Travel and the internet are made for each other. The world wide web connects billions of travellers with millions of providers of airline seats, hotel beds and rental cars, allowing options to be evaluated and bookings made effortlessly.
Some online travel agents (OTAs) can offer excellent deals that are not available direct from the provider, especially for long-haul flights.
Conversely, though, internet users can be diverted unexpectedly to intermediaries that are uninterested in providing a decent service. Once online travel agents have your cash, they are usually unwilling to hand it back when things go wrong.
This is everything you need to know to help you make an informed choice for your next trip.
What is an online travel agent?
A web-based intermediary that can offer cost savings and convenience to travellers, and provides suppliers – including airlines, hotels, cruise lines and rental car firms – with wider access to consumers.
Many travellers speak highly of companies such as Travel Republic and Expedia, which offer good value and reasonable customer service. But others appear to be little more than get-rich-quick schemes that depend on travellers’ gullibility – and are responsible for more complaints to the travel desk of The Independent than any other part of the industry.
They typically acquire customers through paid online leads. When I tapped “easyJet flights” into a search engine, the first two responses were both paid-for ads from online travel agents. The top one was from Kiwi.com, based in the Czech Republic; the second from Bravofly.com, a Swiss company.
“Cheap Ryanair flights”? That will lead to a paid ad from Esky.co.uk, whose internet address might lead you fondly to imagine is a British enterprise. In fact, the firm is based in Katowice in southern Poland.
“We are the travel planning experts,” Esky.co.uk claims. “Let us plan the perfect journey for you!”
No thanks. What each of these companies has in common is that they are offshore online travel agents which regard spending money on internet ads as well spent – because it diverts travellers from the airlines’ official sites.
I can get access to all those products myself online. What do OTAs have to offer that I can’t find direct?
Because they can offer suppliers high volumes of business, online travel agents can often negotiate lower rates and pass some of those savings on to travellers. In addition, many airlines like to use an intermediary to provide another…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at The Independent Travel…