What You Need to Know About Consolidated Airfares

Perhaps you’ve heard the term ‘consolidated airfare’, and perhaps you haven’t.
But if you are looking for the best flight prices, this is something you really need to know about!
Read on to find out what consolidated airfares are and how they can help you.

What is a consolidated airfare?

Airlines have a set number of airfares per flight. The airline sells a part of these airfares to consolidators. The airline keeps the rest of the airfares to sell by themselves. So, consolidated airfares are airfares purchased by a consolidator from the airline.

And this probably leaves you asking…

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

Why wouldn’t the airline sell all their airfares themselves?

One reason is that this takes them more time and costs more money. Once the fares are sold to the consolidators, it’s the consolidators job to sell them to the passengers using their own marketing and sales teams. The airlines can just sell a ‘bucket’ of fares to a consolidator once instead of trying to fill the seats themselves. Buckets are a certain amount of fares within a flight class. Consolidators are also known as ‘bucket shops’, especially in the UK.

Consolidated airfares came about because of the history of selling flights

Back in the day airlines used to publish their airfares in newspapers. This meant that all your competitors could see their prices and steal their customers. These competitive tactics resulted in airlines becoming worried about filling their seats. And so the airlines began to sell flights to consolidators and travel agencies. BUT on the condition that they couldn’t publish the price of the airfares. Consolidated airfares are also known as unpublished airfares. Some other types of unpublished airfares that aren’t consolidated fares include military, corporate, or other specially negotiated fares.

And here’s another reason why airlines are happy to sell to consolidators. Well, having a competitor with unpublished prices is better for their business overall. Of course, the airline doesn’t want travel agency to be advertising their own fares everywhere at a lower price!

Consolidators & Airlines

Airlines and consolidators continue to work closely together with negotiated contracts between them. Consolidators usually don’t sell airfares to passengers themselves. The fares are usually sold through a travel agent. Here at ASAP Tickets Travel Agency, our consolidator is our parent company, the International Travel Network (ITN). We have over 150 partner airlines.

So, you why do you want to find consolidated airfares?

Because you can save up to 50% off the regular full fare price on all major airlines and more! Because the airfares are unpublished, you won’t be able to look up the prices yourself online, and you will need to call a travel agent. These highly discounted fares may also be non-refundable, so that’s something you should check with your travel agent. By the way, the airlines themselves are not allowed to sell unpublished airfares.

Who buys consolidated airfares?

Although many people don’t know about consolidated airfares, anyone can buy them!

Families looking to save some money on their vacation.

People who want to fly home to visit their family.

People looking for last-minute deals.

Business travelers.

Business class travelers.

All you need to do is contact a travel agency like ASAP Tickets!

At ASAP Tickets we have over 150 partner airlines and contracts to help you fly all over the world. Call at 844-300-7983 to get your very own expert travel agent and save up to 50% off on international flights.

Find out more about why should you use a travel agent instead of booking online.