Cheap airfares offered

[BigEnglish 129]

I need 2 tickets from Munich to Rome on 13th February 2009...please give me a price and we will take it from there...

 

I am big enough and old enough to make my owns decisions!!! Good luck with your business venture

[MichiS 39]

The cheapest ist 124 EUR with Air Berlin from MUC to VIE and then with FlyNiki from VIE to FCO.

That's One Way and two persons.

 

Non-Stop flight from MUC to FCO for 2 persons with FlyNiki would be 158 EUR

 

Even cheaper would be to have a return-flight with a no-show for the return flight with Alitalia for 108 EUR. (minus some taxes reimbursed)

If you want the ticket to be more flexible (for example to really use the return flight) the price would be 124 EUR with Alitalia. with additional rebooking costs of 50 EUR

[friedbergdvah 0]

where do u get your prices from?

[Wysiwyg 3]

 

Hi there,

 

We travel a lot between Germany and UK and also Cyprus and have found that the best prices are available directly on the web.

Just wondered if you can let me know who you book through as especially for Cyprus we have found flights to be expensive.

 

Cheers,

 

Wys...

[pak_wiz 2]

Dear Friends

 

We are working on the website for you. Please gimme some time and as soon as it is finished everone can log on and book themselves.

Please bear in mind that we look forward to provide you cheap tickets and good customer support.

After all what has happened it is my duty to prove everyone that I am not a scammer nor I want to run away with anyones money.

Till the website is ready please donot make any inquiries as I have no time to quote you.

 

Please hang on for some time!!

 

Thanks

Amir

[MichiS 39]

 

where do u get your prices from?

http://www.swoodoo.de Only available in German but is pretty selfexplaining

[colinmanning 200]

Swoodo looks interesting, but a bit weird - is it a travel site, or a redirecting portal?

 

They are pushing Ryanair fares, but as mentioned earlier in this thread, Ryanair are taking legal action against third parties selling their tickets.

 

Anyway, checked out one Swoodo flight, that they say would cost 0.01 Euro, including tax. Try to book, and you get pushed directly to the Ryanair site, and the actual fare is 80.88 Euro. So it looks like Swoodo is getting paid for clicks and site references, at least in some cases.

 

Took me a long time to recover from the hard, cutting and very hurtful comments, but poor Colin is back and ready for the fight.

[johnnydee82 11]

Swoodoo is ok booked tickets to Budapest via easyjet pretty low - I think they are just a "directory" such like opodo but not on the same level hence the pricing with ryanair

[colinmanning 200]

Sure, it looks OK, but they seem to just push you to the airline web site, and then you get the price the airline is offering anyway - so no special deal. Thats how it looked for the couple of tests I did.

 

To that extent it is better that Opodo, as we have seen earlier in this thread, Opodo put a massive markup on the seat prices. Also Opodo only give you regular scheduled airlines such as Aer Lingus, British Airways etc, not budgets like Ryanair and Easyjet.

 

So I guess something like Swoodoo is good if you don't know your way round the airline web sites, and it will locate your options for you. But if you know all the usual suspects, you may as well just go direct to the airline sites.

[colinmanning 200]

 

Dear Friends

 

We are working on the website for you. Please gimme some time and as soon as it is finished everone can log on and book themselves.

Please bear in mind that we look forward to provide you cheap tickets and good customer support.

After all what has happened it is my duty to prove everyone that I am not a scammer nor I want to run away with anyones money.

Till the website is ready please donot make any inquiries as I have no time to quote you.

 

Please hang on for some time!!

 

Thanks

Amir

Looking forward to the web site. Not sure why we have to log on to book- most travel sites provide an open travel searching page, and logging on is usually only an option if you want the travel company to save your details in their database for future visits.

 

Also I'm wondering if your web site will be in German or English or both? If in English, I assume you will be using a fluent English speaker to write the text (OK thats pretty bitchy, but what the heck).

 

By the way, our friend, the travel agent sent me a PM a few days ago telling me that three TTers had already booked flights with him. I must congratulate him on his immediate successes. Any of those TTers want to share their experiences with us here?

[sir realist 10]

ol pak wiz seems dodgier than last weeks clam chowder

how am i expected to book tickets on good faith from a supposed

travel agent who cant even book his own hire car. hmmm

[Kommentarlos 983]

 

Took me a long time to recover from the hard, cutting and very hurtful comments, but poor Colin is back and ready for the fight.

I'm sure that we are all looking forward to any contribution which is able to distinguish between malicious intent on the part of the service provider and a business model that does not immediately appeal to one's personal business philosophy.

 

Put it in bold for you. Hope that helps :)

[leky 173]

 

Also Opodo only give you regular scheduled airlines such as Aer Lingus, British Airways etc, not budgets like Ryanair and Easyjet.

That is because Opodo is:

 

 

Owned by Amadeus, British Airways, Air France, Alitalia, Iberia, KLM, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus, Austrian Airlines and Finnair

Same as Orbitz is owned by various US airlines.

[Guy 196]

 

Also Opodo only give you regular scheduled airlines such as Aer Lingus, British Airways etc, not budgets like Ryanair and Easyjet.

Check out Flug/Billiganbieter on opodo.de

 

Edit: Not that I think it's particularly good, but it is on offer.

[cb6dba 7,318]

Opodo also charge you 10€ for the privilege of booking over them.

 

Well, they did that last time I booked with them..

[Guy 196]

Opodo hasn't been the same for flights since the airlines discontinued the travel agent commission. Before that they were often cheaper than the airline sites. Still pretty good for hotels & holiday homes in my opinion.

[cb6dba 7,318]

I guess the airlines moved from a 'book here and you get a discount' to 'you pay us €10 to use this nice site we set up'..

 

However, being cheap I am happy to use opodo to see whats available and where and then go to the sites and save the €10.

 

It is also good for seeing how much the airlines that own the site are charging before looking at other airlines..

[BigEnglish 129]

 

However, being cheap I am happy to use opodo to see whats available and where and then go to the sites and save the €10.

Do you order Tap Water in restaurants ???...

[jerryg 2]

i once got a pretty good deal through this web site http://www.billig-fliegen.de/ but afterwards i was kind of thinking oh no, the confirmation e-mail i printed out looks totally unprofessional, what if this is a scam? it turned out to be fine. yo original poster! i'd love to believe you that you're legit, and if i lived in berlin or wherever you're at i'd probably pay you a visit to check you out in person. i hope you get you're website up and running ok. so far i've never seen one single web site that consistently offers the lowest fares all of the time. there are always fluctuations between the various sites.

 

i think the last time i went to a physical travel agent was about ten years ago when i saw an add for a really cheap deal for flights to japan in the san francisco chronicle. i don't remember how much it was back then, but it was way chepaer than anything else i'd ever seen for similar flights. i called the number and they told me they could get me a ticket on the days i wanted. when i went to the agent to pick up my paper ticket in person, the guy pleaded with me, saying the price the airline was charging had gone up in the meantime and if he sold me the ticket at the previously stated price, he would incurr a loss. i don't remember the method of payment or if i had already paid at that point, but i remember we ended up arguing and he finally gave me the ticket at the fare that had been advertised. i remember also having been a bit nervous later on at the check in thinking, what if this whole ticket is fake? the agent's office was located in a kind of seedy strip mall area out in the suburbs, but everything turned out to be fine.

 

it'd be a nightmare though to walk up to the check in counter thinking you're all settled and looking forward to your trip, to then have the staff tell you sorry but we don't have any reservation listed under your name, and no there's nothing under that confirmation number of yours either, sorry, next please!

[colinmanning 200]

 

I'm sure that we are all looking forward to any contribution which is able to distinguish between malicious intent on the part of the service provider and a business model that does not immediately appeal to one's personal business philosophy.

 

Put it in bold for you. Hope that helps

Bold faced comment noted. However I suggest you look through the post history. You will see that I have never accused the guy of having malicious intent, or being a scammer - a term he seemed to feel close to his heart as he introduced it to the thread. My initial comments were based on wondering what a small start up company could do in terms of selling cheap flights to consumers. So I asked him what was special about his business, and how he could deliver to customer prices better than what was available online. The guy had clearly no idea how to deal with these questions, and so I started to research, and showed that online fares were cheaper that what he could offer (yes he tried to wriggle out of this, by changing the parameters, but it was always possible to counter any price claim he made). Then, rather than getting into an open discussion with me and others about his business, he started to rant, and become very defensive - accusing me and others of calling him a scammer - which I certainly never did (check the history, you will se this clearly is the case). What I did, was insist that he answer a couple of key questions that would point to him having some credibility in the travel sales marketplace - not only did he continue to refuse to answer these questions, but he continued to sow doubt in the minds of other thread contributors with his comments.

 

My personal opinion is that the guy does not have any malicious intent - but clearly has absolutely no idea how to run a travel agency - high street or online - and as an aside, I firmly believe that there is no business opportunity for a small business to move into selling flights. The guy has clearly been looking for different ways to operate some form of small business here in Germany. I applaud this and would support it 100% if the concept made sense. In this case it clearly does not.

 

Finally, the reason I got angry and slightly aggressive, is the guy was quoting air fares that were impossible - 30% below the list price of the airline's online price, which they guarantee as the lowest possible price - he could not do this without making a huge loss, in my opinion, and this is what I said time and time again. At no time did I suggest that he may "take the money and run" - others did, but I did not. Even if he had paid up to the professional booking system services, he could not deliver these prices, and I tried to point this out with explicit research.

 

I think it is great if someone has a good business concept, and comes to places like Toytown to market them. Even if it's not 100% professional, if the idea sounds good, ant the person behind it is listening to comments and developing the concept - the great. However when people see a forum like this as a free place to advertise, and are not willing to listen to the members comments and adapt their business concept appropriately, then they get what they deserve.