Bargain Travel! - advice on finding cheap travel on the Internet

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.

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.

When it comes to travel by cruise ship, Logan advises going for the cheapest accommodations available. Most modern cruise ships, she says, open all of their amenities to everyone anyway. "The inside cabins on the lower decks are more comfortable if the ship hits rough seas" she says. "I figure I can go four times for what someone in a suite pays for one time." Parsons also points out that increased cruise-ship capacity promises bargains in years to come. "There are a lot of big new ships coming online and the number of people taking cruises isn't increasing nearly as quickly as some people thought it might." Indeed, searching for a cheap cruise may be the best bet for those who seek a bargain on a trip to a warm climate.

For those without Internet access, many of the best deals prove very difficult to find. The best advice experts have to offer is to find a good travel agent. "Travel agents are like any professional service, there are good ones and bad ones" says Deiner. "The best bet is to try to find one who is willing to spend time working on your specific needs." Logan warns that many very good travel agents will try to push more-expensive vacations even when there is no commission involved. "They believe that you'll be more satisfied" she says. "You need to make it clear that you want to save money."

Ticket consolidators and hotel-room consolidators, who buy large blocks of tickets and rooms and resell them at lower prices, also can help, particularly for those who can match their schedules with the available rooms and tickets. Flying as an air courier, which often requires membership fee's, also can be a good deal for people with a lot of flexibility. Couriers typically give up their baggage allowance (which is filled with parcels) in return for a massively discounted ticket; most often one from a large U.S. city to a large European one. Courier companies often charge membership fees, although a few, which generally don't advertise and do require references, pay couriers who are willing to depart within a window of a few weeks. The volume of courier flights, however, proves very limited so, with the possible exception of New York City to London trips, even a very flexible person may simply be shut out of the courier trade.

E-mail fares, which nearly all airlines send out on Wednesday, offer rockbottom prices -- round trips for as little as $19 and rarely more than $99 for people willing to depart on Saturday (a notoriously slow day for airlines before e-marl fares came along) and return before Wednesday. The e-mail fare listings also include discounts on rental cars and hotel rooms. In general, people anxious to get away from home lap them up by Wednesday morning.

USAirways spokesman David Castelveter says that the airline has no firm rules for picking e-mall discounts and targets flights with lots of unsold seats. The airline rarely offers an e-mail discount to the same place for two weeks in a row. A look through a few months of e-mall fare deals from a variety of airlines shows some other trends. On the whole, midsized northern cities such as Providence, R.I., and Syracuse, N.Y., have the best e-saver fares, while larger cities are less commonly found and small towns almost unheard of.

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.

Webflyer (www.webflyer.com): Targeted toward frequent flyers, this site keeps on top of ways to accumulate and spend bonus miles. Good deals are available here and a large percentage of them have frequent flyers as a major target market.

1-800-96-Hotel and www.80096hotel.com: Both an "800" number and a Website, this service offers discounted hotel rooms all over the country. One can find lots of good deals, often in the cities where a large event is drawing large numbers of people.

Airline Websites (All in the form of www.[airline name].com except for United (www.ual.com) and Continental (www.flycontinential.com)): offer the ability to sign up for weekly e-mailings of discount fares. Some Websites also offer Internet-only coupons. When flying into a small town served by only one airline, it's often better to use the airlines' own Website.

Priceline (www.priceline.com): Although experts warn that it isn't all that its cracked up to be, this site is just about the only way to get a budget-priced air ticket when you need to travel on short notice.

Moment's Notice Discount Travel Club (www.moments-notice.com): Provides discount travel for those willing to take off on a moment's notice, requires a $25 membership fee so its probably best to decide on a specific trip before paying the fee. Since it requires a window of a few weeks, its best for people who have quite a bit of flexibility.

Amtrak (www.amtrak.com): The passenger railroad's excellent Website is probably its best feature. It is easy and quick to purchase tickets online and plentiful vending machines print them out with the swipe of a credit card so you never need to wait in line.

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