'Not all fair and square with your agency air fare'
The disturbed with surveys is that they’re usually paid for by companies that have a vested interest in the outcome, which puts a bit of a taint on the results.
That said, the results of a scanning released last Friday by online travel agency Travelstart are eye-opening.
The company paid multinational consumer experiment with company Synovate to source international flight prices from traditional travel agency groups, with surprising results.
Prices mixed hugely, leading Travelstart to allege that in many cases the agencies quoted fares on which they stood to net the highest margins, rather than those that were cheapest for the consumer.
A word about the methodology, because I think it’s important: the researchers contacted 50 remarkable branches of six traditional travel agency groups, collecting 317 quotes for the Joburg/Mantle Town route as well as flights to 10 international destinations ranging from London and Paris to New York and Bangkok.




