Is it worth the risk?
Oct 22, 2018, 1:09 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 7
Is it worth the risk?
I used to enjoy reading the posts on FlyerTalk but haven't been doing much traveling in the past few years. This situation should be changing in the future. I will be spending four weeks in the Philippines in January and went online this weekend and understandably become confused and overwhelmed with all the choices. A friend of mine suggested that I check out Matrix Flights which I did and found a roundtrip flight from New York City all the way to Cebu for less than six hundred dollars on Chinese Eastern with the booking agency MyHolidays.
It sounded too good to be true, so I went online and read some bad reviews. Why take the risk I thought to myself. Who wants to be stranded in China on some ticket with a seemingly shady booking agency? It's probably better for me to be safe than sorry with that one. I saw two other under six hundred dollar prices with China Eastern and some more in the seven hundred and eight hundred dollar range. I then saw an 879 price on Vayama. They are registered with the IATA and were the only ones that at least I had heard of before. What's next. I got on FlyerTalk and read some bad reviews of Vayama as well. Is everyone bad out there or is it just the complainers and malcontents who even bother to write reviews in the first place?
Finally, I saw a price of 1013 with Orbitz with Asiana Airlines from South Korea. Right now I am leaning towards going with the more established and hopefully more reputable Orbitz. What would you do? What's the chance of a really bad experience with the others? Any information or advice would be appreciated.
It sounded too good to be true, so I went online and read some bad reviews. Why take the risk I thought to myself. Who wants to be stranded in China on some ticket with a seemingly shady booking agency? It's probably better for me to be safe than sorry with that one. I saw two other under six hundred dollar prices with China Eastern and some more in the seven hundred and eight hundred dollar range. I then saw an 879 price on Vayama. They are registered with the IATA and were the only ones that at least I had heard of before. What's next. I got on FlyerTalk and read some bad reviews of Vayama as well. Is everyone bad out there or is it just the complainers and malcontents who even bother to write reviews in the first place?
Finally, I saw a price of 1013 with Orbitz with Asiana Airlines from South Korea. Right now I am leaning towards going with the more established and hopefully more reputable Orbitz. What would you do? What's the chance of a really bad experience with the others? Any information or advice would be appreciated.
Oct 22, 2018, 4:32 pm
#2
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: MSP
Programs: DL Gold, DL MM 8/22/16!
Posts: 2,563
Did you try the actual airlines? I used some random dates for Jan 2019 (Jan 9-30) on matrix, and the low fare was with Cathay Pacfic. Their web site showed a fare of $750.13. While I didn't take it any further, it looked like it would be bookable. That $750 fare was available for lots of dates. Next in line was Asiana ($875) and then Philippine ($934).
China Eastern fares looked to be a lot higher on matrix.
I wouldn't go with an unknown and uncheckable agency either.
China Eastern fares looked to be a lot higher on matrix.
I wouldn't go with an unknown and uncheckable agency either.
