I regularly book flights through Expedia, Opodo, Lastminute etc. It allows me to compare routes and prices across a number of airlines. Sometimes I check on the airline website before I book and often the Expedia price is actually better. Not sure why but it’s true.

These sites don’t include the budget airlines so I check these separately for short-haul flights, though this is not necessary for longer flights. (easyJet does not fly to Australia, for example).

The difference with these ’scraping’ websites that have hit the news is that they don’t have business relationships with the airlines. Instead, they are using software to find the cheapest flights on the net. The fares are genuinely on offer from the airlines, just not typically through comparison websites. What it allows is genuine comparison, which is something the airlines don’t want. But the scraping sites are only accessing publicly available front-end information and doing nothing illegal. The airlines probably don’t have a leg to stand on when cancelling the tickets.

Ryanair has cancelled around 450-500 tickets every day from ’scraping sites’ over the past two weeks. Most of those, we understand, have originated in countries outside of the UK.

Travolution article.

Ryanair does, in fact, have a leg to stand on because the terms and conditions of its tickets state that the ticket must have bougth from Ryanair.com.

Hello Caitlin, BTW.

Hi Kevin!

Is Ryanair the only airline actually cancelling tickets? Presumably there’s nothing to stop you using the scraping site to locate the cheapest ticket and then booking on the airline’s actual site.

Disclosure to new commenters: Caitlin and I used to work together and she has written for Travolution.

Most scraping sites, such as travelsupermarket, skyscanner, kayak, etc, do actually send you to carrier’s website anyway.

My favourite quote so far on the Ryanair thing is from a letter in last weeks Travel Weekly….. (yes Kevin, I do read that!).

Tesco’s etc sell milk and break as a loss leader. If you go to Tesco and buy 2000 pints of milk and 5000 loaves of bread and started to sell them in your own local shop…. Tesco would take action against you straight away.

I don’t have a problem with what Ryanair are doing…. and the reaction of the trade press has been rather more “headline” than substantiated.

@Alex, Tesco would not actually have a legal case in such an instance. Unlike airline tickets, milk and bread are not sold with terms and conditions attached. I am perfectly entitled to resell anything I buy in Tesco. (You may need a health and safety licence to sell food but that’s a different matter). Tesco can refuse to serve you but you can send agents in your place and they can’t do anything to stop you once they have sold you the item.

I am familiar with the concept of a loss leader but the deal with it is that smart people can exploit the system and that’s a cost you just have to wear.

Actually, something very similar has happened with all of the recent Harry Potter books. I wrote articles for The Australian newspaper about this back in 2003. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire had come out and the big chain stores in Australia (Big W, Kmart etc) were selling the books so cheaply it was actually below the wholesale price. Independent booksellers who were struggling to compete took to restocking their inventory by going down to the local chain store and buying Harry Potters over the counter to take back to their own store and resell at a higher price. True story and perfectly legal.

I can’t imagine that Ryanair can do anything legally about scraping sites that actually direct you to Ryanair’s site to make the booking. They might try but I doubt they would succeed.

Help!!! Please could you tell me if Ryanair will have cancelled my tickets booked through Travel Republic? I have tried contacting them but no one seems to be able to help me or be even bothered to help.

@Damian:

Try both Ryanair AND Travelrepublic.

Darren
this is purely to drive more income to Ryanair’s own (awful) website and hence to their many affliate links to car hire and accomodation, casinos, gas electricity, credit cards etc etc.
Now whilst I can see their view, that travel agents in Ryanair’s own words are “parasites”, at least an Atol booking for flights/accomodation/car hire with a travel agent is fully protected, unlike a booking through Ryanair.
I also understand that around 40% of people in the UK are not directly connected to the internet, so this also denies them the chance to book low cost flights.
In my view it will be interesting to see how long they play this game, and how much revenue they lose in the long term. But this is typical of Ryanair where the customer comes very much last.

All this is because simply Ryanair make money from extras, without this they would not make profits they do. If you do not use there website they can not sell you extras. Also of course they do not like to be compared where they may not be the cheapest.

They will also have a problem enforcing this under UK law, which says if you ignore your own terms and conditions then they do not apply. Ryanair would therefore struggle to prove this is a valid t&c………………..But who wants to end up in court to find out?

@Nick

Some of the screen scraping systems have the ability to sell the Extras offered on the third party websites now. We have been impacted by this whole Ryanair issue where I work, and as I understand it, it’s primarily the fact operators markup the flights (sometimes referred to as a bonding fee). As I’ve mentioned before on this site, that bonding fee is to cover anything should the flight be cancelled. If you book direct with the flight carrier, you will in most cases be liable to make alternative arrangements if the flight is cancelled, whereas through an operator they have to find you an alternative. This touches on a previous article about customers always going for the cheapest option, and not thinking about the consequences!

Let’s not forget, publicity is publicity also - they’ve ended up with plenty of it due to this!

Darren,

In response to your comment:

“I am surprised that consumers would even think about booking a flight through a travel company rather than direct with the airline. The flight surely is not going to be any cheaper, and it is less hassle to go through the airline, rather than a third party.”

As an agent, I have a number of customers who would prefer to book through me, rather than directly with the airline, even if I do charge a handling fee when they are booking flight only (I don’t usually charge anything if they are booking accommodation too) precisely because it can be much less hassle than going directly with the airline. If they want to add or amend anything I spend hours on their expensive phone lines and don’t charge my customers a penny for my time or the cost of the phonecall. I certainly don’t advertise that I book low cost flight only, it is only a service that I offer my regular customers who may have a villa or be visiting relatives, as there is little profit in it.

As Dean Oliver mentioned, (as ATOL holders) some agents do sell a range of tailor made packages with low cost flights and accommodation; this is a huge benefit to the client rather than booking with the airline directly. If the flights are changed or cancelled, we then become responsible for making alternative arrangements (wihin our T&C’s); booking with the airline directly, you are ‘on your own’. Aditionally, when a package price is agreed we don’t subsequently say to our clients it’s going to be an extra £X to take hold luggage and £X to check in at the airport.

I agree “It would also have been customer friendly for the travel companies whose tickets were safe from cancellation to communicate with customers. It is another example of the travel industry not communicating with consumers.” However, in agents’ defence if Ryanair hasn’t communicated with us, what are we to tell our customers? I didn’t have any outstanding bookings with them, so I can’t comment from experience, but I belive in many cases there has been no direct communication from Ryanair and, being honest, if I had bookings I wouldn’t want to contact them and identify myself as an agent for the fear of them cancelling the booking….

It would be a shame if agents are no longer allowed to book Ryanair as they won’t be able to have their holidays ATOL protected. If Ryanair don’t want our business we will either have to switch sell, meaning we are unable to offer the full selection we would like, but business is busness (when Thomson cut our commission significantly, we stopped selling them). Alternatively customers will book directly with Ryanair (which I guess is what they want) or, with their permission, book on their behalf with their card.

That’s how I’ve been told the bonding fee works - at least here that’s how it’s meant to work here!

Darren

We also book Ryanair, on there website. We find there are the following reasons are main ones customers use us for no frills airlines.

1. They want the cheapest flight but not the hassle of trolling though websites looking for it
(Time poor customers). See example I gave about BA and Ryanair pricing before, on some routes there can be a dozen airlines.
2. They are unsure or have made a mistake in the past, and from previous posts we know how expensive that can be.
3. No internet connection
4. They like to book a package where all is arranged and protected in one price.
5. Something’s gone wrong in the past…eg hotel not being there etc.
6. They will not use there cards on the web (Yes a lot of people feel this way)
7. Protection. Example; all customers who booked Silverjet though a travel agent in the UK where ATOL protected and got there money back.

RE. “When I get a little bit of time I’d like to create a page with the different scenario’s to help consumers. Would anyone be up for helping me out with this? Or is it mission impossible? I really do think we need something to help consumers online.”

Of course I help you, just send the questons to my work address, not one I leave here and I will do my best to help.

Darren

The main point about this is travel agents do mostly book on the airlines website. So if they say they will only acept bookings on there website then that will not effect us.

What Ryanair has said is they may in future look at cancelling bookings made with same credit card number. But this is unlikely to hit agency’s as when we can we use clients card. So the main people effected by this will be companies booking staff on company credit cards. Already there is reports of company’s getting worried about this.

@Nick
Agents buying tickets using the clients cards? Agents booking seats direct on airline’s websites and not through an ATOL ticket agent? What?

@ Darren

Apologies for the late response. Hope you had a good holiday? I’d be up for helping you put together something that will help customers be better informed, just send me a message

I’ll forgive you for momentarily forgetting about how useful GOOD travel agents can be!