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http://travel.boston.com/world/070801_online.htmlDespite new Web sites, finding low airfares takes work

By Bruce Mohl, 7/8/2001 There are more ways than ever to buy an airline ticket today, but none of them seems to be capable of giving me a comprehensive listing of the lowest fares on the routes I want.

With the help of SmarterLiving.com, a travel information company based in Cambridge, I discovered that the lowest fare available on a particular route at a specific time of day can vary dramatically from one Web site to another or from one travel agent to another.

You might find the lowest fare on a particular route at one Web site or travel agent, but you won't know for sure until you spend a lot more time comparing prices elsewhere. It took employees of SmarterLiving, who scour travel Web sites for deals every day, about an hour to research a single route.

''There's no one place to go for the best deals, which is bad for the consumer,'' said Daniel N. Saul, president of SmarterLiving. ''To get the best deal, you need to be willing to invest some time.''

On June 25, three employees of SmarterLiving and I looked at fares from Boston to Chicago, San Francisco, and London. The Boston-to-Chicago route was the most interesting, since it involved travel on July 2, less than 14 days out. That's when Web-only fares, which are available only online at select Web sites, can come into play.

We first tried Orbitz, the powerhouse online travel agency developed by American Airlines, Continental, Delta, United, and Northwest to be a one-stop shop for air travel. Orbitz has exclusive access to the special Web fares of about 35 airlines, making it a must stop for any consumer looking for a good deal.

''It's the most comprehensive, unbiased site there is,'' said Orbitz spokeswoman Dawn Doty. ''You have a lot of options out there, but you don't have a lot of comprehensive options.''

Orbitz reinforces that image with a special screen that pops up whenever you plug in a fare request. The screen tells you Orbitz is currently ''searching all airlines and more than 2 billion fares to find the lowest fare available.''

On my Boston-Chicago route, Orbitz quickly brought up a $161 Web-only fare from United, and presented it along with a number of higher-priced options on other airlines broken down by the number of stops. The information was easy to read and detailed. Orbitz's two main rivals, Travelocity and Expedia, couldn't compete. Their lowest fare to Chicago was $281.50, a difference of $120.50.

Yet Orbitz wasn't as exhaustive as it appeared. It had the $161 fare on United, but didn't have the matching fare being offered by American. Indeed, Orbitz indicated American's lowest fare to Chicago was $695.

We discovered the $161 American fare by searching Qixo.com and SideStep.com, two search engines that scour airline Web sites for the best deals. (Qixo has its own Web site, while the SideStep search engine is downloaded to your browser and operates in conjunction with a travel search on another site.)

Neither Qixo nor SideStep, however, had the $161 United fare, reinforcing the notion that no one Web site has a comprehensive listing of all the lowest fares.

After being told about the American omission, Orbitz's Doty said she had the problem corrected. She blamed the omission on a fare-filing mixup. Yet Jon Douglas, associate editor of SmarterLiving, said he has found other glitches with Orbitz. He cited a couple of instances where the identical ticket cost substantially more on Orbitz than it did at the ticketing airline's own Web site.

There were other lessons learned from my airfare search:

Lowestfare.com didn't live up to its name. On all three routes, and particularly the Boston-Chicago one, Lowestfare didn't come close to having the lowest fare. Saul said most travel sites have their own special fare deals with airlines, meaning that, depending on the route, any Web site might have the best deal. Even Orbitz claims it meets or beats low fares offered by Travelocity and Expedia only 80 percent of the time.

Hotwire.com fared well on price. Hotwire offers users a fare, but won't commit to an airline or flight times until the user actually pays for the fare. It's sort of like Priceline.com without the bidding.

Southwest Airlines, which has ushered in lower fares at regional airports in Warwick, R.I., and Manchester, N.H., doesn't play ball with any of the online travel agencies. Orbitz carries Southwest fare information, but if you want a Southwest ticket you need to visit Southwest.com yourself.

It wasn't many years ago that I used to buy all of my air tickets by calling a travel agent or the airlines directly. Now that approach doesn't seem to work. Most airlines offer better fares online. On the Boston-Chicago route, for example, United had a $161 Web-only fare. When I called United directly, the best the airline could do for me was $1,556. Garber Travel had a fare of $306.50, including the agency fee of $25.

The same was true on the Boston-San Francisco route. Frontier Airlines charged $256 online, $479 over the phone. The AAA Travel Agency offered a fare of $282.

Corporate credit cards

Losing your job when your employer files for bankruptcy is bad enough, but it's really irritating when unreimbursed company expenses that you rang up on your corporate credit card come back to haunt you.

Marguerite Ormond of Medford said she had $2,600 in unreimbursed corporate expenses on her American Express corporate card at the time her employer, DataProfit Solutions, filed for bankruptcy. Co-workers were owed as much as $20,000.

Ormond doesn't see why American Express should hound her for expenses she incurred on behalf of her employer. ''We are the little guy,'' she said.

Noting that a corporate card can be used for business as well as personal expenses, American Express officials say cardholder agreements spell out clearly that the cardholder is personally liable for any expenses incurred.

Box office charges

In its ads, SFX Entertainment says tickets to the FleetBoston Pavilion are ''available at the Orpheum Theatre box office without a service charge.''

There may not be a service charge, but there is a new $5-per-ticket transaction fee.

Box-office employees have a hard time explaining what a transaction fee is, but they note it is a couple of bucks less than what Ticketmaster charges for online or phone purchases.

The box office used to be the last refuge of the budget-conscious concertgoer, but that's not the case with SFX anymore. The Globe has reported that SFX added a similar transaction fee to tickets purchased at the box office for the Tweeter Center for the Performing Arts in Mansfield.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2001

Answers

I once spent about three hours on and offline searching for inexpensive fares to Florida. Since I hate shopping and have limited patience for bargan hunting, I have a new rule: I figure out about how much I want to spend for the fare and spend only 20 minutes looking for that price. If I can't get near it, I plan a driving trip, instead.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2001