General question - Pro/Con of booking flights with credit card travel vs directly with airline?

I always book directly with the airline for the exact reason your friends have said. But I suppose you can weigh the risk against the cost saving. I'll be curious to hear if you get responses from people who book via a third party regarding how big the savings might be and what experiences they've had when there was a delay or canceled flight or other problem.

It is all about risk vs. reward and what you are comfortable with. I tend to use my CC travel service for domestic hotels which does save me significantly and is not high risk. Could you use it for an airline ticket? Of course. Probably 90% of the time there are no issues no matter how you book your ticket. It all comes down to how you feel about the risk associated with that 10%.....

Why would the 3rd party travel service be cheaper? Whenever I've looked, they're approximately the same or sometimes some fees have been hidden that show up until booking.

I’ll echo the sentiment that it carries all the risk of a 3rd party booking.

I’m unfamiliar with CapOne, but with Chase you can use their points to book through their travel service. It’s generally far worse value for the points than transferring to partner airlines for traditional miles redemption.

Just gotta say - my first time posting here and I am so grateful for the words of wisdom. Thank you all for taking the time and I feel reassured that my gut feeling has been verified. Better to book with the airline directly....for many reasons. It's a big trip we're planning (to New Zealand) and if something goes wrong, better to have the airline booking, I think. Thank you again. What a great community!

Clewis--

Yes, better to book directly with the airline because if there is problem, you can work things out directly with the airline. If you book through a third party, you have to go through the third party to resolve any problems.

I've booked about half the time directly with the airline and through a 3rd party Expedia multiple times over 15 years, as the price was a couple hundred dollars less and have never had a problem; for example one time my flight coming back from Paris on now defunct Wow Airlines was cancelled, the ground staff put me in a hotel with meal vouchers for 2 days and when I contacted the airline directly they rebooked me.

So it is not completely true that when you book through a 3rd party the airline will not help you.

Moreover, I even got $1200 dollars compensation directly from the airline after filing an EU 261 complaint and did not have to go through Expedia (the 3rd party that sold me the ticket) to get it.

A 3rd party buys blocks of tickets from airlines and make their money by reselling them at a little markup

Book direct.

The airlines will help you if a flight is delayed. But if you need to make a change, or get a refund, the airline won't help you as you will have to do that through the third party. When using sites like Expedia, they buy the airline ticket for one price and sell it to you at a higher price. But they are the ones buying the ticket, not you. If a flight is canceled, and the airline issues a refund, you don't get the refund from the airline, Expedia does. Then you have to fight Expedia to process the refund. They could keep a part of it as a processing fee.

Other sites, like booking.com, are just conduits to make it easier for you to buy the ticket. Like travel agents. It shows you as the purchaser of the ticket.

I still prefer to book direct.

For points purchases via credit card, I transfer the points to that airline. And then book direct.

I book directly with the airline using a credit card and sometimes with the hotel too. Never had any problems booking directly with the airline.

AMan—booking with anyone except the airline directly is a third-party booking. And except for Amex, the credit cards' travel services are contracted out to other third parties. I don’t know who does it for Capital One, but Chase’s travel service actually is Expedia.

Hi!

I also have a Capital One cc. If you look on the rewards website you can use your miles to pay for your travel purchases. Ie book airline tickets directly with airline, once charge appears on the credit card use your miles to pay the charge.

As said above you can also transfer your Capital One airline miles to most airlines, some airline programs will give you more points for the miles you transfer in (ie transfer in 1000 miles get 1200 miles). The points guy website is a good one to learn about travel with awards points and miles.

Happy Travels!

What cc do you have - is it the Venture X. Are you trying to use your $300 annual travel credit. If so, you will need to book through the CapOne booking site - I believe Hopper is the back end 3rd party that manages it.

Also, booking through CapOne gets you 5 points/$ for airfare and 10 pts/$ for hotels which may factor into your thinking and may be worth the hassle of not booking direct

Arnold - I just got the CapOne Quicksilver card - and was curious about their Travel service. I saw the price guarantee - the points awarded if you book through them are very appealing. It's our first overseas trip in years and I'm trying to plan if things go wrong - lol. However, it seems that people have had good and bad experiences with 3rd party bookings. I've got a spreadsheet going and price is a factor, for sure, and the CapOne travel price guarantee is a strong positive for us. I'll keep researching. Thanks again, everyone!

I’m not clear if you mean booking through your credit card’s travel points system?
If you mean that, then my story is that four years ago I booked flights on my credit card’s points, and when we had to cancel due to illness, the same credit card’s travel insurance refunded all the points back into my account in 10 days.
No fuss.
I used to use Expedia and Travelocity years ago, but now would only ever book with the actual airlines.

Always taking a chance booking through points or any third party, but if you know an airline person, they can make changes etc for you. Otherwise you are out of luck. Better directly booked though, generally. I keep my fingers crossed every time I book with points, hoping I don't have to rebook/cancel or whatever!

Did it with Chase Travel Portal and rebooking was a nightmare. All flights 60% more expensive. I went directly through the airline and while I had to pay 50 dollars change fee per passenger (because it was booked through a third party) it was still way cheaper than through the card portal. Airline agent said government is looking into regulate third party booking system, not sure if true.

Credit cards like the capital venture x provide me significant value. Reimburse via credit to the card for travel.
I also have the Chase Sapphire Preferred which I also like very much especially for travel. But I don't use the travel portal booking services, because it means the credit card manages the ticket,adding another layer of complexity. But, like Capital Venture X you can use your points to credit the expense back to the account.
Interesting change for me,I always call and inform the credit card companies about my travel but both Capital and Chase told me that it was not necessary any more.

We search for flights through Google Flights, but always book directly with the airline.

I have booked through the Chase portal before. For the reasons outlined above, I would never book airline tickets through their portal or through any third party, but I'm comfortable with booking rental cars and hotel rooms through the portal. It's less of a catastrophe if something goes wrong.

Note that non-revenue passengers (like points) are always last in line when a flight is delayed or cancelled.