My friend was quoted a price for airline tickets and made the reservations, but did not purchase the tickets. Now she goes back to the agent and is ready to purchase the tickets and the agent tells her that she is on what is equivalent to the waiting list. If I had known this I would have pushed her to purchase the tickets a long time ago. My first question is do you think there was ever a reservation?
Moving along. My friend told me even if she had bought the tickets months ago the travel agent could have asked her for more money later on. She is hoping to travel the week of Moon Festival. Is this possibly true? Any idea what is going on here? Is this the Taiwan monopoly at work?
If a travel agent came back to me to ask for more money a month or more after I bought the tickets lets just say there wouldn’t be much left of the office or the agent.
It is possible that your seat cancelled if you dont purchase the ticket before the ticketing deadline, especially in peak season. Some airlines even urge consumers to pay 21 days in advance. However, there’s always a chance to re-book/re-confirm the seat if your travel agent is helpful.
However, it is NOT true that if you have bought the ticket and receive a valid ticket in hand and being asked to pay surcharge afterwards. Your friend must be misunderstood. Moon Festival is still 2+ months away, most of Taiwanese are last-minute travelers, there should not be big problem for her to get a ticket/reservation now.
The travel agents here might not all be very professional in dealing business, but they are quite efficient and some very helpful. Or try the online agents such as www.ysticket.com/www.ezfly.com.tw/startravel.com.tw
Your firend was waitlisted. Normal. The agent will push harder for a place if you pay.
If you get the ticket a few months early, they won’t have a price, and won’t be able to sell you the ticket, but you might want to make sure you have place so you give them a deposit, or you get crazy situations like the one I did where the deadline for issuing the ticket, was before the waitlist was closed off, so I had to pay before I was guaranteed a place. It’s all messed up. Not just Taiwan agents’ faulkt either. I don’t liekt he way airlines and agencies run things. They way they deliberately oversell tickets so that they don’t have empty spaces is just criminal when you get people with issued and confirmed tickets denied a place.
Oh and there’s the thing in the news today abotu how if you pay by credit card they’ll charge you 2.5% - 3% extra, which they’re not lalowed to do (but everybody does in Taiwan, not just travel agents, and despite what the newspaper suggests, there’s nothing you can do about it).
As LM says the tickets are automatically cancelled if not paid in full before a certain date. As far as I know this is standard practice, only difference is the agent will usually warn you about this
Once the ticket is issued, I don’t think they can ask you for more money - however, if your reservation was cancelled through non-payment, and then you wish to rebook, it’s highly possible all the cheaper advance seats have been sold and only more expensive last-minute ones are left (airline ticketing rules and prices are incredibly complicated). So that might be what was meant.
Brian, they deliberately oversell tickets because there are almost always some people don’t turn up. If the people who don’t turn up can change their tickets without penalty eg full economy tickets, the airline loses the money. It does make economic sense.
This seems a good a place to ask as any - can someone explain this please? I was looking into flights and they said exactly that - ‘we can’t give you a price’. Huh??? I mean, the airline website (which I have been told is more expensive than going through a travel agent) can give a price, so surely a price of some description is available?
How long before should I ‘expect’ prices to become available?
I’m sure I never had a problem with this in Australia or HK, but perhaps I never enquired about tickets very far in advance.
The agent might be able to give you a price range rather than a price of some description. I’ve found the agents here in Taiwan reluctant to do that but if you make them understand that you won’t complain if the price turns out to be a little more they’ll give you a pretty good idea.
The exact price usually becomes available about three weeks to a month in advance.
On the issue of being given a ticket and then later being charged more money, a few airlines added a “fuel surcharge” to some tickets, mostly long-haul routes, when the price of fuel rose by a large amount suddenly not long ago. Many consumers found they had no choice but to pay. This happened in a few countries, not just Taiwan.
