Planning a May '05 trip EWR to CDG and have started looking for airfares. Does anyone have experience purchasing from Cheap Tickets? The flights I'm considering are on Continental, but purchased through Cheap Tickets. If plans change and we are unable to take the trip, does one deal with Continental or CheapTickets? Any info. concerning best time to purchase these tickets would also be appreciated. Thanks!

Nothing to worry about. Cheaptickets.com is part of one of the world's biggest travel conglomerates, Cendant Corp.

If you have to cancel, you will deal with Cheaptickets, not Continental, so read their refund policy before purchasing.

My theory is that the best time to buy a ticket is the time the fare looks good to <b>YOU</b>, and it's a fare you can live with. You'll drive yourself nuts looking for the ultimate deal, and the best part is that on occasion you will get the best deal just because??? you bought it on that day, fuel prices went sky high the next day, etc...etc...

Just curious. Why are you not buying your tickets straight from Continental? Are the fares you're looking for not available directly from CO?

I'd also recommend buying your tickets from the airline rather than a third party site, unless that fare isn't available otherwise. That way if you need to make any changes/cancellation later, you can deal directly with the airline.

I bought tickets through Cheaptickets.com a few years ago for a trip to London and everything went very smoothly. They are a consolidator, not just an online booking service. They buy blocks of tickets from the airlines at a discount and sell them to you at a lower price. Here is a good overview of how consolidators work: http://www.rlrouse.com/airline-conso...r-tickets.html
There are tradeoffs for buying from a consolidator -- you won't get frequent flyer miles and usually you are not allowed to make any changes at all after you buy the tickets (so if you think there is a good chance that your plans will change you may want to buy from the airline, even if it costs more). CheapTickets is the largest of the consolidators and has been in business a long time -- about 20 years I think. I remember before the Internet when they used to advertise in the travel sections of newspapers.

Thanks for the input. The reason to use Cheap Tickets would be strictly for price, as the same Continental flights are running $150 less through Cheap Tickets at this time. Ideally, I'd prefer purchasing directly from the airline. Does anyone know the best way to keep abreast of Continental fare sales on this route?

Have never dealt with consolidators because I was under the impression you have little to no choice regarding your seat assignment. True?

I used a consolidator (www.1800flyeurope.com) for a recent trip from Boston to Paris. I flew on American Airlines, got to choose my seats, and got frequent flyer miles. I don't know if this is always the case with consolidators, but that was my experience. The reason I used the consolidator was that their price was significantly cheaper than anyone else's, including booking directly with AA.

Though a diehard CO and OnePass fan, I tried using a consolidator for a Paris trip earlier this year. It was OK until we needed to make a slight change in schedule (later flight same day)and found it impossible to do so. The airline said talk to the consolidator, the consolidator said, sure - just pay a change fee and very close to full Y fare.
If there is ANY chance that you would need to make any kind of change, go directly with the airline. You may still have to pay a change fee but are in a better position than with a consolidator. Read carefully the terms on the consolidator site - these are generally totally nonrefundable tickets, which means if you donlt use them you lose them. In addition, because this is a bulk ticket (the consolidator buys seats in bulk and resells them) you will not get full FF credit, may get none at all.

Please folks, just because it's a ticket bought from a consolidator, it doesn't mean anything. It's the fare code that has to be looked at.

For example, AA has O fare, which is strictly consolidator fare and you will not get any miles. It also sells Q fare which is another consolidator fare for travel FROM Europe, BUT Q fare is also a regular fare sold by AA which does not earn any miles when flying transoceanic. Domestic Q fare earns miles.
At the same time a consolidator could be selling N or L or S fares, the lowest tier, which earn full miles, but not full points. Earlier this year I bought a weekend package to London with a flight on AA from <b>www.site59.com</b>, that was an N fare and earned full status earning miles, and was upgradable with miles or certs. And as soon as I got the record locator I pulled up the res on aa.com and was able to select premium seats that are only available to status holders or full fare paying passengers.

So don't assume that just because you are buying from a consolidator it won't earn miles or you loose privilages. Always ask for the fare code and check with the airline if the fare code earns miles.

<b>Seamus</b>,

It's very possible that you would have been charged the same from the airline. When you attempt to make changes all airlines will tell you that in cases of discounted economy tickets, you will usually pay a change fee AND whatever fare code is left. The consolidator basically told you what the airline would have told you. The flight you wanted did not have any more deep discounted economy fares and if you wanted to fly on that flight you have to pay &quot;up&quot; to the next available fare.
Airlines need to control this because otherwise everybody would be purchasing a cheap flight (as designated by arline), you know, the 6am flight, not the 10am flight or something like this, and then next day they would call and ask to be switched to the 10am flight which was maybe $300 more to begin with. So even with a $100 change fee, you would still be on better flight for $200 cheaper.
You have to remember that just because it's an identical flight between the same cities, it's the times/days and also how many seats have already been sold, that dictate which flights are still available cheap and which are not.

And finally as I posted here many times, when buying a ticket from a travel agncy, a consolidator, etc., only the agencies can adjust, cancel the ticket if no part of it has been used. Once you check-in and you need to make changes for the remaining part of the ticket, the airlines will do it for you, NOT the agencies.

Always read their refund, change policy and don't assume it will be the same as the airline that you are ticketed on. In another words, buyer beware, but don't shy away from agencies, as sometimes they do have some lower fare inventory available that the airline's web site does not. I purchase about 90-95% of my tickets from AA.com as I know how to tweak the search engine to pull up the lower fare codes that maybe did not show up at first, but I saw available on Expedia, Orbitz, etc, and it works most of the time, but I did purchase 2 tickets for flights in December from Expedia, because neither AA.com or AA agent was able to pull up the inventory. It's a full mileage earning, S fare that AA simply sold out of, yet Expedia had some left. I did loose 2000 total booking bonus miles, but I saved over $200 on both flights. I could buy about 8000 miles on AA.com for the difference.

AAFF is right on with everything he says.

And let me add two things.

1. Most agencies (online or otherwise) will charge you extra, on top of what the airline charges, for changing your ticket. My cousin recently have to do exactly that on her CO ticket to HKG. $150 from CO, plus $10 from the agent (they said they usually charge $25, but gave her a $15 discount).

2. At least on CO, some fares sold by consolidators have the same fare code as non-consolidator fares, and will also earn full FF miles and EQM. However, I found out that they're not upgradeable with miles+cash. The itinerary shows up on Continental.com with no problem, and the only thing that will indicate to me that it's a consolidator fare is that the price is like $0 or something really cheap (&lt;$100 for IAH-HKG).

AAFF -- got any quickly-summarize-able guidelines for &quot;tweaking&quot; aa.com's engine? What are your favorite get-arounds?

&lt;And finally as I posted here many times, when buying a ticket from a travel agncy, a consolidator, etc., only the agencies can adjust, cancel the ticket if no part of it has been used.&gt;

I think there are exceptions although I haven't figured out when or why. Last month I needed to make a change to an unused ticket issued through a travel agency. I called Delta directly was able to make the change (to an earlier flight) and there was no mention by the CSR that the ticket was issued by an agency.

I do agree that the only way to guarantee that you can make changes/cancellations through the airline is to purchase directly from the airline.