kingcole974

For my upcoming trip to LAS (out 30/11 back 4/12) I was hoping for a DUB I class sale but as Wednesday is 28 days, I am ready to bite the bullet and book.

Google flights show BA and AA at £1550 but a travel agent as £1323. First and only travel agent I tried was Expedia. And indeed this was the fare.

Anything I should be aware of before booking? It was a Finn Air flight number, but assuming this won't affect TP and Avios earning?

And how would I enter my exec number so it knows I'm silver and can choose my seat.

Also any other travel agents I should be using?

Thanks in advance

corporate-wage-slave

The main problem with OTAs is if you or circumstances require a change to your booking. It probably seems improbable now, but things happen. At that price you're not paying for a lot of customer service. The other thing to watch - probably not on this sector - is odd fare buckets or the use of consolidation tickets, which may not get TPs. For example the LCY service, which used to award 210 TPs, had some Finnair buckets that gave only 140 TPs.

Before pressing the button, in your shoes I would call Finnair (I presume you've tried their website but it is a bit limited with complex tickets) and see if they can do it for the same price. After that I would try a real life travel agent that you may have developed a working relationship with. And if all else fails, I would go to Expedia, making sure you have mitigated any risk issues.

kingcole974

Thanks. Finn Air said it wasn't a published fare so were unable to help.

I'm skeptical though as Expedia said '2 left at this price' and on the same plane, AY also said '2 left at this price'

Would there be any mileage at all in calling BA to match the price?

Also, it may sound obvious, but if I'm travelling at 0845 on 30/11 and it's a 28 day pre purchase fare, can I buy the flight anytime on 2nd November or must I have it done and dusted by 0845?

UKtravelbear

During the booking process you can input your BAEC number and this then gets the flights into your BAEC profile.

Or use MMB to add the booking ref!

Expedia does not care what your status is!


.

Flier74

TBH if I was you and there was a price difference of £227 I would prefer to book through an airline rather than an OTA.
When you do that, you can talk to the airline at the airport or phone and they sort any problems out if they occur due to IRROPS, rather than trying to get hold of on OTA who most likely will not be of much help, but it's a personal preference of course

Slotski

I have used Expedia ex EU and one advantage was they didn't charge the 3% overseas credit card fee.

On a business trip booked though Egencia (Business version of Expedia) I sufffered a cancelled TK flight connection as IST. TK sorted everything for me.

Schwann

Surely, in the result of IRROPS, it's likely to be very close to departure time so the ticket is likely to be under airport/airline control anyway right? So no need to contact the OTA? Also, £227 is a lot of money to spend on maybe getting decent service from an airline..

I know I'd rather have that £227 in my pocket, but YMMV.

UKtravelbear

Indeed. During IRROPS you are under airport control and I has no issues the two times this happened despite is being a OTA booking.

Where some people appear to have had problems is pre travel and there has been a schedule change for example and it can take a little more work to get alternative flights booked. From the complaints I read on various threads on here some of those people are also unreasonable in their requests for alternatives and even if booking direct the airline would turn them down.

kingcole974

So I've taken the plunge and booked with Expedia.

I might be wrong, but I think the reason I could not book direct was this was technically a multi airline booking in that LHR to LAS was a BA flight and the return was an AY flight.

All in, I saved over £200 on booking direct with BA and a couple of quid more due to there being so forex fees. On the other hand I missed out on some extra Avios as paid with black Amex BA card.

I was super impressed. As soon as payment was complete, the screen came up with my booking reference which I immediately logged into BA with and my flights were there. Secured adjacent upper deck seats for both flights.

I was surprised that I was able to choose the AY flights by logging in with my BA booking ref to Ba.com. I had a separate reference for the AY flights.

I did then log into AY and I could see my flights (all of them) here also, with my new upper deck seating.

I know I have sacrificed some controllabilty if I want to make changes, but I can't foresee that at this time and the flights were fairly inflexible anyhow.

Managed to secure reward flights to DUB for both back to backs, so a happy shopper. All for less than half the current ex UK price.

I'm sure there will now be a ex DUB I sale tomorrow, but I don't care!

One question. If by some miracle a couple of First reward seats came available, I assuming I would need to contact Expedia to grab these?

UKtravelbear

There is a section in the 'guide to spending avios' about upgrading TA bookings.

It is possible in some circumstances to upgrade a TA booking but IIRC all flights on the booking must be on BA metal.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...os-2016-a.html

kingcole974

Thanks, that's useful. One of those threads I've not bothered to read as I already thought I knew it all!

DrBernardo

Have they issued you with a BA ticket (125)? The reason I ask is that some online TAs (Opodo, for example) bill the ticket directly with the issuing airline. Eg, booking a ticket on BA thro Opodo results in two charges for me - the fare is charged to BA as a normal transaction, and then there's an Opodo charge for their handling/booking fee. Booking with more obscure airlines sees the whole thing going to Opodo. Not sure if Expedia do the same thing, but if so, you'd still get your extra avios...

Anonba

Btw why couldnt you just have phoned and booked direct with BA?

kingcole974

They wanted £250 extra for the same metal. I did try and also with AY.

When I got the price via Expedia it was advertised as 'multi-carrier' and was why the price was different.

It is odd. On the basis I don't intend to change a thing, the only sacrifice I have made is the remote possibility of UUA to First. In fact, even if it had been the same price, I would have avoided my credit card forex fee. When I'm home I will check it it's been billed to my Amex as BA or Expedia.

There were two of us flying so the saving was £500+ for no extra work. Just need to find our if I'm in for an extra 8500 instead of 4250 avios.

My biggest concern was the hassle, but I'd suggest it's easier than the BA website. Oh, and I earned 200 Nectar points too!

Frequentflyer99

Although this comes too late for the OP, it may be worth a reminder. As explained in one of my recent threads, you may find that the discrepancy between the TA and BA was as a result of the currency in which BA quoted you the fare. If they quoted it in GBP it may have come up with a different fare (i.e. fare bucket, fare basis) than if they had quoted you in EUR. It is completely incomprehensible to me why this should be other than a POS issue, and I only discovered it very recently and after 15 years of flying ex EUR's ! Just a point to bear in mind.