A Tzedakah I'm involved with authorized a ticket purchase for an extenuating circumstance. The fellow said he can have his sister-in-law, who works for a travel agent, book the ticket for him.
I gave him a CC number and she booked a $660 ticket (billed by the airline)and added a $238 agent surcharge (billed by her company).
She claims that this is normal as this was a "student ticket". I can't imagine 35% is normal.
What are standard travel agent surcharges?
$238 may sound like an astronomical markup, but not necessarily is it so. Do you know what the flight availability was like? Very possibly the flight (as well as all other flights for that route and date) were fully booked or only had availability in the higher classes of service (which were very expensive). That TA may have used her pull/connections to confirm a lower class of service with her sales rep. Can you assess what the value of this favor is worth? If there's no one else who can confirm this rate, why can't she charge more? In this industry it's almost impossible to rip off a customer. Everyone can access the published fares online, and many loopholes like hidden city ticketing are public knowledge. If someone is not savvy enough to figure out how to do these things on their own then there's always a relative or friend who's in the know. It’s a tough industry. The average person will not use a TA if he’s selling him a published fare with even a slight markup of $20. When a TA does have a niche, why isn’t he entitled to make a bigger profit? As I explained the published fare is definitely a pricing barometer. No one is charging 899 for a ticket that is available online for 799. If a ticket is available on the web for 1200, and the TA can confirm it for 660, would 238 sound like such an unreasonable markup?
And just one more point to consider. This markup may be the combined profit of a few agencies. The agent that you’re dealing with may have already paid $200 to the agency that confirmed the fare for her. She may be making $50 on the deal. Understandably she may not want to share that with you and therefore cannot fully defend herself.
Disclaimer: I did not book this ticket and I have no idea who did. As a TA, I wanted to share the other side’s perspective.