I’m often asked for a list of good cheap flights, but there is no such one list on the Internet . The closest things to it are the lists of wholesale suppliers maintained by the best retail cheap flights. But those are lists of wholesalers, and wouldn’t do you any good even if any agency were willing to reveal its list of suppliers, which none with a list worth anything would do. (Discount retail agents compete at negotiating deals and tracking down wholesale suppliers, and guard their information about prices, commissions, and suppliers zealously.) Any list of retail cheap flights would become obsolete too quickly to be useful. Instead, I’ll try to give an outline of the types of international airline ticket cheap flights and how to find them.
Many people have heard that they can get cheaper deals from “consolidators” or “ticket shop onliness” than from the air companies. I’ll try to explain what these terms mean, but their meanings aren’t universally agreed upon even within the industry. If you want a discounted ticket from point A to point B, the best way to start your inquiry to a travel agency is not, “Are you a consolidator” (they may say, No”, because they are a retail agency and consider the term “consolidator” to apply only to wholesale-only agencies) nor, “Are you a ticket shop on line?” (they may say, “No”, because they consider “ticket shop on line” to be an insulting, pejorative term). Ask, “Do you have discounts from point A to point B.”
“Consolidator” and “ticket shop on line” are sometimes used interchangeably, but aren’t exactly the same.
Consolidators are agencies that have discount agreements with the air companies. In most cases, especially with the USA and other big air companies, consolidators are wholesalers who sell only through retail agencies, not directly to the public. In any case, wholesale consolidators do NOT offer retail service. If you want a straightforward round-trip ticket, know what airline you want to go on, and exactly what dates, and that airline has the best route and price, fine. But of course many itineraries aren’t like that, and most people need a retail agent’s help to figure out what’s the best ticket for them.
Most publicly-available lists of “consolidators” indiscriminately mix wholesale consolidators who also sell directly to the public with retail ticket shop onlines. But retail customers are charged more than wholesale customers by the same consolidators, so you can often get the same price — and better service, and advice — by going through a retail agency even if the wholesaler is (minimally) willing to deal with you directly.
Any retail travel agent can buy tickets from consolidators, and most USA agents who do significant international ticketing are familiar with some of the biggest consolidators for major carriers. ticket shop onlines are retail agencies that specialize in knowing the full range of consolidators (every airline has many consolidators) and in knowing other techniques of fare construction, importing tickets, etc. for discount prices.
Consolidators basically fall into three categories:
Wholesale-only consolidators
These generally have no retail sales or advertising, and don’t want to be known to the general public. (You may have seen the names of some of these consolidators, however, in the validation box of tickets bought through a retail agency.) These are the consolidators most local travel agents know about. They generally deal only with round trips originating in the country where they are based, and are common in the USA, UK, and Australia, among other countries They advertise only in the travel agency trade press, not in consumer publications. Often they forbid retail agents who buy tickets from them from giving out their direct contact information, since their thin wholesale margins include no allowance for retail customer service. They will not sell directly to the public; if you aren’t really a professional travel agent, they will figure it out.
Destination specialists
Agencies that specialize in a particular destination or region often have negotiated discounts on tickets to that region which they offer both to their own (retail) customers and to other agencies as a wholesaler. frequently an agency operating and retailing tours to a particular country will have a discount agreement with the airline it uses for its tours (generally the national carrier of the destination) and will also sell wholesale tickets on that airline. One reason they do the wholesale business, even if their markup on wholesale tickets is very low, is to boost their volume of production (sales) with the airline, as many discount contracts are contingent on a specified sales volume, and/or have year-end bonuses or additional commission rebates based on sales thresholds. Sometimes they are “general sales agents,” that is, official representatives of an airline (usually a small one) that doesn’t have service or its own office in a country.
You can often find agencies like this through publications targeted at immigrants from the country you want to go to. Even in foreign-language ethnic publications the travel ads are generally recognizable, with at least the phone number, the destination cities, and the round-trip prices in Latin letters and numbers! Even more than general bucket-shop ads in the Sunday newspaper travel supplements, a quick glance at the ethnic press will give you the best idea of the absolute lower limit of possible prices for tickets bought long in advance for travel in the most unpopular season on the worst air companies with the worst connections in the most undesirable or expensive stopover points.
But if you want the cheapest possible round-trip from the USA home to India, Ireland, Nigeria, or wherever, no general-purpose agency, even a general discount agency, is likely to be able to beat the lowest prices of a no-service, bare-bones, specialist agency within that particular ethnic community that sells nothing else but a massive volume of round-trip tickets to a single destination.
Realize that the lowest advertised price is usually either a loss leader and/or a bait-and-switch gambit to attract callers. The lowest advertised prices for transoceanic tickets from the USA, for example, generally range from wholesale cost for the cheapest ticket to about $20 below cost. It is unlikely that you will actually get a ticket for your itinerary at these prices.
Most advertised prices are exclusive of taxes and perhaps other fees; even in the most expensive season the lowest advertised prices are usually for travel in low season, whenever that is.
On the other hand, shopping solely on price is a good way to ensure that the agency from which you eventually buy your ticket has cut its margin so thin that they can’t afford to provide an acceptable standard of service. And even price-sensitive travelers, especially those who aren’t intimately familiar with their destination, may find that it’s worth paying a bit more for reliability, service, and a modicum of advice.
“ticket shop onlines” and other multi-stop specialists
These are discount retail agencies that specialize in trips more complicated than simple round trips, often to a wider range of destinations or to multiple destinations. Many ticket shop onlines negotiate their own deals directly with the air companies for routes where they can’t get good (or any) discounts from (A) or (B). They use these deals for their own retail customers, and frequently also to sell to other ticket shop onlines. (Sometimes they negotiate these deals specifically to be able to export the tickets to ticket shop onlines in other countries, as when a Singapore ticket shop online gets permission to discount tickets originating in the USA) ticket shop onlines’ own deals tend to emphasize one-way tickets, which are essential for constructing around-the-world tickets and which often aren’t available from other general-purpose consolidators.