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How are the travel websites able to offer discounts on tickets in order to beat out their competition?

Public Comments

1. Because they wanted to take a ride on the Deal Stallion?

2. They get volume discounts because of many tickets they buy,give you part of it

3. Some sites have better technologies and search strategies for snooping out the best fares among the thousands of fares updated daily.

"Consolidators" offer discounts not through "bulk purchase" but by arranging a special booking class with an airline which pays a very high commission. This way the airline does not technically discount the fare, they just pay, say 45% commission on it's sale (in a day where normally there's 0% commission), and the consolidator passes on part of the commission in the form of fare reduction to the customer. These are more typical on international routes, and these type ticket are usually very restrictive--meaning changes, if possible, will cost $200 or more. Airlines offer this booking class to their preferred travel agencies (aka "consolidators") to help fill seats that they predict would otherwise fly empty. Many travel agencies and booking sites re-sell these "consolidator" tickets from the original source(s) with additional markup and fees--so it pays to shop around.

Some international airfare "consolidators" include Flights.com, Travelhub.com, and EconomyTravel.com.