So historically I’ve always used a third-party travel provider to book my travel, and almost always Expedia.com.  I’ve done so to make it easy to search for the cheapest fare across multiple airlines and see the maximum number of itinerary options, and for the convenience of having all of my itineraries located in one central repository.  Well, I’m rethinking that approach now, and here’s why.

When things haven’t gone exactly as originally planned on my flights (which happens pretty frequently), it has been harder to get accurate information, make adjustments on the fly, and get to where I’m going when dealing with a third party.  Why?  Well, Expedia and other third-party travel sites are in effect just acting as point-of-purchase travel agents, and really don’t have much authority once your itinerary is booked.  They assign your “ticket stock” to an airline carrier, and it’s out of their hands from there should changes be necessary.  That gets even more complex when you book an itinerary with multiple airline carriers – good luck guessing which owns your “ticket stock”.  Twice lately I’ve had flights cancelled on one airline that needed to be rebooked on another, and both times I called Expedia since I booked through them.  Both times they referred me to BOTH airlines, not one or the other, which just adds the complication and confusion about what’s next.  So both times I ended up making four-to-six unique phone calls to various and sundry airlines just to get action taken on my cancelled itinerary, and to get a straight story on what my newly-adjusted flight plan had become.

So my unsolicited advice from my travel experience?  Use the third-party sites to find the itinerary you want, and then go book that itinerary directly through the airline’s web site.  It just eliminates the middle-man, and if something should change with your travel plans, it’s MUUUUCCCHHH easier to recover and get good information than dealing with a third-party if you just call your airline provider.  Seem like cheating?  Believe me, it’s kill or be killed out there in airline travel right now. It’s us against them, and taking advantage of all your available resources is just smart.