Online Travel Agencies in India

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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

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 There's nothing much to set this site apart from the rest except for something called Ghumo fares which are apparently fares specially negotiated with the various airlines. I signed up in order to access these fares but they never materialised. What's more"Ghumo Fares are non-cancellable and non-refundable and do not show your airline of travel until you complete your booking." The site was quite slow when I checked it out. They charge Rs.100 for cancellation on top of the airline cancellation charges and their call centre no is 9940137986. 

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

Sweetfare Here's another OTA to add to the list. All they have at the moment is a contact address in Noida, not even a contact number, and as I've learnt. the thing to look out for in any OTA is an efficient Customer Servicing setup which these guys lack at the moment...

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