The last year has been tough on the airline business, fuel costs are up, people are taking less vacations and businesses have been cutting back on travel expenses for their sales forces as well as their executive travel. The one part of all of this that is causing the air carriers the most grief is the throttling back of what they refer to as "premium travel", commonly known as business class and first class flights.
The airlines will survive this and in recent months business class flights have stabilized a bit as the economy picks up, but the airlines are not cutting prices on them as they seek to reduce their losses. It can therefore still be difficult finding deals on international business class flights because of this. One of the few opportunities left to actually find savings on premium travel is with consolidator tickets.
Consolidator flights can offer great savings as the consolidators are very much the same as a wholesaler of excess flight inventory. If an air carrier has empty business class seats on a flight, they would rather sell that seat to the wholesaler at a significantly reduced rate then have the seat remain empty. The consolidator then passes that savings on to the consumer with savings some times in the thousands of dollars per ticket.
A note of caution when purchasing consolidator tickets, when you visit a site specializing in them, make sure the site allows you to book in real time as the pricing on these types of tickets can change regularly. Don't waste your time on a site that makes you fill out a form and send it to them, that could could waste time and you may be missing a great deal by not acting quickly.
Speaking of acting quickly, the pricing on consolidator tickets can change rapidly, so you may wish to check back often to review the prices. Remember to take in to consideration that prices generally will go up as you approach your departure date. At our agency, we tell our clients to book around 4-6 weeks in advance to find the best pricing.
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