Please explain booking flights thru 3rd party

We always deal directly with the airline -- and with hotels, car services, and things that require reservations. If there is a problem it is much easier to resolve if one can go straight to the horse's mouth, so to speak. Others will disagree, and that's ok. Our thinking is that if you travel enough, sooner or later Murphy's law will kick in. So far as cost differences are concerned, one usually gets what one pays for. Then too, there is the question of your risk aversion tolerance.

Often the prices you see on third-party sites are not "live", meaning they may not actually be available. Or there will only be one ticket at that price, and if you want to buy two or more the price will go up for all of them. And it you buy one at the low price and more at a higher price you will be on separate tickets. That is not good if there are any changes.

And speaking of changes, if you book through an agent they are responsible for the ticket. If there are changes in flight times they are the ones who must notify you. And if you want to make changes, you have to do it through the agent; the airline generally will not talk to you.

Kayak and Skyscanner are only comparison sites, they will send you directly to the airline to do the booking. Expedia is the only one you mentioned that allows you to book directly on the site. If there is a substantial price differential and you've read the fine print (including making sure the total price really includes everything and that the connection time is not impossible), I don't see any issue with booking with a third party site. I used to book using Orbitz for over a decade without any problems, and wouldn't hesitate to book (especially) straightforward itineraries with a third-party site. The downside is that you'll be dealing with the third party when problems arise, and you'll have to be a bit more proactive on checking for any flight changes online because there are instances where people claim they didn't receive an alert (although that happens when you book direct as well). You should also understand how these sites make their money - they do it largely by bundling some combination of airfares, car rentals, and hotels. By virtue of its size and clout, a company like Expedia can get decent deals from suppliers - not that different from a wholesale grocery store like Costco.

Whatever you do, compare the third party site price with that of the airline website - there are many instances where there is no difference, and the third-party sites only serve as a one-stop comparison shop (not necessarily a heavy discounter). If there's no difference in price, then book direct and avoid the middleman - if there is a big enough difference, then you have to make a decision of the risk/reward tradeoff. I'm not particularly risk averse so I have no problems with taking reasonable risks to save money.

How much do you tolerate risk? There must be flights that work out fine on third party sites or else they would not stay in business. However, those that have problems fill most travel forums with reports of the nightmares of trying to make any changes when a change is needed. This is particularly true when there are last minute irregular operations. The airlines can't make the changes, only your agent at the 3rd party can.

Expedia has a pretty good reputation, but there are 100's of third party sites that do not. Before you use any of them, go to tripadvisor travel forum, the air travel forum and search for the name of the company. It will make for some interesting reading.

The other thing to watch out for is if the routing is being made on one ticket or two. Sometimes 3rd party sites will have one ticket one one airline and another ticket on a different airline to save money. The connection is not protected in such a situation and if the first flight is late/cancelled/etc. you lose the total value of the second ticket and must rebook at the same day price.

Thank you so much for all the replies. Now, I have a better idea. Will most likely just stick to booking directly with the airlines.

Michelle, I use those sites to find out what airlines fly where, what connections are required, and a general idea of costs. Once I figure out my target airline and connecting city, I'll go to the airline site. Whenever I've gone into the the flight details, I usually find the fares about the same, for the same level of service. For example, just looking at third party sites, a connecting flight on Spirit airlines often pops up as the lowest cost fare for me, but clearly their service level and fees are not the same as other airlines. I also don't think the sites are as conscientious about realistic connection times as the airlines.

What you may find on 3rd party sites is that they have ticket combinations between partner airlines that neither airline will sell on its own. For example, we recently bought a flight on Fareboom for BA from Philadelphia to Munich through Heathrow, and directly back to Philly from Prague on American. At a substantial saving vs either American or BA's sites. I remember a past situation where we saw an Air Canada/Lufthansa combination that was not available from either of those airlines (both Star Alliance)

I had Larry's experience (albeit over 10 years ago). I wanted to fly Austrian Airlines JFK to Vienna, and Lufthansa from Germany to JFK, and even though they are in the same alliance, I couldn't get an open jaw price (as opposed to two one-way fares) without using Orbitz.

More recently, my sister found that booking JFK to Prague on Expedia was literally half the price of booking it on Delta (who actually operates the plane) or Air France (whose code share it was). Since she's booking four tickets for her whole family, she chose to use Expedia. Expedia gave her all three PNR's (Expedia's, Delta's and Air France's), and using these she was able to select seats and order special meals on Delta's website without difficulty, even though she didn't book the flight through Delta, and even though it has an Air France "flight number."

If you do book on a third party, you have to deal with them if there are ANY problems or issues (altered schedule, strike, Icelandic volcano, you name it). So, make sure you're comfortable with that.

Kayak didn't used to have the option of booking on Kayak itself, but now they do.