My experience has been that purchasing airline tickets, hotels, etc non direct always carries a risk of some sort of problem. So I tend to go directly.
Many 3rd party sites tend to be their own scam IMO.
Sure but a lot of people use 3rd party sites for price discovery and then book direct,and of the direct purchase is consistently dramatically more they'll likely mentally blacklist that airline.
Many 3rd party sites tend to be their own scam IMO.