). I used to frequently use their price match feature but after a bad experience with one of their consultants, I no longer do so.

  (I was flying from Melbourne to Vienna and on my return trip I had a free flight voucher from Athens to Vienna that I wanted to cancel. They first told me that I'd be able to, then a week later said I wasn't able to with my tickets. Which would've been fine, if I wasn't stuck in eastern europe by then. I have no problem with the fact that I wasn't able to cancel the tickets on my fare, but it's the misinformation that I objected to. I rang the airline and they sorted it out with me without any questions or problems. After that, I figured why use a travel agent?)

• 

  me on 20/07/2011 - 22:14

  Last year we were looking at going on a cruise. We found a really great deal, then saw the same cruise advertised at flight centre (at a higher price). After several calls they told us they could beat the price but only by $1.

  • 

    joannatan on 20/07/2011 - 22:57

    but they give you $20 voucher? and if you negotiate with the consultant, it also can waive the cc fee as well. and if you register with the their newsletter u get $50 voucher as well.

    • 

      me on 21/07/2011 - 15:08

      No mention of vouchers, fee waiving etc was given…we didn't end up going with them. They didn't seem very willing to beat that price by $1 at all.

      • 

        wartortle on 21/07/2011 - 15:10

        Maybe it's only for flights?

      • 

        joannatan on 22/07/2011 - 15:47

        +1

        i just did last week price beat by $1 then use my birthday voucher, and paid using my cc without surcharge. and got $20/person
        initially they try to trick me by saying the cabin that other company provided are different category. but after got written confirmation from other company they also do the same price, then they can't say now, so they have to book me on that cabin and give me free upgrade 3 level as well and bonus credit.
        remember don't make trouble with ozbargain member, otherwise you get headache !!!!

• 

  Doey21 on 23/07/2011 - 13:33

  From my experience, they beat the price by $1 and offer u a $20 voucher which can be used for flight insurance or whatever. I'm guessing they do this so they're "technically" not lying about beating any competitors price. They put out the image that they're always the cheapest so you go to them if you cant be bothered doing ur research. If you find a better price, they beat it by a dollar and still make a profit if anything! I cant imagine them ever having given out a free flight.

  • 

    joannatan on 23/07/2011 - 16:58

    hahaha, in my last week case, when the consultant told me that they price wasn't right then i said so do i get free cruise then the consultant said that the category that i am looking for, they don't have one, thats another trick, but at the end they give me better cabin and still beat by $1, still happy customer.

• 

  pianissimo on 23/07/2011 - 18:10

  +3

  I don't like flight centre. They basically make you and/or some other travel agent do all the work and then beat the price by $1. Come on, for a buck, just give your money to the travel agent that actually did all the work to find you the cheap flights in the first place.

  • 

    joannatan on 24/07/2011 - 01:15

    not just $1, you also get $20 voucher as well, and if you regular customer like me, they can waive your cc transaction fee as well, 1000-3000 from 1.8% = $18-$54 save your money, and it is depend on the consultant, normally my consultant just use my $20 voucher as well, at the end it is not $1 save for me, it is almost $100+ save for me, as $20 discount voucher per person not per booking.

    • 

      cloudy on 25/07/2011 - 00:03

      They are constantly more than their competitors so even if u have a tiny 20 voucher u'll still be paying more

      • 

        joannatan on 25/07/2011 - 01:16

        +1

        mate read again carefully, i shopping around, get the cheapest on the market, then they beat by $1, then my consultant allow me to use the $20 voucher on this booking and then i can pay my fare with my cc without surcharge 1.8%. which part that saying i am still paying more? i even check the price with travel agent in chinatown, no one can beat it. do you understand now about my ozbargain spirit in here? even in the office, if people wanna go for holiday, the first person they need to ask is ???? hahahhaha

• 

  moocher on 29/07/2011 - 11:44

  I find that the staff at Flight Centre Direct are far more efficient than Flight Centre stores and they have always done the price beat for me. I have been using Flight Centre Direct Team Mercury for many years. All I do is find the best deal online for an overseas flight, then email Flight Centre Direct staff, and ask them to price beat. (You will need to have travel dates in order for them to give you a price beat quote.) I usually get a response within a few hours, and if agreed upon, get invoiced, pay via BPay and all is done. They send me the e-tickets as soon as payment is cleared.

  With e-ticketing these days, I don't see much reason to have to physically visit a store and having to wait to be served.

  Team Mercury details (they are actually in North Sydney now, not that that matters if you're doing everything over email or phone):
  http://www.flightcentre.com.au/world-travel/australia/stores…

  • 

    neil on 29/07/2011 - 11:52

    Hmm, that would be far easier than going into a store. Does Team Mercury take giftcards?

    • 

      moocher on 29/07/2011 - 11:56

      Hmm sorry I wouldn't know, I've never tried that…but I have managed to use previous price beat vouchers on subsequent bookings.

      • 

        wartortle on 29/07/2011 - 12:04

        Well for what it's worth I went into a Flight Center today and they refused to match an online price because the website wasn't based in Australia and also because the final price was displayed in Pounds, not Dollars.

      • 

        moocher on 29/07/2011 - 12:14

        I think that's to be expected, since they do say in their price beat blurb that:

        Travel must originate in/depart from Australia.
        You can provide written airfare quotes from:
        1) Other Australian travel agencies
        2) Airlines; and
        3) Australian-registered businesses and websites

      • 

        wartortle on 29/07/2011 - 12:16

        Yeah, I'm obviously just going to come home and book it anyway. It's just a bit disappointing that they really made no effort to beat it or even offer me a better deal with a different airline. They just quoted me a price $300 higher for the same flights and said that's the best they could offer me.

    • 

      moocher on 29/07/2011 - 12:26

      Sorry to hear that cal89. I do find the Flight Centre store staff quite unhelpful, which is why I use Flight Centre Team Mercury.

• 

  moocher on 29/07/2011 - 12:09

  I should mention that the Flight Centre price beat has always been to beat the price that you would pay if you bought from a competitor. So if the competitor charges $900 for the flight and $15 booking fee, Flight centre will beat the $915, not $900.

  However, the greatest advantage that Flight Centre Direct has for me, is that I can easily organise a stoppover without further charge, whereas for most online flight sales companies, the system always assumes you want to fly direct all the way. To organise a stopover, say, with travel.com.au, I would have to ring up a consultant and be charged a higher phone sales booking fee.

  • 

    joannatan on 29/07/2011 - 21:46

    is seems my flight centre consultant is better, the consultant didn't included the booking fee and didn't charge me credit card fee, happy with the service in the last 4 years.

• 

  vietken89 on 04/08/2011 - 16:35

  Biggest joke flight centre, Melbourne to Ho chi minh city (vietnam) $850 1-day special during november including all taxes and visas cost. From Kim Travel in Smith St, Fitzroy

  Took it to flight centre which is about 15m down the road, they were like this can't be correct and blah blah bs because their melb to vietnam price fixed at 1.1k before I even mentioned about Kim Travel down the road. LOL

  • 

    moocher on 04/08/2011 - 16:46

    vietken89, have you seen this Singapore Airlines special on travel.com.au? I think it's AUD 870, not limited to 1 day in november, which is really cheap for Singapore Airlines. (Not sure what airline your $850 deal is)
    http://www.travel.com.au/international-airfares/singapore-ai…

  • 

    joannatan on 04/08/2011 - 16:58

    +1

    hurry up call this number, you might get free ticket mate.

    If this applies to you, or if you are dissatisfied with our service, please contact the relevant State Manager as follows:

    Carole Cooper 07 3170 7153 - QLD
    John Veitch 02 8121 2130 - NSW/ACT
    Paul Ryan 03 9026 3333 - VIC/TAS
    Sean Berenson 0401 679 266 - WA
    Dan Gallagher 0439 850 578 - SA/NT

    http://www3.flightcentre.com.au/lowest-airfare-guarantee/

• 

  quop on 08/08/2011 - 15:20

  wife tried to book (price beat) with flight centre last week. on the phone staff were like yeah sure we'll beat your price by $1 and give you the $20 voucher blah blah come into the store to avoid any errors with names etc. once in the store the excuses started popping up - oh the price on our system for that that flight (we wanted a specific date/time/airline) is $x more so that's the best we can do. oh our system only has option B for the luggage allowance (which is more than what we wanted, plus costs more).

  at the exact same time i was on the phone to my wife, and still seeing the lower fares on the airline's website, even after refreshing my search twice. so a few rounds of fluffing around with FC we decided to skip their so called price beat guarantee and book the flight ourselves. but thanks to the delays at FC the prices increased halfway through my booking, so i had to start all over again at the higher price…

  dunno if we got a dud staff member or store or what. i know others who have claimed no problems but my experience of trying to claim was more trouble/cost than any potential savings.

  • 

    joannatan on 08/08/2011 - 16:04

    capture your screen and send email to the consultant. at the same time do it over the phone. i have sent my details via email. so they got everything in place. don't worry about spelling, coz they will send u email to verify the booking before they issue the ticket for you.