Holding Flights - Assistance Please

[blueythecat]

Hi knowledgeable types,


Not being a regular user of travel agents I have a question I was hoping someone in the community might be able to answer. I'm wondering if a travel agent, flight centre for example, can put business class tickets on "hold"? Ie stopping someone else from booking them for 24-48 hours.


I'm trying to coordinate 4 people to London on Ethiad in a few weeks and would like a quote that won't change whilst we organise payment etc. If it makes a difference, travel would be in business class, in a couple of weeks and expert flyer says there are about 5-6 seats left in the class in question.

Appreciate any help - thanks.

 

[opusman]

Travel agents can often do that, also see if EY let you do that yourself through their website (e.g. Qantas lets you put fares on hold for up to 3 days I think).

 

[blueythecat]

Great, couldn't find a way to do it on the EY website, but maybe I'm not looking for the right thing.


If a travel agent is able to put them on hold, do you know if someone else can still book them? Or are they removed from the available inventory?

 

[mooingchicken]

A travel agent should be able to place a 24 hour hold on them, and as far as I know they cant be sold

 

[FlyingFox]

I recently flew EY booked with an agent. We booked early on and she held it for a few days.

 

[VRC]

Hi knowledgeable types,


Not being a regular user of travel agents I have a question I was hoping someone in the community might be able to answer. I'm wondering if a travel agent, flight centre for example, can put business class tickets on "hold"? Ie stopping someone else from booking them for 24-48 hours.


I'm trying to coordinate 4 people to London on Ethiad in a few weeks and would like a quote that won't change whilst we organise payment etc. If it makes a difference, travel would be in business class, in a couple of weeks and expert flyer says there are about 5-6 seats left in the class in question.

Appreciate any help - thanks.

It would depend on the fare rules associated with the fare class in question. A travel agent should be able to clearly decipher these rules and tell you what the the TTL (ticketing time limit) is that holds the price for the booking. But it could be the fare class you are looking at, is actually an instant purchase price which does occur even on some discounted business fares these days especially when flying only a few weeks out.

 

[RooFlyer]

If a seat is 'booked' then its held as long as the fare class allows it to be held without paying. Cheap fares in any cabin class tend to have to be paid for immediately. Other fare classes allow the booking to be held for weeks (these are getting rare!) before payment is due. Each airline has different rules for its various fare classes but I've never seen it actually listed anywhere.

If a TA makes a delayed payment booking, the airline will often send them a note ahead of time to "pay within 24 hours" when the booking class is getting full. I've been affected several times like that - I've expected a couple of weeks to pay then suddenly the demand from the airline. If its not paid for, the airline can and definitely will cancel the booking.

Another time I had a 'Europe Airpass' of about 10 sectors on 3 airlines and the fare rules in black and white said it wouldn't be due for payment for 4 weeks. Then bloody Austrian Air piped up and decided they wanted to be paid almost immediately. It crystallised the whole ticket!! Don't know how they could do that, when the Air Pass had the 4 week 'rule' but they did and I had to pay else it would have been cancelled.

But here's a neat trick that my TA does when they can and I'm sure others do. We make a booking on a good fare (ie a long way out from flight time) , payable say within 10 days. At day 9, they check availability and if its still OK, they let the booking lapse and make a new one, thus getting me another 10 days. And so it keeps rolling forward, sometimes for many weeks. When the availability finally tightens, I pay and it gets ticketed.

This requires some effort from the TA of course and I think you need a decent relationship to get them to do it. But ask - you never know.