Pre covid, flight centre used to offer the lowest price guarantee - has any one had any luck with price matching since then?
I often see FC deals which have an additional booking/service fee, so can't imagine they have much flexibility…
The likes of sky scanner offer pretty good rates, but would prefer to go via flight centre to use up some rewards dollars.
For long haul flights, I always find a 'good price' online, then go into a travel agent and see what they can do. Often they are able to beat the price, and you also have the benefit of having someone to assist who is likely to go the extra mile (!) if anything happens. I do tend to avoid the very low cost airlines though, so if you are going that way, maybe the agents won't be able to compete.
However, for local or just trans-Tasman, I tend to book direct on the airline website.
^this 100%. I usually do the initial discovery on prices and decide what I am after then go into the travel agent and see if they want my business :D. Regardless of what their price matching policy is, its worth a quick visit.
All they used to do is take $1 off the fare to beat your quote, so it's not even worth it.
No one has ever got a free flight out of it.
I use to do this pre covid. Good if you had multiple links to join up. Called into the local FC and they said they woud add $100 service fee. Guess that was because some airlines took away their commission.
yeah that is a fair call - FC seem to have that "service fee" now….probably dilutes any value you get from them (from a monetary point at least).
Don't forget if you want to change or cancell a flight, travel agents also add additional fees on top of the airline change/cancellation fees (inflated by travel agents / not true cost charged by airline), which often you could just do it yourself online.
Lost my "on to it" agent during covid and haven't been back to one since. He understood how many additional items I booked through him and how many trips I did. We had a great relationship. Hard to rebuild something like that.
have confirmed they do price match, but add on a $150 booking fee per person
That disappeared a year and a half ago.
Can’t hurt to ask them though.
https://www.flightcentre.co.nz/lowest-airfare-guarantee