Schemes, Scams & Savin' a Buck (12/11/00)
Dec. 12 -- Flying has become notoriously unpleasant these days — thanks to endless delays and planes packed as full as cattle cars.
So the least you can do is make sure you’re not paying too much for the experience. And there are cheap tickets available, if you know where to look for them.
If you believe the ads, the best deals are found on the Internet. One online travel agency, Lowestfare, boasts that it’s “the biggest bargain in air travel today,” while Cheaptickets’ slogan is “because you’re cheap, and so are we.” But Bill McGee, editor of the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, cautions that “[while] these Web sites advertise themselves more or less as being one-stop shopping, we don’t believe they are.”
He speaks from experience, because Consumer Reports recently checked out four of the most popular travel Web sites — Travelocity, Expedia, Cheaptickets and Lowestfare — comparing their prices on six different routes with the best fare a travel agent could get using a standard industry reservations system.
At first it looked as if the Web sites’ fares were the hands-down winners. But when Consumer Reports took a closer look, it found that while the Web sites’ fares were lower, there were plenty of “buts” to consider.
It’s a Good Deal, But …
One big problem Consumer Reports found: the price quoted was low, but according to McGee, “on one system, in many cases the fare advertised was just not available for booking.” That system was Cheaptickets. When McGee tried to book any of the 10 lowest fares listed from Newark, N.J., to Los Angeles, in each case it was sold out.
Another problem: to get that quoted low fare you might have to take a round-about route to your destination. Says McGee, “For most travelers the flight itineraries [often] just didn’t make sense.”
For instance, Consumer Reports found that Travelocity’s cheapest fare from New York to Chicago forced you to make a stop in Atlanta — hundreds of miles out of your way and more than doubling the two-hour non-stop flight travel time.
Even worse, Cheaptickets’ lowest fare on that New York to Chicago route was an 11 ½-hour marathon with stops in Syracuse, Buffalo and Philadelphia. And Cheaptickets’ best available fare from Newark to Los Angeles stopped in Phoenix and Las Vegas — an 11 ½-hour trip.
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