Online Travel Agencies in India

The Backstory 

With the entry of low cost carriers(LCC) into Indian airspace, air travel has become increasingly affordable for the average middle class Indian. Prior to this the only affordable mode of transportation across the vast Indian sub-continent was by train.  This  could-be a time consuming affair. Take my case for instance. It takes a total of three days to travel 3000 kilometers by train from my place of work, Delhi, to my home town in the Southern state of Kerala. A direct flight gets me to Kerala in 3 hours. Add a stopover, and it still only takes 5 hours.

The internet has played a huge part in the revolutionization of the air industry in India. The low cost carriers depend on the internet as delivery mode of tickets to keep their costs down. A large number of travel sites have also come up which gives travellers the opportunity to compare prices and schedules. Small wonder then, that a recent survey by Visa showed that airline tickets are the hottest selling online commodity in India.

So, is it better to book directly on the site of the airline you intend to travel by, or on the travel sites? Booking directly with the airline has certain plus points; in the first instance, even if most travel sites don't charge a fee for booking, in the event that you cancel or pospone your flight, you can expect to have to make an additional payment to the travel sites. So, till recently, the smart thing to do was to use the comparison feature on the travel sites to find out which airline was offering the cheapest price to your destination, and then booking directly with the airline. However, one advantage with travel sites is that (and this applies to hotel bookings too) is that some of them block seats on airlines, and even if you find a flight is full, there might still be seats available with the travel sites.

More recently, with the plethora of airlines  and the growing number of travel sites, competition has led to certain travel sites offering exclusive and discounts on certain carriers, these are invariably time-specific, but can be substantially lower than the price one would get on the site of the same carrier. This turn of events has come about, as I said, partly due to competition, but also because, many of these carriers and sites are in startup mode, and willing to spend money to grab customers. So, getting the best deal depends on trawling all these sites,(and their numbers are growing by the day) as well as staying on top of the various deals entered to between the low cost airlines and the travel sites. This lens hopes to help you do just that.

To begin with, here's a list of travel portals or online travel agents(OTA) as they are known in the trade:

The Scrappy Startups 

Cleartrip It's been described as the google of Indian travel portals for its clean and simple interface. I would tend to agree with that description. I find it very easy to navigate and to narrow down options using the sidebar on its results page. Cleartrip also returns the fastest results, plus the results shown are inclusive of taxes. Cleartrip charges Rs.250 as processing fee in the event of cancellation apart from the cancellation policies of each airline. However, their customer care is only available via email where all the others are available over phone.

Update: Cleartrip now has a call centre which can be reached at the following numbers: 1 800 22 5327 (toll free from MTNL/BSNL) or 91 22 30014999. I used it recently and had to wait for nearly 20 minutes before I could get through to a human being. However, they do have a facility whereby you can leave your number and get a callback, they promise, within 20 minutes. Cleartrip also has a new calender function which shows you, at a glance, the cheapest fares to a destination on a given month. This is one site that's simply going places:-)
P.S. They've now added a graph facility as well so you can now get a visual idea of the lowest fares available for the month.

Makemytrip This is the oldest, and therefore the most well known of the travel portals. My only gripe with this portal is that it will show one price as a search result, and then when you actually try to book your ticket, up pops the message that the price has changed. Makemytrip charges Rs.250 as processing fee in the event of cancellation. They also have a 'Lowest Airfares Guarantee" policy wherein they promise to pay you the excess amount if you find a cheaper fare for "exactly the same flight(s), travel date(s), and travel itinerary for the same number of passenger(s)." But, beware, there's a lot of fine print involved here:-) Their toll free call centre numbers are available here

Yatra My previous experience with them is that their prices are never the lowest you can find, but that might have changed now. You can also book buses to various destinations on their site though I wonder if that finds too many takers. Yatra charges only Rs.200 as processing fees for cancellations and their call centre numbers are 0987 1800 800 (ALL NETWORKS)  and MTNL/BSNL 1800 1800 800 (TOLLFREE)

Travelguru This portal has been around for quite a while, and like all the others, is managed by people with previous experience in the air travel industry. Travelguru does not charge any cancellation processing charges on tickets booked through them. However, currently, not all airlines can be booked through their website and even the search facility on their site seems to be available only post registration.   Their call centres are open from 7am - 11pm  and can be reached at     :  1 - 800 - 22 - 4878  or 91 - 80 - 2248 9070

Ezeego1 Ezeego1 calls itself a one stop travel bazaar, and with ample reason. The site covers everything to do with travel from ticketing to visas to foreign exchange. The site had acquired a bad reputation in the beginning, since in its anxiety to get to the front of the pack, it came up with schemes and then had problems with its ticketing, customer services and billing departments that resulted in severe customer backlash. (Its ratings have only recently picked up on Mouthshut, thanks to some firefighting on its part.) Even now, the site has some good schemes going, like the one listed at the top. Their toll free call centre numbers are 1800 209 0800 and 0986755900.

Via (formerly known as) Flight Raja. This site has improved quite a bit since I last checked it out, possibly because it's recently received an infusion of VC funding, though it could also be the other way around:-)  Like cleartrip, this travel site also has what they call a lowest fare finder which returns the lowest fares on a particular route in a calender format.  Their call centre can be reached in Bangalore at the following number  080-41431000 between 7 am and 10 pm.

Desiya.in Yet another OTA...this one is the official travel partner for MSN India but uses the Travelguru engine to return results for flights.  Funny thing is, though I'm able to use the travelguru site to search for flights, I keep getting a "heavy traffic" message when I do the same search on the desiya site. Looks like this marrige is headed for an early divorce:-)

Ghumo: Update July 2010 I'd written a review of Ghumo here but when I tried to access the site now, it redirects to a bidding site called At Your Price where you can say what you are willing to pay for an airline ticket and if the airline like your price, it will sell you the ticket. I've heard of such sites in Europe where you should be able to drop everything and leave for the airport if you bid wins, but I don't know if it works here.

Arzoo Hotboy Sabeer Bhatia's new baby is a onestop shop for anything to do with travel. The flight booking engine is quite efficent, although it reminds me of the engine of one of the other OTAs, but I just can't put my finger on which one:-) It returns fares exclusive of taxes, and that can be a real pain. They have 24*7 customer support at 1800 22 21 20. 

Travel Chacha Came across this site while surfing. Their flight ticketing engine is broke at the moment. So, can't comment on it at the moment. More details when I get them

90di This curiously named OTA gives you flight and train combinations for travel...don't know how useful that can be. Personally, if I want to check out train information, I'd rather go direct

The Oldtimers

Thomas CookThomas Cook launched its India operations in 1881, and is synonymous with travel in the country. However, like most brick and mortar stores that have gone online, that transition has been somewhat tentative. The site itself is slightly drab and though you can get your business done and book tickets just like in the other OTAs, you get eh feeling that these guys don't really care whether you book a ticket with them or not...they are only after the big boys like corporate travel. In any case, here's their Customer Care No: 1800-2099-100

TravelocityTravelocity comes in the old timer category only in that it's one of the earliest OTAs around even it came into India much later. However, the international pedigree and experience has stood it in good stead, and it's rapidly set itself apart even in the Indian OTA space. One of its plus points is that it still waives a booking charge which can result in a savings of Rs.250 in addition to any other schemes it might have running on the site. Call centre numbers are 1800 180 1222 or 0124 235 8222.

Indiatimes Travel An offering from the Times of India group, Indiatimes is one of the earliest webportals around. I have never bought a ticket off Indiatimes Travel...my one and only dealing with Indiatimes Auctions has put me off Indiatimes for life. But, don't let my personal bias get in the way of your trying out the site:-)

The Aggregators
There's another group of sites that check across both the airline sites and the OTAs and give you the lowest fare. You can't actually book tickets on these sites since all they do is aggregate the results - clicking on the link next to the fare just takes you to the site that has the lowest fare.

Zoomtra Zoomtra has both flights as well as holiday bookings available. It has a relatively clean interface and returns results from most of the major airlines and OTAs.

Ixigo Not to be confused with Ezeego1, this site also has all the bells and whistles such as a slider to refine your search. The fares are also categorised into full service and low-cost so you can make out the price difference at a glance.

Deals from the Bazaar
Cleartrip
Buy 1, get 1 FREE on domestic flights . More details here.. Book your free tickets on Kingfisher Red (IT-Red) between 16th August 2011 & 10th October 2011. Offer valid till 30 September .
Makemytrip
3-in-1 offers including Buy one get one free on all domestic airtickets. Details here.
Ezeego1
Ezeego1 joins the daily deals bandwagon with a fresh deal every day . More details available here..
Cleartrip
Buy one get one free but with lots of fine print. More details available here.. Offer Offer valid till 30th September 2011
Travelocity
For my money, Travelocity offers the lowest fares in India, usually even less than the fares on the airline website. So, that makes each deal a special deal:-)

For more deals direct from the airlines, click here