Travel agent recommendation for booking ITA Matrix fares
 

Can anyone recommend a travel agent (either OTA or "real") for booking a reasonably complicated fare (multiple carriers, open jaw, some sectors in J, some in Y) which prices out nicely on ITA Matrix?

Book with Matrix gives links for Flight Network and Priceline, but the former can't price it at all when you click through & the latter is significantly more expensive, despite the same classes being shown on each sector.

Propeller Travel (danielbk on here) gets consistently great feedback...

Can also vouch for this ^

Just make sure you take all flights if you book through Propeller.

Another shout out for Propeller and also for Jase76's comment about taking all flights in the booking, i.e. don't dump the last sector of an ex-EU as this can have an adverse impact on the TA.

Personally I would recommend that you do not use Propeller.

Just a word of caution. Sometimes the reason that you can't book a fare from Matrix online is that it isn't actually available. As good as it is, it isn't 100% accurate.

But of course, try a good TA before abandoning your hard work!

Another option may be Matrix Powertools. However, depending on the airline / OTA linked to, might not handle multiple class bookings.

Thanks for the Propeller tip, they've been very helpful and am now all booked (didn't have any luck with Powertools either...)

Initally they couldn't find the fare, but after a second attempt did find it with a US$ point of sale. In fact the price has now come down from the original Matrix quote as the US$ seemed to weaken against the £ yesterday!

Although this is an ex-EU start point (OSL), it's a ticket genuinely finishing back in the UK on the return leg, so no issues about skipping final flight etc.

Is there any Europe-based OTA that you recommend?
Thanks :)

If it's bookable on BA stock, you can usually book by phone to BA or at a ticket desk next time you have a few minutes at LHR.

I find all the positive comments on ITA Matrix quite interesting as I am having difficulty in getting a price seen ex ARN to PER and into OSL on QR metal being realised. ITA Matrix consistently shows this fare sub 2k or just over but X2 TA could not find it and QR say the fare does not exist when I chatted to them on phone and the QR website kicks out the fare after some thought... I class throughout. All other attempts via various sites do not recognise it and worse, pops me into Y for about the same identified price on ITA in Business!! Any current value contacts known that can process fares? Flights are for December and wonder if they could just be phantom fares. Should the sale city be specified? I have used UKP as currency.

As far as I know ITA Matrix has troubles coping with QR's married segments, you can see the real availability for the itinerary with ExpertFlyer.

QR and ITA Matrix don't like each other. Same goes for TK AFAIK.

Other than bookwithmatrix and Propeller, has anyone had luck with using the Amex Travel or platinum concierge services?

Co-op travel, Gloucester was my last success. Nice mix of illogical routing and rarely used (by Brits) codeshares on BA and AA metal. Couldn’t match ITA pricing on any website — but in person at the desk in an actual shop it worked a treat.