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Let\’s Visit Asia

Booking Air Tickets From Airfare Aggregators

by Ruth on November 14th, 2006

After a quick decision, I’m going on an unplanned trip in a few weeks, right smack in the middle of the peak season, so I called my reliable travel agent to book my flight. And then, and this is where it might sound weird, I tapped on my keyboard to look for a cheap airline ticket.

Wrong sequence?

MouseWell, the thing is, I needed to secure a seat, regardless of price, airline, or duration it takes for me to get there. Naturally, the price matters, but because I needed to reserve a seat urgently, I relied on my agent’s fingers to find me one. And she did. One (!) seat was still available on my desired travel dates (+/- 3 days). ONE seat out of all the dozens flying back and forth Europe and Asia on a daily basis.
That seat reserved, I now have the luxury of scouting for better deals. I’ve tapped into most of the bigger online airfare aggregators– Expedia, Fly, Kayak, Opodo, Orbitz, and SmartFares– and was astonished to see how the airfares offered varied by as much as $200 for the same flight. Even more perplexing is that the airfares offered on the websites of individual airlines are ridiculously higher than any of those offered by the aggregators.

Lesson for the day: If you want to save money, you have to spend time.

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POSTED IN: Getting There and Away : Asia, Uncategorized

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