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Cheap fares out there but harder to find
Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Sep 4, 2005 by Carol Scottili The Washington Post
Finding a so-called consolidator ticket -- one of those cheap international fares that you can't buy directly from an airline -- has never been a sure thing.
Not that long ago, frugal travelers who weren't afraid of taking a bit of a risk would turn to tiny ads in newspaper travel sections promising tickets to exotic locales for next to nothing. There was an element of danger: These firms weren't exactly name-brand enterprises, and who knew how long they'd stay in business. But the rewards -- Bombay for $825! Lima for $398! -- were worth it.
Now, a glance through a Sunday travel section shows these one- inch ads are now considerably fewer, leaving consumers to wonder whether consolidator fares still exist and where they should go to find them.
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First the good news: The deals are still out there, particularly on long-haul flights. But deep discounts are drying up in many markets, especially to Western Europe, and their long-term survival is not assured. As for locating these fares, the Internet is making inroads, but old-fashioned humans -- your local travel agents -- still control the market.
The symbiotic relationship of consolidators to airlines has existed for decades. It evolved from a long-time agreement among most major airlines through the International Air Transport Association that basically fixes prices on international routes. But carriers needed a way to get rid of unsold seats.
Enter the consolidator. The carriers sell excess itinerary to consolidators, offering commissions of as much as 40 percent in exchange for agreeing to sell a large volume of tickets. Consolidators in turn offer cheaper-than-published fare tickets by rebating part of these commissions to the consumer. (Domestic fares are generally not included because prices are not regulated and are already rock-bottom in many popular markets.) Airlines guard how many seats they sell through consolidators, but according to statistics provided by the United States Air Consolidators Association, a trade organization that represents top consolidators, its 12 members alone generate $2.25 billion in air ticket sales annually.
Most of the largest, oldest consolidators, including Skylink, Trans Am Travel, DER and Sky Bird, don't sell tickets directly to the consumer. Instead, they work through discounters (also called bucket shops) and retail travel agents, who make money by adding their own commission to the sales price.
Whether issued as e-tickets or paper tickets, the discounted tickets physically look the same as published fare tickets, except the price is not usually printed on them. They are often more liberal than published fare economy tickets, requiring no advance purchase and no Saturday-night stay. Trips usually can last longer than 30 days, typically the maximum for the cheapest airline fare. And while the best fares are available for travel far in the future, it's sometimes possible to get cheap tickets on short notice.
There are also downsides. Other airlines often won't honor consolidator-issued tickets, so if you get caught in a situation where you need to switch your ticket to another airline, you might be out of luck. Kelly Monaghan, author of "Air Travel's Bargain Basement: The International Directory of Consolidators, Bucket Shops and Other Sources of Discount Travel," noted in an interview that many consolidator tickets are nonrefundable and nonexchangeable, and consumers must often pay up to get frequent-flier miles and to have the option to change flight times or dates. "Your willingness to live with restrictions will tend to lower your fare," Monaghan said.
Priscilla Myers, owner of Executive Travel & Tours in McLean, Va., said she counsels clients to make sure the savings are worth the restrictions. "If you're going to Beijing and you get sick and have to go home early, you don't want to have to buy a new ticket," she said. "If it's a $40 price difference, I usually say, 'Let's do a regular ticket.' "
Most of the top consolidators have been in business for 10 years or longer. In the past decade, only one well-known consolidator, D.C.-based Euram Flight Centre, has gone suddenly bankrupt, stranding hundreds of travelers. But many small discounters, or ethnic travel agencies, exist on a razor-thin profit margin. If demand dips, it's easy for them to get into trouble.
It's no longer true that you're guaranteed a cheaper fare through a consolidator.
Legacy airlines and regional carriers are offering more Web-only discount fares, which are often cheaper than consolidator fares. Cathay Pacific, for example, publishes a "deal of the month" to places such as Bangkok and Hong Kong that is almost always cheaper than the consolidator rate. International discount airlines that sell cheap transatlantic flights -- such as Eurofly to Bologna, Italy; Ryan Air to Ireland; and Israir to Tel Aviv, Israel -- are starting to pop up. And discount airlines that operate overseas -- such as EasyJet and Air Berlin in Europe, and Gol Air in Brazil -- allow enterprising consumers to book the cheapest fare to any city within a country or even a continent and then hop on a discount flight to their destination.
