Should I use my booking agent to change my airline tickets?

Question

I want to change my airline tickets return date from New York to London to a later date (from Sat to Weds (cheaper ticket). I could change them with my agent who will charge me £150 for changing two tickets. My other option is to wait until they send me the tickets, two weeks before I travel, and change them direct with Virgin airlines. Virgin airlines say they cannot give me an idea how much they will charge until I get the tickets from my agent.
Does anyone have an idea how much this may be?
Thanks

Answer 1

my suggestions are:1) call ur travel agent and ask for ur RECORD LOCATOR once u have it ask them also what type of class the ticket u are buying once u got this info 2) call the airline office and tell them to connect u to the reservation counter and tell them to retrieve ur flight details by giving them ur RECORD LOCATOR.3) once they see ur flight details through their system they can immeditely tell if ur ticket is rebookable or not since ur buying the cheapest one....here in the phil usually international tickets charges for rebooking is US&50.00 but i dnt have any idea from ur country. good luck and have a pleasant and safe trip.

Answer 2

Originalbubble I have to say I was a bit offended by your post. Indicating travel agents charge "commission". Most agencies charge a service fee, but to do an exchange I'm not sure you understand how long those take. Even for a seasoned agent it can take 20 - 30 min just to do. It's time consuming! There is just much more to exchanges that consumers can’t and aren’t expected to understand of course.

Also when you say "I am not sure I would trust a booking agent to do this!” What the heck is that about? Either you have dealt with a bad agent in the past to make this kind of statement or you have no idea what you are talking about. It isn't a common occurrence for one to "mess things up". Why would you not trust the travel agent, but you would the airlines? What they can't make a mistake? An agent that can't do an exchange correctly is well just not a good agent and if the poster felt the agent wasn't a good agent they probably wouldn't have booked through them there airline tickets. Your post to me is just plain inaccurate info and well just your opinions.

The other thing to is Virgin airlines will probably to charge for the changes most airlines do because for them to it takes reservation agents time to make the changes same as us. A change is a change and it takes time and work to do these. Do you think people just always do these changes for free?

Now if you are able to get a lower price it is possible the airlines would take any fee they have out of the cost you already paid. Not sure how they do it.

I'm sorry, it just drives me crazy people bashing Travel Agents that clearly don't know much about them. Even in packages we don't "tack on a commission". It's just if you book it direct you are paying the same price it's just they make more money because they don't have to pay an agency. We do charge at our agency anyways and this is for most usually a $20.00 per person fee, but we do a lot of research for you to get you the best rates for your dates and destination.

Anyways, as far as the ticket being changed as someone else mentioned if you wait you may not get what you like is the biggest risk you take. Sorry to about the longer post, just wanted to clear that up. I hope you don't mind =) It wasn't absolutely anything you said.

Either way best of luck to you and have a great trip!!

Answer 3

Oh that is a hard choice. I personally would do it with the airline themselves, not only because it may cost less (the booking agents are charging you commission), but also because I wouldnt necessarily trust a booking agent to make the changes correctly!

Answer 4

hard ? but if you want to make sure you get what you want I would do it right away because if you wait they might be booked full & you can't get what you want.