Originally Posted by
moral_low_ground
Like many here - I travel a lot on Company business and we have to use our "generally useless" appointed travel agent (whom I am certain are on the make).
By way of example - my Middle East based travel company sees this when booking IST - LHR
If booked in the UAE (Point of sale)
BA 675 0
IST 21/04/23 8:25
LHR 21/04/23 10:40
32A Daily
J9 C6 D0 R0 I0 Y8 B0 H0 K0 M0 L0 V0 N0 O0 Q0 S0 G0
UK Point of sale
BA 675 0
IST 21/04/23 8:25
LHR 21/04/23 10:40
32A Daily
J9 C9 D9 R0 I0 Y8 B6 H3 K1 M0 L0 V0 N0 O0 Q0 S0 G0
They of course are wanting to book me a Full Fare (Y) ticket at double the cost of a UK PoS ticket booked in (K)
They claim their "systems" dont allow them to do this but it is simple to do by going to ba's website in the UK or Expedia or any other manner of sites.
Most companies/agents seem not to care about saving cash on their travel budgets by knowing how to book and even if they know they can save it is in the "too difficult bucket" to try and sort out.
Anyone have similar experiences or have managed to "educate" their TA to save them money or is it some impossibility that an "offical TA" can only buy tickets that have a PoS in the Country they are located in
A GDS system works very differently to an OTA website so they’re right that their system won’t be able to access the availability. If you want to be annoyed at anyone for the difference, be annoyed at BA - they’re the ones controlling the inventory.
Booking an air ticket for business travel - where the chances of needing to make a change are higher than leisure travellers - is a bad idea on a website rather than the TMCs GDS. The TMC wouldn’t have any control over the booking, wouldn’t be able to change it, refund it or provide much support in the case of any last minute changes. Everything would need to go to the OTA.
If your company does a lot of business in different countries, it can be helpful to work with a global TMC or at least a TMC that has access to a global network. That’d give you access to the best fares local fares without losing control of the booking.