Airline Tickets from Consolidators
 

We are thinking of buying airline tickets from a wholesale consolidator such as Cheap tickets for our trip to Hawaii. Does anyone has experience with this? If you buy from Cheap Tickets or the like, do you accrue miles on United? Thank you.

Yes, normal accural of frequent flyer points are still applicable when purchasing from Cheap Tickets, or any other travel consolidator. Be sure to submit your frequent flyer account number to the agent when booking your air accommodations. I've bought from Cheap Tickets once (years back), had a slight bad experience with customer service, but not bad enough to not recommend them. CS may have just been having a bad day.

I bought a ticket from the consolidator TRAVAC for a trip to Paris several months ago. The rates are good and you can use frequent flier miles. But be forewarned -- you can't get any upgrades at all and you can't get any refunds or exchanges without incurring a stiff penalty. I wanted to stay an extra day in Paris and even to go standby they were going to charge me an additional $125 (which would kind of have defeated the purpose of getting a discount ticket). All that considered, I would definitely use a consolidator again. Not sure how well they do on domestic flights but for int'l. flights they definitely save you a bundle.

To elaborate on the previous post, all major airlines will charge a "change" fee after your ticket has been printed if you decide to alter your itinerary in any way. However, depending on the airline, may or may not apply to commuter flights (short flight distances). Wether you purchase through a consolidator or directly from the airline, there is no way around change fees after your ticket has been printed. <BR> <BR>Hope this helps. <BR>Aloha!

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