Miles & More (Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, and other partners) - OT: Travel Agent in Germany, recommendations?

Dear all,

First of all, I apologise for hijacking the M&M forum with an OT question (hopefully the mods will give my thread a short run before moving it to a more generic place). Despite not being LH/M&M related, I trust that without doubt you are the ones with the most experience on this topic.

Can anyone recommend a good travel agent in Germany? Ideally who can speak English and would accept to route payments through a UK credit or debit card.

One particular airline (not LH) currently has exceptionally good F-class fares ex-Germany. I need to plan some trips to SE Asia in Oct/Nov and would really like to buy 2 or 3 returns in F using these fares.

Problem is that my TA can't book the promotional fare (only available to German TAs apparently). I could book it through expedia.de or similar, but despite being a fully flex and refundable fare (against a fee) all these sites sell the ticket as non refundable (sometimes even non changeable). The airline itself is not eager to sell directly either. So, it seems a local TA would be the best option.

Thanks in advance for any recommendation!

Dear all,

First of all, I apologise for hijacking the M&M forum with an OT question (hopefully the mods will give my thread a short run before moving it to a more generic place). Despite not being LH/M&M related, I trust that without doubt you are the ones with the most experience on this topic.

Can anyone recommend a good travel agent in Germany? Ideally who can speak English and would accept to route payments through a UK credit or debit card.

One particular airline (not LH) currently has exceptionally good F-class fares ex-Germany. I need to plan some trips to SE Asia in Oct/Nov and would really like to buy 2 or 3 returns in F using these fares.

Problem is that my TA can't book the promotional fare (only available to German TAs apparently). I could book it through expedia.de or similar, but despite being a fully flex and refundable fare (against a fee) all these sites sell the ticket as non refundable (sometimes even non changeable). The airline itself is not eager to sell directly either. So, it seems a local TA would be the best option.

Thanks in advance for any recommendation!

I highly recommend Sky Travel:
http://skytravelagent.de/

The staff does speak very good English if you don't speak German.

I second the recommendation! :)

I second the recommendation! :)

+1

I dealt with the following TA for last minute tickets and they are quite good:

http://www.vornesitzen.de/home/index.html

I highly recommend Sky Travel:
http://skytravelagent.de/

The staff does speak very good English if you don't speak German.

loaded them into my bookmarks. +1:D

Dear all,

Thank you so much for your recommendations; extremely useful! I used Sky Travel and can confirm that the service is top notch. The agent that took care of my reservation speaks perfect English and sorted everything for me (enduring my requests for several changes during the booking phase).

I'd definitely recommend them and will most definitely use their services again.

(on a side note, I think that TG's offer for 3000€ return in F to BKK, HKG and several other Asian destinations was excellent value... Especially when picking the flights operated by the ex-9W 777 and perhaps connecting to HKG on the A380)

Dear all,

Thank you so much for your recommendations; extremely useful! I used Sky Travel and can confirm that the service is top notch. The agent that took care of my reservation speaks perfect English and sorted everything for me (enduring my requests for several changes during the booking phase).


Glad they worked out for you, Germany isn't always the "service desert" people think it is :-)

I highly recommend Sky Travel:
http://skytravelagent.de/

The staff does speak very good English if you don't speak German.

I was quite excited when I read your recommendation, and the follow-ups of other posters. I wanted to make Sky Travel my new standard TA, but I won't after trying them out for a booking. I'd like to briefly state the reasons, so that everyone can make up their own minds whether they find their procedure for credit card payments acceptable or not.

When paying with credit card they want you to sign a written agreement to "unconditionally honor any travel-related charges" they put on your card, without mentioning the specific booking or price. Which (IANAL) means that you won't be able to dispute any charges if they screw up for whatever reasons, because you just gave up all protection that your credit card usually offers. This form needs to be accompanied with a scan or photocopy of your credit card.

In addition they also want a copy of your passport to be sent to them, which I prefer to not to do unless it is a legal requirement. Ticket and credit card were both in my name, not booked for anyone else, so it's not that there was any possibility for me to use it if I wouldn't have been the owner of my credit card. I found this quite odd and unusual, so I refrained from using them. Maybe I'm just overly cautious, but I thought it's good to post my experience so other users can decide for themselves.

Maybe I'm just overly cautious

Yes you are.... it's standard practice.

Is it just standard practice for travel agents?

I have never experienced it from any other business, and personally agree with Tiura that it isn't acceptable. My guess is that Tiura isn't based in Germany, so the TA didn't really want the business.

It's standard practice for a lot of businesses... if they don't verify your identity (and can prove it by supplying a copy of your passport) they are liable for all charges that prove to be fraudulent.
I get this a lot when paying with a credit card not issued in the country where I'm a resident or where I place an order. For instance, US business do this a lot for orders placed with non-US card.

The other part is more a TA, or third party, thing since they will want to avoid being liable to the airlines for non-refundable fares while you dispute the charge with them. Otherwise they would need your (written) confirmation every time before they make any bookings on your behalf, and that's highly unpractical in their business where fares are volatile.

AFAIR the practice is in place after a few FTers disputed the charge after completing travel ;)

I was quite excited when I read your recommendation, and the follow-ups of other posters. I wanted to make Sky Travel my new standard TA, but I won't after trying them out for a booking. I'd like to briefly state the reasons, so that everyone can make up their own minds whether they find their procedure for credit card payments acceptable or not.

When paying with credit card they want you to sign a written agreement to "unconditionally honor any travel-related charges" they put on your card, without mentioning the specific booking or price. Which (IANAL) means that you won't be able to dispute any charges if they screw up for whatever reasons, because you just gave up all protection that your credit card usually offers. This form needs to be accompanied with a scan or photocopy of your credit card.

In addition they also want a copy of your passport to be sent to them, which I prefer to not to do unless it is a legal requirement. Ticket and credit card were both in my name, not booked for anyone else, so it's not that there was any possibility for me to use it if I wouldn't have been the owner of my credit card. I found this quite odd and unusual, so I refrained from using them. Maybe I'm just overly cautious, but I thought it's good to post my experience so other users can decide for themselves.

This is standard practice for small businesses that don't like to be stuck with big cc bills if a private client they've only dealt with over the phone or via email disputes the charge.

Sky Travel Agent have found me some brilliant fares over the last years and their service has been top-notch, including rebookings out-of-hours. Their fees are reasonable. Thoroughly recommended.

Is it just standard practice for travel agents?

I have never experienced it from any other business, and personally agree with Tiura that it isn't acceptable. My guess is that Tiura isn't based in Germany, so the TA didn't really want the business.

Standard practice for German travel agents that do not hold your card in their hands. Even BCD deals with us - one of their bigger corporate clients - that way. And it offers protection to the travel agent against in particular clients from some countries who love to misuse their credit card and contest charges if they are not completely happy with what they did.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8900/4.6.1.168 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/130)

I use skytravelagent quite often and I am very pleased with their service. Also it's rather cheap, especialy compared to the TAs in Switzerland.