Expert: Travel Citizens International Travel Experts - 2/28/2002

Question
Do you know if someone can actually save $$ by purchasing a list of airfare consolidators and calling them to buy a ticket direct from them. On ebay there are some firms listed but I'm leary.
what do you think? I think it's a firm that buys seats on airlines in bulk; they say the airlines prohibit them from advertising.

Answer
Hi kathryn,
Thanks for posting your message on Travel Citizens.
If I understood your question correctly, you are refering to a "Traveler" approaching consolidators and buying from them directly?

If that is the question, then actually purchasing a list of consolidators does not help travelers in anyway, because majority of bonded/reputable consolidators will not sell tickets to Travelers Directly. The reason is that if they are genuine consolidators, they are bound by a contract with airline.They may refer them to an agency which buys from them.Now a days it is hard to differentiate between the True Consolidators and the "name sake" ones. There are businesses, claiming to be consolidators, while all they do is actually buy from the consolidator, add small marging and sell it to the public. They are not bound by any contract with the airlines directly.

What they usually advertise is the "Retail Agents" selling consolidator fares, which is a fair and common practice because retail agents add their mark up to the consolidator fares.Also keep in mind, not all retail travel agents buy from consolidators.There is a possibility, that agent deals with Airlines Directly, but in such cases the fares are usually high.

Please let me know if I was clear enough to answer your question.

Regards,

Travel Citizen