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Old May 27, 2019, 4:08 am
  #11  
corporate-wage-slave
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11) Consolidators and their pitfalls / Best Price Guarantee

There are a number of travel providers who are effectively consolidators - they buy blocks of travel options and then sell them on, and usually below the price you will see on BA.com. These can be very good value for money, but they also have a number of pitfalls, and a wise customer will enter into this market aware of these difficulties.

The biggest pitfall is that if BA cancels a service, or retimes it such that connections are missed, or anything that goes wrong, it can be incredibly difficult to get the agency to come up with viable alternatives. You have the legal right to be rebooked, but there is no money in it for the agency and they are often ill-prepared for it. If all else fails, wait until 24 hours before departure since BA can then seize the booking and provide remedies.

Also when you book it may be that the agency will alter your booking in order to fill their quotas. So you may book a particular flight, pay the fare then 2 days later the agency tells you that they have placed you on another flight altogether, typically earlier or later the same day. Mostly the agents make it clear that this may happen, and you usually can get a refund if you cancel at this point, but this is the source of complaints about "bait and switch". You also need to consider the financial health of the company concerned, so I would advise booking with a credit or debit card which will refund you should the agency go bankrupt. If the agency has issued you with an e-ticket, then that will normally work after the agency's bankruptcy, but it become problematic if you want to change the flight.

We are not recommending these companies but some FTers have used the following without significant issue
Travelup
Travel Trolley

Best Price Guarantee
BA does offer a best price guarantee that should you find an alternative provider of the same flights for less money then they will refund you twice the difference in e-vouchers up to a cap of £200 for the doubled amount. If the claim is more than £200 anyway then there is no doubling up but the original amount should still be paid. See post 12 for links to this, but note once you make a booking with the e-voucher, even if for just a part of the booking, you can’t make a further claim for the Guarantee on that booking

Last edited by corporate-wage-slave; May 28, 2019 at 2:47 pm
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