(there is more to it than you know)

Part 1

I have a friend of mine who seems to find great pleasure in spending an entire evening or two on his home computer searching out the lowest airfare from Buffalo to Orlando each year. He proceeds to call me up to let me know what he found and booked.

Each time I tell him that if he enjoys the challenge and actually treats this nightly endeavor as he would a hobby then “continue with the exercise.”

However, any full service travel agency is able to check all of these options in a fraction of the time and come up with the same fare.

And at the end of the day, when there is a schedule change, a work stoppage, or how about a natural disaster such as an oil spill or a volcanic eruption that affects travel plans, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone who if not local, is at least very accessible and only a phone call away to assist you with alternate arrangements.

I want someone who knows what they are doing to handle my taxes so if something goes wrong or was done incorrectly, I can turn to the professionals to handle the problem. The same is true with the use of a travel agent.

Now here is the catch; since most airlines no longer pay travel agencies a percentage of the ticket cost in the way of a commission, the travel agency’s only means of income is to charge a service fee for the tickets they issue. Each agency determines the amount of the service fee. There is not one standard that all agencies use.

Even in this case, travel agency airline reservation systems are capable of locating the lowest airfare for any itinerary and, in fact, may find something lower that the traveler missed. This possibility alone can result in actually locating a lower fare even with a service fee added.

A misconception amongst the traveling public is that a particular on-line travel site or for that matter a particular storefront agency has lower pricing. They are really unaware of the way the airlines and their airfares work.

No web site or travel agency has “special” pricing. We all are actually drawing from the same availability offered by the air carriers.

We will exclude group travel where negotiations take place to secure special pricing and talk strictly about individual air travel (less then 10 traveling together).

To start with let’s understand that the airline’s goal is to fill their planes at the highest airfares possible in order to maximize their profits. That would be their basic business plan.

With that goal in mind, they are realistic enough to know that they will not be able to fill their aircrafts charging top dollar for every single seat on the plane. Once that plane takes off with empty seats they cannot be sold the next day at a discount so they have to come up with alternatives.

For this reason each airline sells a pre-determined percentage or number of seats on any of their flights at a given airfare. An example will be the easiest way to illustrate this concept.

XYZ Airlines has a 100 seat plane operating between Tampa, Florida to Dallas, Texas on Monday April 5. They choose to sell 20% of the plane (20 seats) at that “super discount, excursion” fare of $99.00 one way. The next 20% will be sold at $149.00 one way and yet another 20% at $199.00. The remaining 40% or 40 seats will be sold at what they will term the “full coach” fare of $299.00 one way.

You now have a four (4) tier fare structure just for this one flight between Tampa and Dallas ($99, $149, $199 & $299) on one given Monday in April.

So now let us see what happens.

Generally speaking the first 20 people who make reservations and purchase tickets within the airline’s time limits will secure the $99 fare from Tampa to Dallas, while the next 20 will be quoted the $149.00 fare and so on.

From this simple example you can see when those traveling on this flight compare pricing there are going to be four different rates. How about when you add to that the complication of each traveler returning on a different date or maybe from a different city? This too will affect the round-trip airfare and add to the number of people with different prices.

And what happens if XYZ Airline decides to increase their rates during the time they are selling these seats. How about an increase of 5% for tickets that are purchased after January 1st? Now you have an even wider array of airfares among that same group of 100 on that one simple Tampa to Dallas flight.

Part 2

The notion that one web site or travel agency has better pricing than another is really a fallacy. When you visit on-line travel X and think you have found something lower than on-line travel Z or your local travel agent, keep the following in mind;

1-Some sites do not add the taxes until after you select the flights you want.
2-Some sites do not have a direct connection with the air carriers and for that reason do not have up to the second confirmation of the available inventory.
3-Some sites will quote the lowest pricing they can locate without consideration for the actual schedule that might include lengthy layovers or multiple stops before reaching your final destination.

Most full service (storefront) travel agencies will have one of the major airline reservation systems that provide them with what is called “Total Access” and offers “last seat availability”.

What does all this mean? Simply put, we are able to see an up to the second “live count” of the number of seats available on a given flight in all the different pricing and cabin categories.

If there are only two seats left at the $99 rate between Tampa and Dallas, we will know that and be able to confirm it immediately. On many occasions when visiting an on-line site, you will be required to provide all pertinent information prior to confirmation only to find out that the fare that was originally listed is not available.

There might be only one $99 seat left on a flight and several moments later the last seat is taken prior to you making the purchase. On the other hand you may check in the morning and there are no $99 tickets left but due to cancellations later in the day, the lower priced seats are available that evening.

When referring to the purchase of an airline ticket I choose to tell all of my clients “its not where you buy it, it’s when you buy it!” Timing is everything.

The one concept you can take away from this blog is that no one website or travel agency gets better pricing that any other.

The only thing left to do is decide is if you prefer to coordinate your own air travel planning or if you see the value of a travel agent to doing it for you.

Part 3

Our Advantage:

Here are a few tips we can provide you with that will save you some money:

1-With most airlines, a full service travel agency has the ability to hold a reservation 24 hours before payment is due versus the instant purchase requirements of bookings on line. With some international flights the reservations can be held up to a week without any payment and therefore no risk of change fees or cancellation penalties.

This gives you the opportunity to hold reservations without a financial commitment. The pricing is not guaranteed until the ticket is actually purchased but this does allow our clients to make a tentative reservation on Monday and have until the end of the work day on Tuesday to make a final decision whether to purchase the ticket or allow the reservation to expire.

2-The airlines do not like the general public to know this but there is another feature that a travel agency can offer you that is not offered when booking directly with the carrier or with an on-line agency.

We have the opportunity to “void” the purchase of a ticket one business day after it has been issued and paid.

Here is an example. You purchase a nonrefundable ticket from Pittsburgh to Charlotte on Monday morning. Because you have secured a reduced round-trip excursion airfare the ticket is nonrefundable once it has been purchased.

Since you purchased it from us you have the opportunity to cancel out on Tuesday the ticket we issued for you on Monday and not be penalized. Although there are a few airlines that do not provide us with this feature the majority of the carriers do.

It gets better: if you purchase a ticket on a Friday, the next business day is Monday thereby giving you a couple extra days after you purchase to change your mind and have the transaction voided.

We use this to your advantage in another way. Within that 24 hour prior we will search for a lower airfare or better schedule for our clients and if anything is found, we can once again void the original transaction at no cost to the traveler and replace the original reservation with one that offers a better fare or schedule.

Combine these first two tips and you could make a reservation on a Thursday, purchase it on a Friday and change your mind and have the ticket voided on Monday at absolutely no cost to you. This scenario provides you with a five day window.

3-We review all airline records on a regular basis in search of lower airfares. Should you purchase you ticket from Buffalo to Los Angeles for $375.00 round-trip and at a later date prior to travel the fare were to go down. You would be entitled to a credit in the amount of the difference. It doesn’t happen often but it is still a nice feature of our service that you certainly will not find using other on-line travel services.

4-A little know fact is that with most airline reservation sites and on-line agency sites there is no indicate as to how many seats are still available at particular fare.

Once again, an example is the best way to illustrate this point:

If XYZ Airlines only has one seat available at its $99 rate and you ask for two seats, they will quote you both at their higher rates; let’s say at $159. Having last seat availability in our system and up to the second inventory of seats available, we would quote you $99 for the first person and $159 for the second. This particular scenario comes up more times that you can imagine.

4-There was a time not so long ago whereby the only way to secure the most economical airfare was to book flights round-trip and with one carrier. (ex US Airways round-trip, Delta round-trip, etc.)

With airlines such as Southwest, Air Tran, Jet Blue, etc. entering into the competition, there are numerous one way reduced fares and the need to book round-trip exclusively with one carrier has gone by the boards. Taking ABC Air outbound and XYZ on the return may very well provide you with the most economical fare. You will not find any on-line carrier web site offering you options on competing carriers!

5-We could get into a long and complicated discussion about “point beyond fares” but I have a story that will be the best means of illustration for you. I will start you off with a fact that will be very difficult for a reasonable person to accept.

Lets go way back to the days of Eastern Airlines. From Buffalo, NY Eastern Airlines had service to Atlanta, Georgia with connecting service to Orlando, Florida There were many occasions when those booking flights from Buffalo to Atlanta were paying a higher fare than those traveling from Buffalo to Orlando making a connection in Atlanta. Yep, that’s right…longer journey..extra flight…lower airfare.

The fallacy is that the airlines base their pricing structure on the actual cost of transporting someone from point “A” to point “B”. It has very little to do with that. It actually comes down to competition. At the time Eastern was the only carrier to offer nonstop service between Buffalo and Atlanta but they were maybe one of six airlines that offered service between Buffalo and Orlando; hence competition determined pricing.

Now for our story, I had a corporate client who lived in Philadelphia and needed to fly to Buffalo for a one day sales meeting. Booking the flights the traditional way would have resulted in an airfare that exceeded $800.00 round-trip. That’s right, in on Wednesday morning and out on Thursday morning back to Philadelphia.

We will make a long story short. It was more economical for him to take his flight from Philadelphia to Buffalo on Wednesday, fly from Buffalo to Orlando on Thursday and return from Orlando to Philadelphia on Sunday. I believe the total airfare for the circle trip was approximately $350. Try to explain that one to a reasonable person.

To recap, travel agencies may charge a service fee for the purchase of airline tickets but they may very well provide the traveler with airfare that they were unable to locate and also offer the flexible features previously described that the on-line options can not provide. They also offer the additional benefit of being the “go to” person when the unexpected happens.

At the end of the day it is each individual travel’s determination if a service fee charged by a travel agency is worth the extra services they receive.

Next Up: Honeymoon and Vacation Planning…(Our service is FREE)