graham_d

I have a trip coming up in Asia, looking at the AirNZ website I found a flight for $1400.
I emailed the agent with these flights and asked for a booking to be looked at.
The agent came back with a raft of options, to fly with AirNZ was almost $600 more, I checked again online and the $1400 fare was still available on the AirNZ website.
When this price difference was questioned the agent replied that the online fares (standard no special saver as far as I could see) are not available to the agent. The agent is a large international global company and not a small operation.
Would this be correct or is the agent taking the mickey? Global company policy insists that we use this agent but I have a feeling that we would be better just using out own credit cards.

nzkarit

If the agent can't see that fare they can't see that fare.

If the boss is paying for it, does the price difference matter? Or is it coming out of training/conference budget? I would get a screenshot of the site and say only take the lesser amount out of the training budget.

sbiddle

Without knowing specifics about your case it's not really possible to answer your question.

To summarise however, yes there are some fare types and classes that are only available for purchase in NZ or can only be purchased online rather than in GDS. Likewise there are also times where some specific fare classes and specials that are only available via GDS or some specific travel agents and not the NZ website.

Mwenenzi

This is nothing unusual. I have also came across airline phone agents that do not have the same price for flights as on-line.

Anyway with large companies and large corp TA's and airlines the price that is really paid can be less. A lot less. All sorts of annual rebates can happen based total sales volume. Some (non flying) bean counter may be getting credit for negotiating a good travel deal (and getting a good bonus).

drajknox

jeffrocowboy

yes I have this issue as well

on airnz - online domestic NZ fares not always available via travel agent (not had issues international as don't fly NZ much)
on Philippine - online international fares not available to corporate travel agent

kiwifrequentflyer

I do understand your frustrating but overall I can see why they do this (even if it is a hold over from the outdated TA days).

For me I will book everything on my credit card. I will pay for everything in my credit card, even with fees. I could instead keep more receipts and such but I do it to make keeping track of expenses and proving it later easier. With TAs it means that you are less likely to have cheated the system and they also probably have a good way of issuing receipts for tracking purposes.

c3rn

One agency springs to mind whose jingle says they have the lowest airfares - said agency will beat any price by $1.

graham_d

I guess the TA is telling the truth, its frustrating and foolish that the airlines do this as this I will be compelled to fly with the competition. My own companies policy is also not blameless, whilst in Asia flying domestic I can often fly for a third the price than when booked with the TA. One time that I did book a flight in Asia on my own I had a please explain in my expenses.

Mwenenzi

Its not only the airlines. It is the airline, corp TA and your company (or a few employees). They all have a part in clipping the ticket. At times for a personal benefit. Its not to TA's best interest to re-sell cheap tickets/hotel or tickets/hotels with nil/low commission.

Markhm

ajnz

It's not unusual for this to be the case. NZ often lists the fares which are online only on the Agent site, versus those that are GDS-accessible.

My employer mandates agency bookings for everything for a bunch of reasons, some which are valid (e.g. all Star bookings need our Star tour code in them, for global revenue recognition with Star; to access corporate discounts on contracted routes or specific fares) and some which are not. We certainly do get fairly large discounts on some fares (e.g. YBEU fares are often 25%+ discounted, CDJZ are further discounted etc).

The downside is that the agencies will only sell fares published in the local market, which means I buy US-priced fares for domestic NZ travel (for instance), or intra-region travel in Asia. My favorite was when we were requested to use LCCs on specific routes, but the LCCs wouldn't accept AmEx...that caused all kinds of hilarity.

jawnbc

The agent should be able to issue such a promo fare by looking up the ticketing regulations and getting an endorsement code. Most travel agents either don't know how to do this or aren't motivated enough to do so. I can't find anything in the rules that preclude travel agents from selling the promo fares--and in the past I have been able to direct my corporate agency to book specific flights/date to take advantage of a promo fare to Canada.

RTWFF

This is a similar issue in some ways to hotel bookings. From what I understand the big hotel search engines all have an agreement with the hotel chains that the price the chain it offers on its public web site will not undercut the price it makes available to the consolidators. That's why when you look at a hotel chain - I was looking at Accor yesterday - there's a statement about "members-only" prices. Join their loyalty programme, book on their members-only (not public) site, and behold, slightly cheaper prices suddenly become available that are not available to the hotel consolidators. It's the way of the (travel) world nowadays