Travel Hacks - Booking Direct vs. Third-Parties
For any long trip like ours, there are many individual flight, accommodation, and activity purchases that you’ll need to make. For each of these reservations you’ll likely face a choice, booking directly with your chosen company or booking through an online or in-person third-party. Each choice has benefits and drawbacks, so understanding what might be best for you in each unique situation can sometimes be a bit tricky. In this post, we’ll lay out some general pros of each method, and then explain why we book certain things the way we do. We’ll also mention some common pitfalls and mistakes that we, and our friends, have learned from extensive travels.
Pros of Booking Through A Third-Party
Prices are typically lower than what you’ll find by booking the first shown price directly through your supplier, this is most often true for flight bookings.
They may be more familiar with local operators, or aware of ones that don’t show up as highly on Google.
If a supplier cancels an activity, the third-party will often automatically rebook you on a similar activity.
For flights it can sometimes be possible to book a creative, multi-airline routing to save time and money.
It’s easier to quickly compare prices across multiple suppliers on one page before booking.
Pros of Booking Direct
You directly deal with your supplier, all correspondence is sent straight to them with no middle man.
Changes can be requested or made straight to the entity who has the final say in the matter.
There is more control over your booking and flexibility when you need to change or cancel the booking.
Flights and hotel stays will earn rewards and help you qualify towards elite status.
No last-minute, unexpected operator changes, you always know who you’ll be dealing with.
Easier to avoid scams or legal gray-areas, which some third-party sites use to keep their prices cheaper.
On occasion suppliers will include extra perks, think airport transfers or free breakfast, when booking directly with them.
Why We Book The Way We Do
We try to book as many flights and activities directly with the suppliers as we can. For flights that we’re paying cash for, this often means using a comparison tool like Skyscanner to find the most affordable option, then going to the airline’s website and booking the actual flight through them. Occasionally, the price shown on Skyscanner or Google Flights can differ to what the airline has in their system, and in these cases it might require a few searches with different airlines to find the best “real” deal. Similarly for activities, we often search for what we’re interested in doing on Viator or GetYourGuide, then book the activity directly with the suppliers who advertise there. In these cases, we often look for their WhatsApp number and get in touch with them to negotiate a price. These suppliers are typically happy to offer a lower price than what’s shown in third-party channels, as they’ll avoid paying fees to another company and will be able to keep the total price in their pockets. Sometimes platforms like Viator or GetYourGuide don’t like to list the name of an activity’s supplier to prevent people from reaching out to them directly, but we’ve found that with a little bit of internet sleuthing, it’s usually possible to identify a contact.
However, for hotels we’ve typically booked through third-parties this year, most often Expedia. This is partially because of their excellent loyalty program, which we’ve previously explained in our Ballin’ On A Budget post, and the associated cost savings. We have also used Booking.com, AAdvantage Hotels, and American Express hotels on occasion but we often find the best prices, with rebates taken into account, on Expedia. We also have a long-standing relationship with Marriott hotels, with Gold status through our American Express card, so we book any of their network of hotels directly through them to take advantage of our added benefits. We have, on occasion, reached directly out to a hotel similarly as we have for activities, but in these instances we have had mixed results with some lower prices and some higher. While this can be a great way to save money, especially with hostels by avoiding Hostelworld’s pesky fees, for most large brand hotels it doesn’t always have the same savings.
Common Third-Party Pitfalls
While they can be a great option, as we outlined above, there are a few common mistakes that can make your experience worse if you’ve chosen to use a third party. Below are three of the most common pitfalls that we, or our friends, have run into and what you can do to avoid them!
Not Reading The Fine Print // We know, who reads the fine print on everything they purchase these days? Whether it’s downloading an app, subscribing to a service, or booking a flight, fine print is everywhere and usually we don’t take the time to go through it line by line, who would? But, this has tripped us up when booking flights through third-parties before, as they sometimes have unexpected restrictions listed in the fine print that lead to headaches later. For example, when flying between two islands in Malaysia, we chose to book an unconventional flight with a third party, I won’t name them here, but missed in the fine print that they had said we wouldn’t be able to add checked luggage as our connection time was too short. This was of course an issue for us as we needed to get our giant backpacks from A to B too. When we reached out to Kiwi.com (oops I said who it was), they referred us to the fine print and informed us we would need to purchase new flights if we wanted to change anything, with no refund or trip credit. Unfortunately, this ended up being a very costly mistake, as we had to buy a new flight to ensure our bags would make it to our second flight. To avoid this, make sure you study all of the flight details and expand any hidden information sections to catch these sneaky restrictions.
Changing A Booking Without Notifying The Third-Party // You may think that once you have a booking in hand, if you need to make a change you can work directly with the supplier or operator. However, doing so will often void the terms and conditions of whichever third-party you used to book the service, absolving them of any requirement to assist you if things go wrong. Therefore, the change policy of the third-party, no matter how restrictive, often has the final say in which changes are allowed. A recent example of this coming back to haunt someone actually happened to a friend of ours who was on his way to join us on part of this trip. After realizing his flight return date was one day too early, he made a flight modification directly through the airline operating the route. However, when he showed up to the airport for his first flight, the airline informed him that his booking was no longer attached to his first flight. They could see his booking in their system, but not that he was supposed to be on this flight. Therefore, they didn’t let him board, and all of his subsequent flights were canceled as a result. Since he had changed this flight directly with the airline, the third-party said there was nothing they could do, and the airline said it was out of their hands since he had booked through an agency. In the end, he wasn’t able to fly to join us because of this mistake on the airline’s part.
Inability To Cancel A Flight Within 24 Hours // In the United States and many other countries around the world, governments mandate that fliers must be able to cancel their booking for a full refund as long as they do so within 24 hours of purchase and at least seven days before their flight. This is a great tool to use if you want to secure a low airfare, while still giving yourself some time to look around at hotel options and decide on the final details of your trip. However, these rules often only apply when you’ve booked the airfare directly through the airline. If you use a third-party like Expedia, Booking.com, or Trip.com, their refund rules will supersede anything offered by the airlines. This means that even if you cancel within 24 hours and the airline would be willing to refund you, the third-party may not be. If you cancel in this situation, it typically means the third-party agency will pocket your money, while not being required to refund you anything. It’s possible to avoid this by paying for trip insurance or cancellation coverage through the third-party, but this will increase your overall cost and may make booking directly through the airline cheaper.
Conclusion
Booking with third-parties can be tempting, especially when they advertise cost savings of dozens or even hundreds of dollars. However, it’s necessary to be aware of all the risks that come with booking flights, hotels, or activities this way, as unexpected changes or interruptions can end up costing you far more than what you originally saved. We believe in booking direct as often as you can, unless you receive added benefits from and are confident in the credibility of the third-party agency. Of course, these decisions are entirely up to each person planning their unique trip but, from what we’ve learned this year, we are limiting our use of third-parties to avoid riskier, more expensive mistakes.