Do you book your airline tickets through travel aggregators like makemytrip(MMT), Ezeego1.com, Yatra, Flightraja, cleartrip etc? All of them claim they give you lowest airfare. Some of them offer an “upto 50% cash back offer” when paid through a ICICI platinum and other specific credit cards. Because these websites book several tickets everyday they must be getting some discount from airlines and ideally should pass on a part of it to end users(customers who buy tickets from them). But truth seems to be otherwise.
After preliminary inspection I found that booking direct on airline website is cheapest option, as most of the travel sites quoted slightly higher than airline website.
Some random sample data for your quick information:
One way trip- Origin: MAA, Destination: BOM, Date 23rd May 2008 Indigo flight 6E-422
Fare at airline website: Rs 3174 MMT- Rs 3249 Cleartrip-Rs 3276 Ezeego1-Rs 3301 Yatra- Rs.2, 959(Rs 99+ Rs 2, 860 taxes & fees)
One way, Origin: BOM, Destination: CCU, Date 31st May 2008 Jet Airways 9W-211
Fare at airline website: Rs 6800(4075+2350+225+150) MMT- Rs 6855(4050+2805)Cleartrip-Rs 6855 Ezeego1-Rs 7025 Yatra Rs.6, 835(Rs 4, 075+ Rs 2, 760 taxes & fees)
Read further: https://enidhi.net/2008/05/want-cheapest-air-tickets-book-direct.html