Need Ticket Advice

In this day and age of constant airline scheduling changes I'd prefer dealing direct with the airline. $150 savings isn't enough to motivate me to have to deal with a third party if changes happen.

Statistically, the probability of something going wrong is quite low. But if something does get messed up with the ticket, routing, delays, etc, the airlines might only refer you out to the third party, and that could leave you really up a creek.

A lot of the regulars on this forum always advocate for the most conservative, lowest risk plans, and booking directly with the airlines is a time when I wholly agree with that sentiment.

The big drawback to third party tickets is IF you have a problem then you are stuck with dealing with the third party and their option which could be very limited. What a third party seller does is buy a bunch of discounted tickets from the airline and resells. The vast majority of the time, it works well. But when a problems develops the airline has no incentive to assist you. I would not do it.

And I would wonder if the price you are being quoted is a “live” quote. In other words will they come back and say that fare is sold and bump your price.

Are there connections on the flight? Sometimes 3rd party sellers cobble together an itinerary using “unrelated” airlines which means you might have to clear immigration somewhere, grab your bags, go out to the departure area and check in again.

Read this recent sad tale.
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/england/cancelled-british-airways-flight

We bought tickets with a big online discount flight seller prior to the pandemic--non-refundable. The airline cancelled the return flight (which was not our fault) because of worldwide Covid. The government in the meantime ordered airlines to repay ticket holders under this situation. It took weeks to get thru to our ticket seller--and they refused to return calls. And then they refused to mediate with American Airlines. I finally found a nice lady at AA that processed the refund--but funds had to go to the ticket seller debited to their corporate Visa credit card. Four months later, we realized that the ticket seller was sitting on the funds, and they really didn't even know they had it. After many, many calls (and 7 months total) they found our refund. Then the ticket seller agreed to pay us only if we agreed to let them withhold $85 x 2 for "Service Fees." I complained to our Capital One, and they were nice enough to send us a $100 gift card.

The moral of the story is to try to buy directly from the airline whenever possible. I don't intend to spend weeks and weeks in travel agent hell trying to deal with outside airline brokers that are understaffed and sometimes dishonest.

There may be some great deals on third party sites. A friend recommended a renown site where I obtained a ticket in 2010 to fly from Switzerland to Bulgaria for two weeks, then Bulgaria to Belgium for a grand total of $145. The cost directly with carriers exceeded $800. All went extremely well.

However, it was my only time ever using a third party site for any flight, hotel or automobile rental. Before and since I’ve read about the challenges individuals faced when things did not go well. I prefer the protections associated with purchasing directly from the carrier.

Changeable, refundable, DOT and European Union regulations and safeguards seem easier for me to decipher when I don’t have too think about the middleman.