BKK to SIN - Package Tours

[Guest]

Hi Steve,

 

Speaking as a travel agent, I categorically state that no one, not an agent, not an airline has any more availability than any other. My reservations system offers last seat availability which means that I can see (and sell) a seat if it exists at a certain revenue class as can all agents in the world with similar systems. I am often on the phone with airlines and we can "see" each other taking and releasing seats...just as anyone with such a link can.

 

You are certainly correct that the lower yield seats (usually the package deals) sell out before higher yield seats but airline yield managers adjust the number of seats available in each booking class (up to 12 in economy) depending on the status of each individual flight.

 

The reason a good travel agent gets seats more often than the airline is that the agent has a vested interest in gaining your business. The airline operator is not paid on commission and the airline receives the booking whoever you book with. Because of this the agent may often waitlist a few flights and ask the airline sales office to confirm this. It works for me about 75% of the time. Airline staff rarely bother to do this.

 

Regarding fares, agents sell the same fares as airlines and in addition, sell discounted fares purchased through "consolidators". These are the cheaper fares which are often discounted by the agents but usually with stricter conditions.

 

I agree in full that using a good agent will generally get you a better deal as well as free advice.

[SingaporeSteve]

Hi Richard - I have to disagree with some of your post for the following reason and I speak as someone closely involved in the travel industry, however on a public posting board, I am not prepared to be exactly specific.

 

Concerning airfares, this is categorically incorrect for travel originating in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Airlines sell fares via their own internet sites and through a restricted number of high volume travel agents, that are considerably below the airfares hosted in the GDS systems. An example of this is the fare from BKK-SIN. The market price on sale at agents in Thailand is around 6,000-8,000 baht for a round trip ticket on SQ and TG. This fare is restricted for sale only in this market. Travel agents overseas cannot access this fare. They can access the inventory through the booking class, however the GDS will quote the filed fare. This is the published fare level. Typically on BKK-SIN this is from memory somewhere around 12,000B. By going to one of these larger agencies, you are dealing directly with the IATA agent who issues the ticket. Many 'travel agents' have no licences to issue tickets (the ratio in Thailand is somewhere around 15% of agents can actually issue tickets) - therefore they are buying the ticket from one of these other agents. They will then add on a markup. Sub agents are all over the place here. As an example, in Pattaya, there are I think 5 IATA agents, however you see a travel agent on every street corner.

 

The benefit for travellers here is that for example my ticket to SIN is booked and ticketed in M class and the ticket states a fare of some B16,000, yet I paid a fraction of that fare. M class is actually quite a high availability economy class and far easier to get a seat than for a package tour class such as Q class. These fares are released via paper fare sheets faxed every couple of weeks to these larger agencies, who then flow it through to their sub agents. The sub agent books it on their GDS and e-mails the booking (Simplified terminology) to the ticketing agent who then prints it out.

 

The other scenario is that large agents buy groups of seats as a pre-set price and sell them to whoever they like. There is normally one per key market who then farm them out. They hold allocations on flights, hence my earlier comment, that some agents can get you seats when others and airline cannot. The concept of charter flights in not common here so all tours go on scheduled services, and too sell the prodcut they need to hold allocations.

 

Finally, In Asia, and in particular Thailand, there are no competitive laws as in the Western World, therefore the airlines are free if they choose to prefer one GDS over another. Thai International own 90% of Amadeus Thailand and are biased to this system. That is why most travel agents in Thailand use Amadeus as their booking tool. If an agent chose to use another system, it puts at risk the revenue that Thai earn from that monopoly so they dont like it and apply pressure to agents by making it harder to use other systems. This is not new and is common all over ASIA. For example in Australia, your GDS cannot access all fares and flights operated on domestic Japanese routes. In Japan, agents have to use the system that the airline stipulates. Japan is the second largest BSP market by revenue however its a domestic demand and an agent normally has to access up to 5 different systems. Unfortunately your experience is not reality in Asia given the differing levels of sophistication, push back against the fee's levied by the 'global' operators and so forth. Hope this clarifies things.

 

All in all a completely mind boggling experience, which backs up our agreed thought that a good travel agent is worht there weight here.

[Guest]

Steve,

 

Thanks for your very informative post. I was very interested to read your information about fares in Asia. I guess I should be happy that countries like mine have laws preventing some of the things that go on in Asia. I spent a number of years with a very large multinational chain which intends to start cross-border selling soon. It will be interesting to see the industry's reactions.

 

I was unaware that any reputable carrier would sell blocks of seats, except in the case of a group but have been aware of certain market fares. I do sometimes buy these from international agents and onsell them to my clients for less than they can generally buy them here.

 

The fare levels you mention are available in Aust. through some carriers (AY, LX, SK etc) at nett levels but not for TG or SQ, unfortunately.