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Bargain Travel!
Insight on the News, Jan 11, 1999 by Eli Lehrer
The number of travel resources available on the Internet is staggering. Here, for bargain bloodhounds, is an inside look at the ins and outs of sniffing them out.
Tom Parsons takes a break from a conversation with a reporter to talk with his mother about travel to Florida. "No Mom" he tells her. "I can't get you a cheap ticket to Florida for New Year's; you might as well put a sold-out sign on the entire state."
If Parsons says this, it must be true. You see, Parsons runs bestfares.com, a World Wide Web site devoted to finding out the lowest airfares available.
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Miracle prices are sometimes too much to ask, but today is a great time for those who want to travel inexpensively. The Internet has produced a revolution in discount travel, and the usual business-travel lull should make the first months of 1999 an attractive time for those who want to cross the nation or world at bargain prices.
"Just four or five years ago, someone who wanted to travel cheaply could choose between a travel agent, the airlines and hotel companies themselves, and maybe, if they were lucky, some travel guru down the street" says Noah Vadnai, the author of 1998's Travel Planning Online for Dummies. "Today, there's a massive range of things you can do, and a lot of them can save significant amounts of money."
The new world of Internet travel does have a downside. Annette Logan, who teaches travel and tourism at York College of Pennsylvania, expresses enthusiasm for the huge range of information the Internet makes available, but says that the Internet probably won't save time when compared with using a traditional travel agent. "Because it's so easy to compare dates, times and prices, searching the Internet for savings gets to be a very enticing game which takes up a lot of time," she says.
Partly because it's so easy to get price information on the Internet, airlines continue to grab at one another's throats in a quest to acquire market share by price competition. Low fares result. "They are often looking to raid one another's hubs, so often you'll see airlines offering these very, very low fares to cities where another airline is really strong" explains Parsons. "In 1998 a lot of airlines were putting out rosy financial results and it often was bad for consumers. This year they expect trouble, and that's good for consumers."
While a reduction of business travel in the early part of the year does cut rates and increase seat availability to many designations, Parsons' problems getting a ticket for his mother demonstrate that exceptions exist. Indeed, despite low airfares and room rates through much of the first quarter of 1999, those who dream of a bargain vacation to a warm place have set a very difficult, although not impossible, task for themselves.
When it comes to saving money on airfares, Parsons draws particular attention to what his Website calls "snooze-you-loose" fares: extremely low, sometimes unadvertised, pricewar fares that one can purchase for travel nearly a year in advance, but often are available for as little as two or three days. "It's a way airlines have of competing with each other and it's quite good for consumers."
Logan points out several other ways to save money on air tickets. She recommends using slightly out-of-the-way airports (such as Newark, N.J. and Islip, N.Y.; Chicago's Midway and Baltimore-Washington International) and taking advantage of discount coupons found in the value-books that many nonprofits sell to raise money.
All of the experts with whom Insight spoke agree that flexibility is key for those who want to fly to popular destinations on a budget. "If you just want to go somewhere, but don't have your heart set on a really particular place, then you'll be able to take a nice trip without spending a lot" says Parsons. In many cases, a willingness to take midweek to midweek trips with a Saturday-night stayover can result in sensational airfares on big carriers. Flying on Southwest, Vangnard Airlines, AirTran and USAirways' MetroJet also can save money for those willing to give up conveniences such as reserved seating and the option of checking luggage to a connecting flight.
Bob Deiner, the self-proclaimed "king of discount travel" and the operator of a hotel-room consolidation service (80096hotel.com) says that getting good rates on hotels often depends on knowing the name of the promotion in effect. "Almost all of the major hotel chains have these cheap room-and-breakfast promotions with savings of sometimes 50 or 60 percent" he says. "But if you don't know the name, you can't use it, and the names change."
Willingness to haggle for a hotel room or rental car also can reduce rates: An empty room or a car on the lot produces no revenue, so desk clerks often have broad discretion to give discounts. There also are discounts for countless affinity groups ranging from journalists to bar-association members. Sometimes, clerks simply will make up a discount to justify a price reduction, so it never hurts to ask. As a result, one often does best calling a hotel directly rather than making reservations over the Internet or via a chain's "800" number.
