Discounted flights, too good to be true?
 

A cousin was about to part with nearly £1400 for air tickets via this website. It claims to sell tickets based on redemptions of frequent flyer miles which people sell to it (actually it says travel agents, which seems quite odd as I'd assume travel agents wouldn't earn the miles!). The tickets were about 25% cheaper than any other online agent.

http://www.yourflightadvisor.com/

This seems very suspicious to me. I am concerned at best they would be breaching the conditions of the frequent flyer scheme and so the passenger would risk the airline not accepting the ticket. Also, they don't accept most credit cards, which seems odd; they were demanding money by bank transfer; and the website shows them as being owned by a London travel agency, but claims to be based in Copenhagen and Ireland. I can't find any evidence of the company that allegedly owns them.

Or perhaps it's a great business model offering great discounts and a chance to get rid of those 1000s of unused miles probably most of us accumulate. I don't know.

Has anyone heard of them?

Never heard of them, but I wouldn't risk it with my money, even moreso if they don't take credit card.

Well spotted. Interesting idea. The flights it offers appear quite limited but genuine, which would accord with the limited redemption availability.

Clever if it works but I wouldn't trust it, or its legality, just yet!

A web search will turn up several reports of people saying they have been scammed by this organization. Whether or not it's true , I don't know. But there is chat out there about disappearing web sites, credit cards not taken and western union money wires only being required, etc. All the things that at the very least start alarm bells going...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...0201034AA3pVSY

http://www.scambook.com/report/view/...-on-02-20-2012

etc..

I ran a dummy booking and on pressing the Credit card payment this appears:

Unfortunately we are temporarily unable to process international credit cards: VISA, MASTERCARD, AMEX. We only accept local Danish cards - Danknort, sorry for the inconvenience.
Please select an alternative payment method :rolleyes:

Buyer beware -

Thanks! I should have scrolled down the page when I googled them... oops.

Run !
 

How fast your cousin run away from this adventure ?

Your last defense in most transactions is payment by credit card.

You have some recourse.

Run Alex Run !

Well spotted ^

Shame, because it's a good theory in concept, buying flights for other people with your points in exchange for cash.

I had thought about this myself, possibly creating a kind of ebay style site where buyers could leave feedback and sellers could earn trust over time etc

It's a bit of chicken and egg situation though. Also it's always going to be a risky business because someone could always change their mind at the last minute, decide to keep their miles and cancel the booking leaving some poor souls at the airport.

I'm interested to see what is going on with this legendary "Coupon Connection", only 2 more months to wait :D

Edit: I just noticed my new strapline, changed today for something else is also very apt for this thread :D

Lets move this over to TravelBuzz!

Prospero
Moderator: BAEC forum

Location
 

Would be interesting to know from somebody who is close to this address to see what business / person resides there.

Also what the bank scammers will do with these details ?

Google Earth Streetview?

Palmer