Airfare Shopping Tip Three

Filed in archive on September 30, 2005

Pay yourself a dollar/minute or more.Beyond the 700 plus active airlines on a given day and beside the central reservation systems they subscribe to; nearly 4000 independent companies hold airfare that they prepaid or negotiated and keep in unpublished databases, managed privately. These privately held airfares range from 40 percent to 60 percent of the prices published in central reservation systems. Remaining are those airlines which do not subscribe to a centralized system but manage their own database of flights and airfares.

Typically, the independent companies market their fares to niche customers, travel agencies, businesses, and governments. A growing number of them make their databases accessible online and open to the general public. Many of the airlines that manage their own database have done the same. For you n me airfare shopper, this means we have Internet access to hundreds of databases holding flight information and money saving fares plus the centralized distribution systems that hold discount prices when a member airline offers promotional fares or price incentives for booking online or membership or participation plus those airlines that manage their own database and offer routinely low and or discounted fares.

Take a deep breath and shake off the frustration. Take the time required to find the Internet booking engines that will give you access to the airfare databases you want to leverage for your current trip. Then take the time you need to shop them. No single database and no centralized system will ever hold the best itinerary or the lowest price all of the time. Discount seats are offered and sold out, promotions begin and end, air routes change, flights are added and discontinued, independent companies make their prices available and their seat allotment becomes sold out, airlines alter their base prices, a regulatory body adds or removes a fee, a government adds or removes a tax, operating costs change, and airlines sometimes engage in pricing contests; all of these and other influences mean that prices are constantly in flux and that the impact upon one database of fares will not be the same as upon another. Shop at least three; but four, five, and six Internet booking engines are better and better for making sure you are not missing an appreciably lower price and or a better itinerary and or a favored airline.

To begin your research; use travel, business, or Internet directories to locate Airline consolidators and airline ticket brokers and budget airlines appropriate for current trip planning. Find those that make their inventory available to the general public via Internet booking engines. Local search or advanced search functions might be more expedient when using a general search engine. Many of the independent companies specialize in specific destinations and or world regions. Pricing will be lower for those flights. Those companies serving niche customers might only be found when they advertise in your local newspaper or topical journal. They might be known by a local travel agent. Many will continue to serve only corporate and government customers.

Consistently, when someone makes time to research a trip, locate those booking engines most likely to access lower fares for that trip, and shop them; they save at least a dollar for each minute spent. That dollar per minute saved is below the published fares and for one person. The savings are multiplied when shopping for two or more. Once your initial research is done, it rarely takes more than ninety minutes to find the lowest available price. For simpler flights, fifteen to thirty minutes will often save you an equal number of dollars.

Make time. Apply strategy. Research, Shop. Pay yourself a handsome fee.


via Creative Reporter,
Air Travel Center
over the wires at:
http://airtravelcenter.com/over the air at:
http://airtravelcenter.ch/