When planning for a holiday vacation in any part of the country, the first thing that comes to mind is booking for seats in an airline. Thus the need for airline consolidators, especially if there’s a need to purchase several tickets for your entire family. Airline consolidators’ buys seats in bulks from air company, then sell these tickets to travelling agents or to the public. It is through airline consolidators that a traveler can purchase cheaper tickets than those being sold from the airlines companies.

However, such shouldn’t be confused with airlines which offers discounts namely Southwest Airlines in America and RyanAir of Europe. These airline companies can actually fill almost all seats by themselves. Take note however that only distant International Destinations can be sold in consolidation basis.

As mentioned earlier all countries are not allowed airline consolidators to manage (especially in Third World countries). In such countries airlines follows a book and published tariff fare rates strictly.

For instance, if you’re from the USA where consolidators are allowed to operate and you’ll be traveling to a country where no airline consolidators operate. Those in the later country must pay the full amount of the fare when traveling into the US, or in country in that case. Such factor can greatly affect the published fare, pushing it cheaper in countries which allows consolidators and costly in countries which do not allow consolidators to operate.

Countries which have airline consolidators are The United States, UK, Thailand, Hong Kong and Germany. Canada allows airline consolidators to operate as well; even their international fares are a bit higher than those in America. In the same way, some European countries have them as well. However they tend to be more costly than in the UK or Germany; Except for the flights taking off from France to its previous settlements.

When traveling by groups it is recommended to book your flight in airline consolidators three months before your planned travel. For instance, if you’re planning to travel on Sept. you have to book your flight on or after June. This is to give way to internal agreements and deals between the airline consolidators and the airline that they’re purchasing the seats from.

Booking for a seat using airline consolidators is available on “request basis”, meaning consolidators have to check first your requests before getting your confirmation.  In which it usually takes 2-3 working days before receiving such confirmation, and after receiving it you have to pay the rate as well. Take note however that there are penalties for cancellation as w ell as changing in booking, and once you’ve avail such service remember that you cannot refund your ticket once you fail to use it.

With the advancement in technology nowadays, you can easily book through their online booking sites if ever you wish it to be more convenient and efficient as well.