Don't Be Fooled by Cheap Online Travel

Beware Of Cheap Airlines

We get this response all the time when we are quoting an airfare and the caller will say, “we saw that price a whole lot less on the internet”.  Our quote is directly tied to the airline, so we know it is a current rate at that particular time, but one of the important factors the caller hasn’t told us is when they saw that price a lot less.  And they could have been on one of several on-line operators like Expedia, Travelocity, Kayak, Orbitz. 

One time I quoted a fellow a rate and he said it was better on Orbitz, and I told him that we just didn’t do bookings on-line because we lost all control of the booking when we did that and as a result could not service him like we preferred to do.  He insisted that I go ahead and book it and he would pay me for my services and gave me his credit card, so I humored him.  I booked it and the quote that he had given me was the one I got, however, when I put his credit card in to pay for it the response came back that they could not issue the ticket at that price, instead the fare available was exactly the one that I had quoted him in the first place.  That’s a tactic of some of the on-line operators; get you hooked on a fare, then when you put the payment in, it comes up a different rate, and you are already tired of the hassle so you go ahead and pay for the higher rate.

We had another real good example of that yesterday.  We had quoted a rate for a trip for a party going to Edinburgh, Scotland.  The client said they had found a rate considerably less, and my hunch was that what he saw did not have all the taxes and surcharges in the quote.  So I did a little sleuthing on my own and discovered that his quote did not have all the taxes in it.  Interestingly, the base airfare rate was $765.  The U.S. tax and British tax, the fuel surcharges, the airport facility charges, and the security charges totaled $731.10, almost as much as the base rate.

Then, when you get through paying for the ticket, you are not through.  There are the luggage fees.  Of course if you are traveling internationally, most of the airlines are still allowing you one free bag.  My best guess is that will last maybe through this year and they’ll get hungry for some more money, so get ready consumer!!

Plus, there are the “premium” or “choice” seats that you need to pay for if you want a little extra leg room in coach class.  I priced out some aisle seats for some folks this week with USAir, and domestically the cost was an additional $45 one-way, $50 one-way for an international flight.  So if you had a connection to your destination, that would have been an additional $95 dollars one-way to pay for your aisle or window seat.

So the tip of the day is to get in contact with your professional and experienced travel agents at The Travel Factory who do their best to help you sort through this airfare maze. Give us a call at 698-1421 or toll-free 800-760-4040, drop in at 4150 Southwest Drive for a visit with a real live person who is interested in your travel needs, or be surprised at our new website, www.thetravelfactoryabilene.com.  We exist to serve our friends of the Big Country.  See you next week.