TG/KQ MEL-KGL US$1074 Business class return

[yangry]

There is a flip slide - potentially.

Booking an error fare directly with an airline can mean swift cancellation (or agreement to honour). The airline simply searches the origin/destination and the fare, identifies the tickets, and voids them.

Booking through an (O)TA the process is not necessarily as simple and can take a bit longer. There have been some (rare) cases when an airline has cancelled direct bookings, but passengers have still managed to fly on a ticket issued by an (O)TA and not found in time by the airline.

But generally that’s for tickets like ‘buy today fly next day’ (or at least within a few days of buying the fare).

In any event, the TA is getting commission, so the commission is going to be low on an error fare. No real skin off the TA’s nose to lose that small commission, and make a larger one by selling the seat to another customer at the correct price.

That's what happened to us.

We booked through a smaller third-party OTA. Our tickets were never cancelled and we had the trip of a lifetime. We booked our flights 6 months out too, so plenty of time for them to cancel it if they wanted.

I understand everyone who booked through the airline directly had their booking cancelled. If I recall correctly bookings through some if not most OTAs were cancelled too, it was luck of the draw I guess.