Bargain Travel!

For those who can't be flexible, the price of air tickets can increase as much as five times when working through an airline or travel agent. Priceline.com, however, offers to fix that by allowing users to submit bids for how much they are willing to pay for air fare. Experts, however, warn that the much-hyped Website isn't all that it's cracked up to be. "I've tried it myself and I know others who have tried it and I don't know anybody who got the fare they wanted" says Vadnai. Deiner explains that the service mostly uses preexisting deals with a small number of airlines and consolidators (mostly America West and TWA). "It can work, but often it doesn't" he says. "The best way to use it is to find the very lowest fare you can and cut 10 or 20 percent off of it, then maybe it works." Starting in October, Priceline also began entertaining bids for hotel rooms in much the same way.

Other services that aren't scams but may not save money include tickets from nearly all time-share plans (which are worthless as investments and almost never represent a savings over hotels) and the two-for-one ticket deals many credit-card companies offer. "Often you can get two tickets at a discount rate for less than you pay for a full-price ticket and a `free' one" says Deiner.

Logan urges travelers to evaluate carefully inclusive packages. "Some all-inclusive packages are a real bargain, some are considerably more expensive than putting it together yourself" she says. Although buyers had best carry a healthy degree of skepticism, early 1999 promises to be one of the best times to travel for those wanting to save money. "There's a massive wealth of new information out there and it's a huge challenge to sort through it -- but if you do, you can find some great bargains" says Deiner.

RELATED ARTICLE: Where to Find Bargain Tickets Online

With the number of travel resources on the Internet growing each day, a comprehensive list would fill this entire issue of Insight. For those who want more than we can list, portal sites such as Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) and Netscape NetCenter (www.netscape.com) both offer reasonably complete listings of reservation Websites. Here, however, are a few useful Websites that provide a good starting place for those looking for travel bargains:

Expedia (www.expedia.com) and Travelocity (www.travelocity.com): The big two online reservation Websites offer very similar airline-ticket, hotel-room and car-rental services. Although both offer nearly every airline flight and about the same selection of rental cars, the hotel listings sometimes differ slightly -- particularly in smaller cities.

Microsoft-run Expedia is a bit easier to use but slower, while Travelocity offers a few more options. Although you can be sure you are getting the best information, neither site will save you a lot of time, particularly if you want to check out multiple options.

Bestfares (www.bestfares.com): Run by Tom Parsons, the site tracks the best fares in the country mostly through Parsons' laborious combing of the Internet. This is particularly good for those who don't have a specific destination in mind because it's almost guaranteed that you'll find one spectacular deal from a major airport near you. Since this site tracks e-mail fare offers, using it often is a good deal easier than trying to keep track of the more than 20 e-mail offers a truly zealous bargain-hunter might receive on a Wednesday.