Airfare Wars - Internet vs Travel Agencies
Where is the best place to find the best
fares?
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The concept of 'the
lowest fare' is an unprovable myth, and the process to track
down such a fare would take more hours of your time than the
ultimate savings would justify. |
'I bought my ticket cheaper on
the internet' has become a common catch-cry amongst travelers.
But, how does a person ever
know, for sure, that they truly did pay the lowest price for the
itinerary that they wanted? They don't!
This article helps boost your
understanding of these complicated issues.
How do you know you've found
the lowest fare?
People booking their own
travel must surely be always troubled by the thought that if
they had checked another website, or tried a different routing,
or different airline, then perhaps they would have found a lower
fare.
To truly find the very best
possible fare, it is necessary to do the same things that a
travel agent would do. Here are fourteen (!) different things to
consider when finding the 'lowest fare'. A travel agent can,
should, and, depending on the preferences of their client,
usually does evaluate all of these things in only a few short
minutes. If you want to be your own travel agent, then here are
some of the things you need to understand and appreciate in
order to feel comfortable that the fares you are buying are
likely to be good (if not best) value and most suitable for you.
The good news is that not
all of these factors apply to every itinerary, but you should
keep them in mind every time you evaluate travel and ticket
options. The bad news is that internet 'services' provide very
little help in determining the answers to many of these
potentially money saving factors.
While 'state of the art' is
changing all the time (for both internet services and also for
progressive travel agencies, too!), at the time of writing this
column, the advantage still lies with travel agencies.
1. Different airline for
entire itinerary
It goes without saying that
some airlines (eg United, American) are generally more expensive
than other airlines (eg Southwest, Jet Blue). But unexpected
variations in price can occur even between the major 'full fare'
airlines. If you're not trapped into only one frequent flier
program, you need to check all airlines that fly to where you
want to go (and how do you even know what all the airlines are
that fly that route - the airline you've never heard of before
probably has the lowest fare!).
2. Different airlines for
different parts of the itinerary
Usually airlines sell
roundtrip tickets for much less money than two oneway tickets,
but this is not always the case. And, if you are on an itinerary
with more than two flights, you then may find yourself better
off to combine some flights with one airline with other flights
from another airline. How many thousands of different
combinations of different airlines are you going to research
through different websites to be sure you've got the best
combination of fares for each flight segment?
3. Different time of day
Many airfares depend on the
time of day of the flight you take. Maybe it is cheaper to take
a flight at 6.59am than at 7.01am (or vice versa!). You need to
look at the rules of the published fares to see what types of
time of day application may exist, and then try building
itineraries around the cheapest times of day (assuming that
availability exists at these times and on the airlines you
select). These time of day fares can also vary from airline to
airline, and destination to destination!
4. Different day of week
outbound and/or inbound
Did you know that some days
of the week are cheaper days to travel on than other days? But
the days which are cheap and expensive also vary depending on
the destination (and sometimes the airline) - there could be as
much as $60 or more difference in airfare depending on the days
you select.
5. Different length of stay
Just about everyone knows
that 'stay over a Saturday night' is usually a requirement for
the cheapest fares (although not if you're going to Las Vegas!),
but did you know that there are often other length of stay rules
as well - indeed, sometimes it is cheaper to stay longer (due to
a minimum stay requirement), but sometimes also it is cheaper to
stay a shorter time (due to a maximum stay requirement)!
6. Positioning Flights
Sometimes airlines operate
only one or two flights a week between certain cities (and
perhaps in one direction only). These are often referred to as
'positioning flights' and can sometimes be sold at very low
prices. But because they are rare flights, they probably will
not appear in your first or second fare search, and you might
not even know that the airline operates service to where you
want to go. You need some way to check for special positioning
flight deals.
7. Completely different travel
dates
Maybe if you change your
travels to a week earlier or later, you will switch to a
different airfare season - on international tickets this could
save you as much as $300 or more per ticket. Most of the
internet services will not tell you 'hey, if you change your
dates by a week (or two) you can save $300'. You'll need to
instead experiment with completely different travel dates to try
and see if you can detect a change in season. Oh - one other
thing. Different airlines often have slightly different seasons
- perhaps only a day or two different, but perhaps two weeks
different! So you need to do the entire 'every different
airline' exercise to check for seasonality as well!
8. Different Airports
We all know that, eg, there
are three major (and several more not so major) airports that
serve New York; many other cities also have multiple airports
serving them. Some of the better internet sites will even search
some of these other airports as well as the one you specify. But
can you be sure that, perhaps, White Plains was also considered
as one of the nearby airports? And, if you're looking at travel
to or from Los Angeles, remember that some airlines fly to some
airports and not to others - for example, Jet Blue flies to Long
Beach airport. You can sometimes save big money by changing
airports - any or all of the four or more airports you'll fly in
and out of in a typical return trip ticket. But you'll also have
to make sure that the fare you're looking at permits 'open jaws'
or considers the different airports you are using to be commonly
located.
9. Different routing
It is quite common that
nonstop flights will be more expensive than direct flights,
which in turn can sometimes also be more expensive than flights
with a change of service on the way (not to be confused with
'change of gauge'!). And often you might find that service
through a less popular hub is cheaper than service through a
major hub. How are you going to check out all the different
routings and route specific fare options on the internet?
10. Different sequence of
stops if multiple stop itinerary
If your travels are taking
you to more than one destination, perhaps you can get a cheaper
fare by traveling to these destinations in a different order. If
it doesn't really matter to you whether you go to Detroit or
Chicago first, just so long as you go to both cities, then you
should check every possible variation in itineraries. (Note that
many web sites can't price multiple stop itineraries!)
11. Split Ticketing
If you are traveling on more
than two flights, perhaps it is better to have a fare for one
theoretical 'return' ticket and a different ticket for a second
theoretical 'return' ticket (note that with a double open jaws
type tickets, a 'return' ticket doesn't need to start and finish
in the same place, or even have the same mid point in common
either!). Sometimes two tickets, each for only part of your
total travel, can be cheaper than one ticket for the entire
itinerary. And, even if you are just traveling to one
destination, you still might have the opportunity to split your
ticketing as you travel through a connecting city - for example
to travel between Los Angeles and New York, there are probably a
dozen or more convenient midway cities where you could change
planes (and tickets) - perhaps for a lower fare.
12. Back to back and hidden
city ticket loopholes
The crazy system of airfare
pricing that the airlines have created for themselves contain
some loopholes that they don't want you to know about, and which
they claim constitute violations of their air fare tariffs. But
if you know about back to back and/or hidden city ticketing, and
if you know about the loopholes which the airlines will never
and can never close, then you can save huge amounts of money.
The chances are your travel agent might know about these - but
does the internet site you're visiting also tell you about these
opportunities?
13. Unpublished fares
Consolidator fares are still
only very rarely found through websites. While primarily
involved with getting you discounts on international travel,
consolidator fares also apply for travel between most major
cities in the US; potentially saving you huge amounts compared
to unrestricted coach class fares. If you are stuck with having
to pay a very high fare to an airline (eg due to no advance
purchase or no Saturday night stay) then a travel agent with
good consolidator contacts can save you more than just about any
website.
14. Too Low a Fare
Yes, there can be such a
thing as too low a fare! If there is a chance that you might
need to make changes to your ticket, maybe you are better
advised to buy a less restricted ticket that is easier to change
in the future. You need to understand the restrictions on any
given fare, and also how much more (or how little more!) it
might cost to get a more flexible fare.
There is no such thing as the
'Lowest Fare'!
You might think, after
reviewing these fourteen issues above, that finding the 'lowest'
airfare is impossibly difficult. The truth is even worse - it is
plain impossible!
The airlines themselves make
changes to their available fares literally every second, and, of
course, tickets are being sold (and sometimes cancelled) every
second as well. Price the same itinerary twice in a row and you
might get two very different prices, because the 'truth has
changed' in the split second between the first and second fare
quote.
It has been common for
everyone to blame travel agents for 'not finding the lowest
fare' (but how does anyone know, for sure, what the lowest fare
is?); this is not fair. Interestingly, similar studies are now
finding broad differences in fare pricing in websites as well!
Blame the airlines for making it impossible to reliably know,
from one minute to the next, what the lowest fare is.
Finding the lowest fare is
an impossible quest that can soak up hours and hours of research
and frustration on your part. The time cost to you in finding a
fare that may or may not be lower almost certainly exceeds the
savings that may eventuate. But if you're insistent on finding
the lowest fare, yourself, then follow the fourteen steps above
and you'll be sure to get close to the best fare possible!
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Originally published
14 Jun 2002, last update
20 Jul 2020
You may freely reproduce or distribute this article for noncommercial purposes as long as you give credit to me as original writer.
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