What we do
We book air travel. That is the centre of the business, and everything else — hotels, rail, cruise and car — exists because travellers who buy a long-haul ticket usually need the rest of the trip attached to it.
A booking made through travelbyluma is a real reservation in the operating airline's system. You get a carrier PNR, an electronic ticket number and the same status, baggage allowance and loyalty accrual you would get booking on the airline's own website. We are the agent of record, not a reseller passing you to a third party at checkout.
How our fares are priced
Published fares — the ones you see on a metasearch engine — are only part of what an airline sells. Carriers also release consolidator inventory to accredited agencies under negotiated contracts, typically on long-haul routes they need to fill. Those fare buckets are contractually barred from public display, which is why they turn up on a phone call rather than a search box.
Our fare engine re-prices your itinerary against both sets of inventory in real time and quotes the lower of the two. When the published fare is lower, we sell you the published fare and say so.
The quoted price includes taxes, carrier-imposed surcharges and card processing. There is no booking fee and no credit-card surcharge added at checkout — the figure you see at search is the figure you pay.
Ticketing and accreditation
We issue through IATA and GDS ticketing networks, which is what makes instant confirmation possible: the ticket is written against the carrier's stock within minutes of payment clearing, and the confirmation email and Apple Wallet pass follow immediately. Nothing sits in a queue waiting for manual issue.
Because we ticket directly, schedule changes, involuntary re-routes and irregular operations reach us through the same channels they reach the airline. We see a cancellation when the carrier files it, not when you call to ask.
The 24/7 air desk
Every booking comes with a flight concierge on +1 (877) 413-3006. The desk is staffed around the clock and averages a twelve-second answer time. It handles rebooking, seat and meal requests, name corrections, visa and transit questions, and the full re-accommodation process when a carrier cancels.
This is deliberately unautomated. The moments when a traveller most needs help — a missed connection at 3am in a transit airport — are exactly the ones a chatbot handles worst.
What we will not do
- Add a service fee, a "convenience" charge or a card surcharge after you have seen a price.
- Hold a booking without a confirmed ticket number.
- Sell insurance, seats or bags as a pre-ticked box in the checkout flow.
- Claim an airline affiliation we do not have. See our disclaimer.