U.S. Ticket Consolidators
 

We're planning a trip to Italy in November. This will be our first visit. We're going to purchase tickets through a US ticket consolidator. Has anyone run into problems with them. Their prices are highly discounted. Also are there significant addons such as a fuel surcharge?

My recent experience with them is that they generally are not lower in price than the first prices posted on kayak.com.

do you have specific consolidators in mind that you could share w/ us? I have booked 2 trips to Italy w/ a consolidator and were very pleased w/ their services. They were the lowest priced company I found and I checked on a daily basis to see what prices they were offering. However, that was 3 yrs. ago and things have changed significantly in the travel world.

Years ago I would use consolidators because they were significantly cheaper. My only rules back then were: 1) use a credit card, even if they charge a fee for it; 2) check seat assignments directly with the airline after you buy your ticket (and confirm they have a record of you); and 3) expect that it will be difficult or impossible to reschedule your flights or get any credit/refund if you have a problem and don't want to take the flights you purchased.

Recently I have not found consolidators to be significantly cheaper than fares I could get directly from airlines, but I did buy from vayama recently because they would ticket a connecting flight that was more convenient and for whatever reason they were the only site selling that itinerary. (I find vayama is a helpful site for shopping int'l airfares, whether you buy from them or not)

It is a whole new ball game and consolidators do not have the leverage they once did. I would just use ITAsoftware.com and go from there.

I also used to use consolidators for most flights to Europe. Once organized a trip for 13 friends and my fav consolidator at the time saved us a little over $4000. But things are different now.

Not only is it a different ball game -- the players make a huge difference. Some consolidators are good, and some aren't. Which one are you using?