My personal experience
I just traveled through flyl4l.com and following the incidents I went through, I thought I would search for comments on them, and post my own personal review in regards to their service...
I had to travel from Melbourne to Paris this month. I was recommended by a friend flyl4l.com. They quoted me AUD $4200 (inclusive of taxes) to fly in business through Thai Airways. This was less than half of the cheapest airfare I could find..
The route was MEL->BKK->ZUR->CDG and back. ZUR->CDG via SwissAir
I was very suspicious to say the least, and the idea of paying through direct transfer doesn't help in making you feel better.
But I went ahead anyway..
I dealt with Michelle B. Fantastic service, quick response, lots of back and forth emails trying to sort out availability and airlines. The choice of flights is obviously much more limited than if you dealt with the airline directly, but considering the price, I wasn't surprised: plus in the end, I got the flight I wanted.
Taxes got paid through my Amex and Air Canada charged the US $300-odd taxes.
I was worried when I showed up at the airport, as all I had with an e-ticket number and nothing directly issued by an airline.
Showed up at checkin, presented my passport expecting the worse. And everything went well, I enjoyed the business lounge while waiting for the flight. Just as I was used to.
3 weeks later, time to go back home. Alas, being so used to travel on this route, somehow I was convinced the returned flight was at 1:30PM. It was at 11AM. I realised this at 10:30AM and arrived at the airport at 11:15AM.
Tried to call flyl4l.com emergency number, to no available (remember it's still sunday night in NY where they are based)...
Swissair considered me as a no-show. Wouldn't want to reschedule a flight. Thai had no problem to reschedule me flight but told me I had to deal via Air Canada as they were the one to issue the ticket.
Showed up at Air Canada ticketing booth, wouldn't want to do anything with my ticket as Swissair had considered me as no-show and told me I had lost the ticket and would need to apply for a new one.
From there, I started to stress obviously. The tour de France has just finished, and there are just no availability to fly within the next two days, except on full-fare business (4000+ euros for a one-way ticket)...
I then got a call back from flyl4l.com ; I guess they had seen the caller-ID as they called back the phone I had used earlier (not my personal phone).
He said he would call me back within 15 minutes with some options.
He did call back 20 minutes later with two options: fly on the same day through a crazy route (Paris->Frankfurt->Bangkok->Singapore->Melbourne), or fly the next day CDG->BKK->MEL.
I went the 2nd option.
Cost US$100...
So to summarise: awesome service if you ask me, and as cheap as you can get. The downsides are:
- Not as much flexibility with dates and airlines
- You don't have someone to talk to face to face if there is a last minute emergency and it's a dreadful wait not knowing what's going to happen next.
Their staff are extremely knowledgeable, very responsive and very friendly.
I will fly with them again, I'm guessing the chance of missing my flight is low (it only happened to me once before 15 years ago) and I have flown well over a million miles.
When .... did hit the fan they were great and very helpful and sorted the issue quickly and without any problems, issues I couldn't have resolved myself.
A big thumbdown to Swissair that caused an entire journey to be cancelled because of a missed one-hour flight (I could have made the connection through Air France and catch the next Thai airways flight)...
That's all for now...