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July 17, 2007

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Filed under: Uncategorized — Rick Seaney @ 9:16 am

This page will serve as a location where anyone can post a comment about any topic (newsletter, trips, etc…).

I know several of you have very good comments that you send via e-mail and I would like to have a home to post them for discussion so I can comment and anyone else who has something useful to say.

We will be moving this to a forum package later this year, but this will have to suffice for the time being.

Cheers,

Rick

240 Comments »

My wife and I will be celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary in 2008. We have never been to Australia or New Zealand. We plan to spend two weeks in the South Pacific and would like to take a 7-12 day cruise. We prefer Princess Cruises, but are open to any good suggestions. We would like to see as much beautiful scenery as we can. We like hiking, whale watching, dolphins, beaches�and of course, a good glass of red wine. We live in California, so we have plenty of flight options and we can travel between the months of May through August. We look forward to your suggestions.

Comment by Bill Kenney — July 17, 2007 @ 5:07 pm
> Dear folks at FareCompare,
> My husband (71) and I (66) are taking a dream cruise from Anchorage, AK
visiting various ports from Russia finally to Beijing from where we will return
to California. The cruise line gave us the standard “cattle car” seats, so, I
phoned United Airlines and asked them about using our f.f. miles to upgrade to
Business class. They told us that the UA888 on 10/02/07 had no seats left using
points to upgrade. Then I asked what they charge for the upgrade to Business class and they quoted almost $3,000
each. They also told me that they have “plenty” of seats in this category!
Do you have any advice or trick that we could use to get business class at a
more reasonable cost for our arthritic bodies?
> Thanks in advance……..keep up the good work, we love your hints &
prompt pricing. Jean & Gene

Comment by G & J Mohler — July 17, 2007 @ 6:14 pm
Just an fyi note- last week, my boyfriend and I were booked on a Delta’s evening direct flight from jfk to Miami. We had the good fortune, or so we thought, to have the use of a computer to check the flight status before leaving for the airport. The departure time stated was delayed about 45 minutes. When we arrived at the Delta terminal via AirTrain (which is great), we were not allowed to check in and were told that we needed to arrive at the airport at the original time regardless of stated delays. The Delta personnel with whom we dealt were not only uninformed and unhelpful, but rude as well. We were unsuccessful finding a flight out that night on any airline. After spending about 30 minutes on hold from the kiosk phone, we were rebooked on a flight into Ft. Lauderdale the next morning.

The lessons learned were not to pay attention to the reported flight status on line and to do our best to avoid flying Delta (particularly in JFK).

Comment by ROBIN — July 17, 2007 @ 7:56 pm
I thought the idea behind Fare Compare Alerts was to give travelers an edge in be notified of fare changes so they could act promptly. I’ve been signed-up for the alerts for the past six months covering 5 markets. I follow-up instantly and every time (0 out of 100 times) only to find that the fair is NOT LISTED OR in most cases SOLD OUT! Fare alerts are a good ideaology but its not working for me. What am I doing wrong?

Comment by Marsha B Bernhard — July 18, 2007 @ 12:50 pm
I have heard you twice now on NPR and you were very informative! Thanks for the service.
Question: to multicity travel to phoenix then on to San Diego mid Sept should I hold off on ticket purchase in hopes of some sales or grab now. I have been monitoring your site and prices have been fairly stable for the past month.

Comment by marilyn Plitz — July 18, 2007 @ 3:02 pm
I am very hopeful your website will start a groundswell movement that will make the airlines become more responsive to consumers. We are taken for granted to the point of regular abuse. And we keep ponying up for more because 1) we have no other option, and 2) there is virtually nothing to prevent carriers from behaving abusively toward passengers.

From United Airlines notorious ground crew in Chicago who are so careless, slovenly and lackadaisical the customer service workers for United heave big sighs and whisper lurid tales, to Delta Airlines who consistently locks passengers on planes without food, and frequently without bathroom access, for inhuman amounts of time. The recent video is nothing, Delta Airlines has been doing this since at least 2002. Why? because they can.

Comment by JW Hayes — July 18, 2007 @ 6:56 pm
Hi Bill,

Australia & New Zealand are not my strong suit, but I have some colleagues that I sent a note to so I could bone up on it. Give me a few days and I’ll have some good suggestions.

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 18, 2007 @ 11:22 pm
Hi Jean & Gene,

United and Air China have the only non-stops from Beijing to San Francisco and they charge a very high premium for Biz class travel for these non-stops.

My cost choice for this 10/2 trip PEK->SFO would be one-way biz class on Korean/Singapore (love Singapore connects in Incheon) for about $1900 out the door vs. $3000+ out the door for United or Air China.

Since you already own the United coach ticket probably at about $800 one-way. Your options are limited and you went down both paths FF miles and upgrading.

If you haven’t purchased the United tickets yet I would definitely take the before mentioned route and pay the $1k extra, for this once in a life time type of trip it would be worth it.

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 18, 2007 @ 11:54 pm
Hi Robin,

Flight Status is great for picking up arriving people at the airport, but as you found out the hard way the airlines expect you to check in at the airport for your original departure time and will release your seats if you don’t check in at the originally scheduled time.

That said, if you checked in online on the Delta web site and printed your boarding pass at home, you would have been checked in and could have used your flight status knowledge to arrive later.

The airline reservation systems are not setup to handle people knowing a flight is delayed and not checking in until the new departure time window, even though this seems to be common sense.

The right hand doesn’t speak to the left hand in this situation.

Don’t feel bad, you are about the 50th person in the past few months to send me a note about this same issue.

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 19, 2007 @ 12:02 am
Hi JW,

My goal is to educate everyone on their rights and how to handle the inevitable situations that will occur if you fly with any frequency.

Air Travel is very complex with several moving parts and can breakdown very quickly and cause no end of frustration.

I hope over time with education and some common sens air travelers and the airlines (with some government agency cooperation as well) can work together to better handle the myriad of situations that are bound to occur in a much better fashion.

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 19, 2007 @ 12:07 am
Hi Marilyn,

You definitely have to purchase by late August (at least 14 days in advance) of your mid September departure.

Traditionally the airline have fare sales starting in Late July and Early August for travel between late August and Mid November.

I personally would sign up for email alerts on FareCompare.com for the 2 city pairs and wait a bit longer. The prices are more likely to go down for your trip at that time than up.

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 19, 2007 @ 12:11 am
Hi Marsha,

Without knowing the exact city pair it is difficult to answer your question specifically on why you can’t get the airfare from an alert.

Let me provide a general answer and you can post your exact cities and I’ll answer more specifically.

The most common issue is that the airfare has not been loaded into the reservations systems of airlines or online travel agencies (”Fare Not Loaded”). It is noted on all alerts that we are first to send out this information so you get the best shot at getting limited quantity seats, but you may have to wait a while until its loaded.

The second most common issue is that the airlines don’t release seats for THEIR cheapest airfare (we process the airfares directly from the airlines) on a particular day you are interested.

The airlines decide on a case by case basis (every time you make a query) to release a seat at their cheapest price. They can and do change their mind often (even throughout the day).

Popular flights sell out or the airlines expect more business travelers to pay higher prices near departure and they decide not to release seats at their lowest prices RIGHT NOW.

This is equivalent to walking down the isle 3 times at the grocery store the same day and having the price tag change on the shelf every time you walk buy.

Unfortunately their systems are setup for confusion and frustration and our aim is to reduce this as much as possible.

On the bright side you are an informed customer, you know the price that you are being quoted isnt the best and are empowered to make the best decision on whether to purchase at the higher price.

Most consumers dont know the difference and end up overpaying or worse yet dont go because they give up when the next day they might have been able to get that flight within their budget.

We are working on several tools so you can better spot the exact days and times the airlines release seats, so stay tuned, we are really just getting started with refining our technology and tips.

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 19, 2007 @ 7:37 am
Hi Rick, I just listened to your broadcast done yesterday on WPR. It was really informative and I hope to hear many more like it!

My husband and I live in Sac, Ca. We are cruising the Panama Canal starting Feb 2 from Acapulco to Miami (14 days). If I had known what a hassle it would be to get airfares to and from with this combo, I might not have agreed to this routing!

We want to arrive in ACA on the 1-31 (th) and will return home on the 2-16 (Sa) from Florida. I have started looking at flights between home(SMF)& ACA and then returning home from MIA back to Sac on the 16th. I think I can get a better price by doing a multi-city trip, even booking each leg separately (from Sac. to LAX, then on to ACA, and back from either MIA or FLL).

I have two questions… #1 should I book right away or wait until there may be a drop for the “after holiday” prices? #2- If we have enough freq.flier miles to do this trip, should we try that instead? Where is the break even point? (At present the best price I have found for this trip is about $520pp, if I book each leg separately or $550 if all in one).

Thanks for any help you can give. I really like the fare-compare and have been watching it for this trip for several weeks already! Michele West

Comment by Michele West — July 19, 2007 @ 2:55 pm
Bill,
Congratulations on your 35th anniversary. I hope some of this information will help you plan the perfect trip. A number of the major cruise lines do not offer Australian cruises during what would be the summer months in the northern hemisphere (winter months in southern hemisphere). You can still give them a shot, though. Since you’re a fan of Princess Cruises, you can find info regarding their Australia/New Zealand packages.
You can also check out all of their ports of call in the area.
Crystal, Travel & Leisure’s #1 cruise line for the last two years, also offers a number of getaways to the area. Celebrity Cruises also offers several Australia/New Zealand cruises.
Pacific Sun Cruises does offer a variety of 7 to 12 night cruises during the months you’re looking for.
Regent Seven Seas Cruises (also highly ranked by Travel & Leisure) offers a variety of South Pacific/Tahiti cruises during your desired travel times, as well.
When looking for airfare, visit Farecompare to find the best rates from LAX and SFO
to destinations throughout Australasia for the dates you’re interested in flying. You can also get an overview of all of your cruise options and you can book a cruise from the Cruise Page .
I might also suggest setting up an alert for your desired city pair using our Early Email Alert system. You can sign up or manage your alerts here:
http://www.farecompare.com/email
You can set up US/Canada alerts, International travel alerts and First Class alerts. We will send you an email when we detect a drop in the fare price for a given alert.
I hope this helps.

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 20, 2007 @ 3:30 pm
Rick,

Thank you for your help and advice.
Bill

Comment by Bill Kenney — July 21, 2007 @ 2:53 pm
Ricky
I share the same frustration with your site as Marsha about fare alerts. I live in Guatemala and have alerts for flights betweeen Guatemala City and Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, New York. I get alerts almost daily about fares as low as $208, for example. When I go to view these fares, the fair is either “sold out” or “not yet loaded” I have tried finding the (sold out) low fare on every single day of the month for several months (there is only one flight per day to most cities) and the fare is “sold out” when the fare alert is sent. I can go back to the city pairings several times during the day and evening, and neither the “sold out” fares or the “not yet load” fares are ever available. They never existed!
How in good conscious can you send out an alert that is NEVERY AVAILABLE?
This site may work for domestic cities with lots of flights everyday, but my market (GUA) I have never seen a fare available when I have been sent an “Alert” in the 4 months I have been searching. This website is a total waste of email and frustration.

Comment by Gary Kaney — July 23, 2007 @ 12:49 pm
Hi Gary,

We do have some issues on international inbound U.S. taxes at the moment which we are working on.

The airfares for $208 from GUA-LAX are new low prices filed by the airlines but our site is having trouble with the $125-150 in international taxes that are being charged, which make the final price in mid $300’s (we are working on a solution for this).

Fare Not Load is because we process the data several hours before it hits the airline sites, so you are first to know when new low prices are filed and it is noted on the alerts that you may have to wait for it to be to be loaded.

You get an alert when the airline files a price more than $10 below the current lowest price. This does not guarantee a seat at this price on a particular flight. Although when the airlines drop prices you are the first to be notified which is important when trying to get the limited in quantity cheapest seats.

At the moment Mexicana for example is running at $204 out the door for GUA-LAX for every day in September.

We will continue to work on several new tools to alleviate most of the issues so we can make sure people can quickly see the seats travel days for a particular price.

It should be noted that these are the airlines prices (not our prices) and the airlines ultimately control how many seats they release for their cheapest published prices. They decide on a case by case basis on each query (millions a day) whether to release seats at a particular price point; they can and do change their minds often.

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 23, 2007 @ 2:53 pm
I appreaciate your answers, but I don’t find them encouraging. When I have called an airline to inquire about a particular fare (using the code for the fare from you website) I have been told that the code/fare does not exist. Period.
If the airline “decides” whether they will sell a particular fare ($208 for example) millions of times each day for flights that are offered over a 9 month period, it becomes humanly impossible to check (inquire) a million times each day from a consumer point of view. We, the customer, have no choice but frustration. To expect a consumer to engage in this kind of endeavor is insane. Your site only adds to the frustration by teasing consumers with impossible odds of obtaining a fare that is One in a Million.
The odds in Las Vegas are better.
Gary Kaney
Antigua, Guatemala

Comment by Gary Kaney — July 24, 2007 @ 11:32 am
Gary,

I you give me a specific example I will post the details, without a specific city pair and date I can only guess as to what you are looking at based on your departure city of antigua and cities you mentioned in passing.

All fares on our site come directly from the airlines, they do exist and if you find the proper agent they will be able to find the fare and tell you whether or they will sell you seats at that price.

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 25, 2007 @ 7:36 pm
Hello, just wanted to let you know the topics and the information in the newsletters are very helpful. Never took the time to read them before. But will do so from now on. Keep up the good work and thanks!

Comment by Debra — July 26, 2007 @ 12:31 pm
Would like to see the new airport in Salem, Oregon listed as a possiblity. Delta is the only airline using it right now. The airport code is SLE. BUT, your system doesn’t recognize it.

Thanks.

Comment by Cindy — July 26, 2007 @ 9:45 pm
Hi Cindy,

I sent a note to our tech team to make sure we include Salem, thanks for sending a note on this.

Cheers,

Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 27, 2007 @ 9:15 am
Hi Debra,

Soon we will also have all the content on the site in a easy to find form so stay tuned.

Cheers,

Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 27, 2007 @ 9:16 am
Hi Rick
Hope your seminar went well today. Could you please help me with a question. On “Farecompare first” I get through the search but it keeps coming back Economy vs First Class.
Im sure it is a “operator error” issue on my end,Please advise and keep up the good work!
Matt Finnegan

Comment by Matt Finnegan — July 27, 2007 @ 9:18 am
I am trying to find reasonable fares from Fargo ND since my husbands company has transfered us here. I am trying to use the fare alert tool but within no time flat they say its expired! I am in need of finding some reasonable way to travel to Tulsa OK and or LIT AR as often as possible. This will save my sanity as I am having trouble being this far from family. Help me please! I am searching fr MSP as well. Any help much appreciated.

Comment by Belinda — July 29, 2007 @ 10:09 am
Hi Belinda,

There is a page on our site that lets you see the prices from any departure city. From Fargo the URL would be:

http://www.farecompare.com/maps/compareDestinations.html?departure=FAR

from Minneapolis:

http://www.farecompare.com/maps/compareDestinations.html?departure=MSP

along with the alerts you signed up for.

You are caught in a bad position in Fargo, going from a small regional airport to small regional airport TUL, LIT.

The airlines charge $40-80 each way extra when there isn’t any competition, so you are looking at low $300 for the very cheapest … ugh

There is a fare war right now between American
and Northwest from Dallas and Minneapolis however.

You can fly RT from MSP-DFW for mid $100’s and then catch a commuter flight to Tulsa and/or Little rock for $100 or so if you plan ahead.

American and Southwest fight it out for DFW-LIT/TUL so you should be able to get those tickets.

Hope this helps,

Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 29, 2007 @ 4:18 pm
Hi Matt,

If you will send me the city pair and approximate dates, I can help you find the best deal.

Cheers,

Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — July 29, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
I reserch for the best airfare possible. I received an alert from farecompare that prices were dropping if booked for travel from 8/15 thru 10/15.
I entered my info and have done so several times only to find not even a dollar difference between your’s and other booking sites. Where’s the bargains? Am I doing something wrong?
I want to fly out of a well known airport to another well traveled and used airport. The cheaper fare comes only with going to airports that are 1 or more hours away from my destination. There certainly isn’t any savings there.
Does anyone else have this problem??

Comment by HC Reynolds — July 31, 2007 @ 10:34 am
Rick: My husband and I are looking for the best fare for flights from Orlando to St. Louis on 10/4 and returning 10/8. Reading your newsletters, I think the best airfare price would be in mid-August, although I noticed today (8/2/07) that it is the lowest it has been in several months. Shall I hang in there for another week or two or book now? Thank you.

Comment by Gail Gosnell — August 2, 2007 @ 7:00 am
Hi Gail,

I noticed last night a few airlines were rolling back the fare 14-day fare sales they filed in the past 10 days. So I would go ahead and buy now. It’s not likely to get much lower and more likely to go higher and as you note it must be purchased at least 14 days in advance

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 2, 2007 @ 8:01 am
My immediate family has to be in San Luis Obispo, CA for a family wedding in October. Some of us will be departing from different locations and ideally we would all arrive at the same airport around the same time (difficult, I know). Flights into SBP and SBA are pretty expensive, so we have been looking at flying into the San Fran Bay area and taking the scenic drive south to San Luis as an alternative. Here are the dates/routes I have been investigating:

Dates
Arrive: around noon 10/04/07
Depart: around noon 10/07/07
Unfortunately we don’t have the luxury of being very flexible with the dates and times of this trip.

Routes
Family members 1 and 2: CMH to SBP, SJC, SFO, or OAK
Member 3: MSP to SBP, SJC, SFO, or OAK
Members 4, 5, and 6: MKE or ORD (MKE preferred) to SBP, SJC, SFO, or OAK

I’ve been monitoring fares at FareCompare.com (I have a ton of fare alerts set up) for about 2 months now and was compelled to hold off on purchasing until the autumn sales began. But, now I have noticed the fares for our inflexible dates/times are increasing, rather than decreasing. So, my question is: Is it better to keep waiting in the hopes that the prices will come back down OR buy now and cut my losses? Thank you!

Comment by Ryan — August 2, 2007 @ 4:08 pm
Rick; I happy to see you enjoyed Seattle. Some years ago we were in Seattle and to a trip to Victoria. As I recall one of the ships offerred a deal. A rouind trip over & back plus a stay at the Marriott. Do you recall which line it was and do they still offer the same or equal deal. Thanks Norm

Comment by Norm Sefton — August 2, 2007 @ 6:30 pm
Rick: Thank you for your prompt response to my question regarding airfare from Orlando to St. Louis. However, upon checking your site again, I realized that the REALLY low fare is only for 2 days in October, the 2nd and 3rd. My husband and I want to fly out of Orlando on 10/4 and return on 10/8. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to wait another few days or week to see if the lower airfare on AirTran is offered for more than just 2 days in October? Gail Gosnell

Comment by Gail Gosnell — August 3, 2007 @ 6:28 am
Hi Norm,
I am not overly familiar with the Seattle/Vancouver/Victoria area (I was there at a conference), but I do have a friend in Victoria who seems to know everything about that area so I’ll send her a note and find out.
Cheers, Rick

Update:

I chatted with my friend and she said it was:

Likely the Victoria Clipper:

http://www.clippervacations.com/destinations/victoria.html

http://www.clippervacations.com/packages/seattle_victoria_overnight

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 4, 2007 @ 6:01 am
Hi HC,

We don’t sell tickets on the site right now, we are a research tool that tells you when prices are going down, first, before it hits the others websites. After the prices have gone down most of the times other airlines match those prices.

I would not gauge a deal based on 2 or 3 airlines which have the same or similar lowest prices.

I would gauge a deal on the price is compared to history for prices between those cities.

I certainly would not call a $600 ticket a deal because the other airlines offering $900 at the time I do a quote (well I might if i was shopping the day before travel )

To find the best deals you need to do a couple of things:

1) Know what a good price is (history) (same theory as pulling the invoice from Kelly for a new car

2) Be flexible on your travel days if you can, Tue, Wed, Sat are the cheapest

3) Usually the best time to start shopping is about 4 months before departure (for domestic travel)

4) Be realistic, the airlines are not dummies they will charge you a premium for peak days and times, especially holidays and popular destinations and popular times of year. Sometimes the 2nd and 3rd best price they offer is the best you are ever going to get.

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 4, 2007 @ 6:32 am
Hi Rick
The 2 cities are Mpls to Ind. Sept25 to sept 29th 2007
Thanks
Matt

Comment by Matt Finnegan — August 5, 2007 @ 1:43 pm
Hi Rick,
My fiance and I are getting married next June and want to go to Greece for our honeymoon. I am signed up for fare alerts between Austin (AUS) and Athens, and I’ve noticed that there is a huge price jump between May and June. How much of this is due to how far out June is and how much is due to the fact that it is the beginning of the summer travel season? I guess my question is: Is the price likely to go down as it gets closer or should I just assume that the current price is approximately what we would have to pay?
Thanks,
Erin

Comment by Erin MacDonald — August 9, 2007 @ 10:10 am
I have signed up for your alerts and find them very informative. However, I am having trouble trying to book fares that I see on your website. Several times I have seen the “fare not loaded” comment and have checked back both with your website and with the particular airline website every 20-30 minutes so I can book the fare. Each time, nothing is loaded and after several hours, the comment is posted that the fare is sold out. What am I doing incorrectly? Should I be calling the airline instead of waiting for the website to reflect the price (which it never does). I am very frustrated. I want to book a flight for the Thanksgiving holiday from the NY/CT area to Austin and the prices keep going up except with the teasers that the fare is not yet loaded.

Help please.

Comment by G Schiess — August 9, 2007 @ 10:37 am
Hi G Schiess,

Our technology processes the raw airfare data directly from the airlines and sends it out hours before its posted on the airlines sites and reservation systems. It usually takes a few hours or more to load them.

It is important that you are notified “first” because only a small group of people 5-20% actually fly on the cheapest airfare on a particular flight.

An airfare change does not guarantee that the airline will release seats at THEIR price on a particular day and flight. The airlines decide on a case by case basis whether to release seats at the lowest, 2nd lowest, etc based on hundreds of variables like how well the flights are selling now, how well they sold last year, what are the projections for higher paying business travelers …
In theory they can change their mind each time you make a final price quote. They can and do change their minds often, which is on of the reasons shopping for air travel is frustrating.

We continue to work on tools to make it simpler so you can save time and know that their latest price isn’t on the days you want right now.

Stay tuned, we are just getting started.

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 9, 2007 @ 11:42 am
Hi Erin,
International airfares are have very defined seasonal prices.
For example right now and through the winter it will be cheap to Europe. The prices start to go up in early spring and hit their highs for travel in mid summer.
Greece is a bit more expensive because it is off the beaten path.
When you travel to Europe (roundtrip) there is a built in $225-275 charge for fuel surcharge and taxes, before the actual airfare price.
If you can go just before high season you can save money and if you are adventurous and fly to a gateway (larger) city you can go cheaper and then take a lower cost airline once you are in Europe.
To save money to Europe you have to be flexible, traveling mid week (Mon-Thur) is usually $40-80 less.
Look for some airfare sales as well.
In March 2008 the Open Skies Agreement between the U.S. and the E.U. starts and I am expecting prices to start dropping later in 2008 (you might be a bit early May to catch these drops).
Keep watching for an alert and be flexible and you’ll get a good price for your dream trip (congratulations on you pending nuptials )

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 9, 2007 @ 11:54 am
I was recently traveling and due to the infamous delays at Ohare, my flight was cancelled and I couldn’t be re-routed to my arrival city. I had to take a flight that arrived more than 100 miles away from my home in order to get home on the same day. I vaguely remember an article detailing “compensation” for delays and such. I was hoping you could possibly shed some light on the subject. Most appreciative

Comment by Brenda — August 9, 2007 @ 1:42 pm
Hello Rick,

I think it would be helpful to have a search engine that let us customers look up airline flights by cost first, then the Airline, then from where to where (originating from and landing at), then dates of (originating from and landing at), then times of (originating from and landing at).

This would be a great resource to choose a destination based on cost initially. Right now it seems the flights are first based on where they are originating from and where they are landing, which is good for �have to� flights, but not so fun for �leisure flying�

What do you think about that?

Dan

Comment by Dan — August 9, 2007 @ 3:35 pm
Hi Dan,

I like the idea!

We are working several variations of tools similar to this so that we can provide the best options to flexible travelers (flexible on both destination and dates).

By putting “cost” first, its basically where can I go in my budget. Which is a variation of “Get me out of town cheap”

Since we get the raw airfare information we have the ability to slice it in several ways — this sounds like a good one.

Stay tuned …

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 9, 2007 @ 6:01 pm
Hi Brenda,

You were probably referring to the EU Passenger Bill of Rights or the New York Bill of Rights which i posted recently.

I am working on research for the Mythical Rule 240 for domestic U.S. travel, but suffice it to say your options are slim right now.

I would hand write a personal note to the airline’s customer relations explaining the situation and asking them to reimburse your costs for the inconvenience — you might be pleasantly surprised — but don’t expect it.

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 9, 2007 @ 6:07 pm
Recently I purchased airfare to London via an airline’s site. Within 4 hrs time, I found much cheaper ticket on another site for the exact same flight, same times, same everything…figures, almost $50 less. So I called the airline to ask how I should go about getting the difference refunded to me. The airline agent suggested I use the “Best Fare” claim on their site to report the price difference.

I filled out the form feeling sure that I had enough proof to get the refund credited back to me. In addition to the difference, according to their site I would be entitled to a voucher for $100 off my next ticket if I was able to find a lower price. I was not able to attach a screencap using their interface because I do not use Outlook for email, but I did include all of the information specifics they requested. I got a reply from them denying my claim without even seeing the screencap. They said that they were not able to “find” the fare on the website that I had given them.

Their initial reply: “ We have reviewed your
claim for the Best Fare Guarantee and found that your request is not valid. In the terms and conditions it states that Guarantee is valid only for lower fares found online for the exact same Northwest Airlines flight, exact itinerary, exact cabin, and exact same class of service
and purchased on the same day after the original nwa.com online purchase. After reviewing your claim I was not able to search on X.com and duplicate the lower fare on the exact same itinerary.”

According to their website, I did not have to actually purchase this cheaper ticket but could submit screencaps of the purchase page (the page you see right before you actually purchase the ticket) showing the details including price, flight numbers, etc. I had met the exact criteria that they were looking for according to their first reply to me.

I was not going to give up that easily. I resubmitted the form and in the comments section I explained that I did have a screencap of the purchase page and if they gave me a proper email to send it to for their review, I would forward it along. I thought that I had them this time. I was wrong.

Their reply was “that your claim is still ineligible for the Best Fare Guarantee. Along with the reasons for the ineligibility from the initial e-mail, we
have found it ineligible again because the Best Fare Guarantee does not apply to unpublished rates that are not available to the general public. Rates not available to the general public include, but are not limited to, corporate discount fares, military fares, meeting fares, wholesaler fares, consolidator fares and other discount fares.
X site is a consolidator website that offers special discounted and negotiated fares. Fares from X site are ineligible for the Best Fare Guarantee due to this reason. We appreciate your patronage and look forward to serving you in the future.”

What I would like to know, is how exactly is someone supposed to submit an identical itinerary, identical, down to the same flight number, schedule etc and still have them deny it? I find this so incredibly frustrating. According to their criteria it is impossible to ever find a lower rate, anywhere on the web because their conditions exclude 99.9% of the sites out there. I did exactly what I was told to do and yet it was not good enough.

Any suggestions for getting them to make good on their Best Fare claim? Are there any secrets or loopholes that you know of to get around these rules?

Thanks.

Brigit

Comment by Brigit — August 9, 2007 @ 8:22 pm
Hi Brigit,

I did quite a bit of research on the same day cheapest airline ticket guarantees on our FareCompare.com website.

Specifically there is a section on Northwest Airlines. I was able to get the price difference but not the additional voucher.

They have this wacky provision that the new price must only be on a competitor and not them (so when they lowered their price they were not on the hook).

I doubt you will get them to budge without a screen capture, because they will not be able to verify the price went down (especially if it has gone up more recently).

Hmmm, well I don’t have a good solution on this one, you could ask them to bring up the historical fare price on their system for the that day and in the same booking code (first letter of the fare code).

Northwest is hosted on Worldspan and I know they have 11 months of history. If you’ll post the date of purchase i’ll run a historical query for you and capture the results, they might take that.

Cheers,

Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 9, 2007 @ 9:07 pm
Thanks, Rick, for looking into this for me. Here is the info you requested.

Date of Purchase: 31 Jul 07
Code Fare: QLXANGB

Here is the URL for the Best Fare guarantee Please note the section Best Fare Terms and Conditions. Although I seem to have met their criteria, it was negated by their Guarantee Exceptions section. That makes it impossible to to comply with their terms.

The more I look at this the more it makes no sense. They tell us the lower fare must be for the same itinerary, etc but disallow fare consolidators. They disallow competitors because they could claim it is not the same service, itinerary etc. They dare us to find a lower fare elsewhere but then claim that they are or should be the lowest anywhere online.

I do have the screencap but they won’t take it because it is from one of those pesky fare consolidators. (more specifically farepath.com) I hope that I am not violating any of your blog rules by posting that website. Please delete it if it is not allowed. Please note that I do use Fare Compare as a starting point for all airline purchases. What amazes me is that I seem to recall that Fare Compare cited this exact fare down to the booking code but I was unable to duplicate it on the Northwest website.

Thanks in advance for any additional help you can give me.

Brigit

Comment by Brigit — August 10, 2007 @ 10:09 am
Hi Rick
I hope I’m doing this right. I have never posted before.
I am flying to Orlando with my son and his family with two small children from Dec 9 to dec 15. I was holding out for a good deal but in your newsletter your tip was NOT to wait if you are going near the holidays and since it’s not near Christmas I thought I was ok but when I looked at the calendar I saw it was in the middle of Hanukkah. My question is- Should I hold out for a while for a possible deal or pay the big price now? I’m confused. Thanks for your help.
By the way- I love your newsletter and website.
Thanks again,
Bonnie

Comment by Bonnie Music — August 11, 2007 @ 1:06 pm
Hi Bonnie,
Thanks for the kind words and you did just fine posting the comment
I am pretty new to blogging as well so don’t feel bad, its a brave new world
The holiday rush higher prices normally kick in just after mid December, so you are safe there. Hanukkah doesn’t have the same sort of demand as Christmas.
Since I don’t have your departure point to Orlando, it’s difficult for me to make a recommendation.
Your initial decision to wait is probably a pretty good deal.
If you’ll post the departure point, I’ll take a quick look and make a better recommendation.
Cheers,
Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 12, 2007 @ 7:41 pm
I was wondering your thoughts on the impact of Skybus on the market. They have quite a unique strategy (see skybus.com).
For Ohio travelers, this seems to be a real Godsend. I bought 5 tickets for my family to go from Columbus to LA during the holidays (peak travel dates). I played the game and won. Got em all on board for the $10 rate (translates to a total of 204.00 round trip after taxes for 5 people). I take this trip semi annually and usually do good at around 230/person. So we are all going for less than the cost of 1 ticket. But this will be the first time using skybus. So far so good.

Comment by Matthew D Fritz — August 13, 2007 @ 5:19 pm
Hi Matthew,
Cincinnati was/is one of the most expensive airports in the U.S.
SkyBus has relieved a lot of pressure for those that have been driving hours to get to Indy or Dayton, just to get some decent prices.
Skybus will also be flying to the Caribbean soon.
For now their limited non-stop routes are only changing the Ohio area. They can cherry pick from Columbus right now, the question will be what will happen when they venture somewhere with more competition and get into a few scraps… The model they have is proven in Europe with Ryan and EZJet, it is still up in the air if it will catch hold in the U.S.. The legacy airlines have been been known to cherish a few fights periodially like the recent United/Independence fracases where United ended up putting Independence out of business (well at least were a major contributor).

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 13, 2007 @ 6:34 pm
How does one get a response from an airline (American) for being
> changed once and flight cancelled three times. I have written them with no response back. We purchased our tickets in February, we are their frequent fliers and we traveling to originally Baltimore changed to Ragan. It was very frustrating as our bags were lost for four days and we had to cancel our trip which was to attend on June 9th a Golden Wedding, which as you know only happen once in a life time and was my brother and sister in law.
> Traveling was supposed to be on June 8th with my son Mike Frydman and his wife Kim. This was the day they had the computer glitch.
>
> We even hopped a cab and went to Midway, booked on Southwest and that
> was cancelled at 11:00pm.
>
> If you could help in some way for us to be compensated for future
> travel, Mike did get reimbursed for the tickets and got his miles back
> but under the circumstances I feel he should have gotten miles doubled
> or vouchers for future travel.
>
> Any feedback or help would be appreciated. sallen442@msn.com

Comment by sue allen — August 14, 2007 @ 6:44 am
Hi Sue,
American’s customer relations page is at the following web address:
http://www.aa.com/content/urls/customerRelations.jhtml?anchorLocation=DirectURL&title=customerrelations
You can email using their form at the bottom of the page (click the email link at the bottom). Keep your email short and to the point, the facts of what happened and what you think is a fair resolution (catch more flies with honey etc)
From your note I presume you might have already done this, it can take up to 2 months to get a response — yes 2 months and I have no clue why — well this summers follies might have something to do with it more recently
I have had some people send me notes saying a hand written note, works better. I am not positive on that anymore in the age of e-mail.
I’ll be honest, it most cases its up to the discretion of the person on the other end, so go in with low hopes and hopefully get your expectations exceeded.
There are some last ditch efforts if you want to pursue it, but they are long shots at best, send me a note if you don’t get a response and we can discuss those and please keep copies of any correspondence and documentation
Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 14, 2007 @ 7:58 am
I read your post that for virtually all domestic holiday travel you should buy now. I was wondering what were your thoughts on purchasing holiday international travel tickets. Should I wait or buy now? I’m traveling to Madrid in December.

Comment by Michael — August 16, 2007 @ 6:03 am
Hi,
A site already exists that posts daily changes in domestic air fares(Internet Air Fares).Posting it on your site would be helpfull and provide a cross check.Keep up the good work.

Tom Farrell

Comment by Tom — August 16, 2007 @ 6:41 am
I cringe everytime I hear of a plane sitting on the tarmac for extended periods of time. I suffer from claustrophobia, and the thought of that happeing to me would send me over the edge. They must enable an alternative way of waiting. Why not just pull back to the gate to let all have freedom.

Comment by Carl Allen — August 16, 2007 @ 10:00 am
Hi Rick,
I am flying to Rome at the end of May 2008,right now the fares are very high and going up weekly even though the flights are empty,should I wait until the end of the year to purchase my tickets hoping to get a better fare or bite the bullet and pay the current price?
Al

Comment by Al — August 16, 2007 @ 10:01 am
Waiting on the tarmac hours on end?
Sure, I have a suggestion–actually a list! I’m convinced that the airline that finally gets the guts to promise some enticing amenities to those potentially wrung out angry passengers would suddenly gain the loyalty of flyers everywhere. Perhaps even enough loyalty that they would increase their number of planes and passengers and flights at many airports, thus increasing their bottom line profits! So what amenities should they offer? Here’s my suggestions:
1. Keep extra foods and snacks onboard along with plenty of cold drinks and ice water to pass out freely to all who desire them during the unavoidable delay on the plane. Sure it costs a few more bucks, but the goodwill of retaining passenger loyalty would be well worth it.
2. Allow passengers to get up from their seats and walk around in the aisles periodically, a few rows at a time to stretch their legs and arms and feel better.
3. [Passenger aircraft have fresh air conditioning systems that can be turned on using at least three toggle switches located in the pilots cabin under the pilot's control. These allow at least three different air mixing levels (re-circulating stale air, stale air mixed with a little fresh air, or full fresh air conditioned cool air). Air can be either warmed in winter conditions or cooled in summer conditions as needed. However, due to the high costs of operating the cool air conditioning in the large main standard tourist fare passenger cabin, cooled full fresh air is mostly turned on only in the pilot's section of the plane (plus, sometimes in the first class cabin) even during flights! So planes waiting on the tarmac may have their cool air conditioning shut off completely, making passengers wait in stuffy re-circulated humid air often without any fresh air, making conditions almost unbearable for hours on end!]
So, instead of forcing upon the passengers this ridiculous money saving tactic of total discomfort, instruct the pilot to maintain air conditioned comfort during all long tarmac waits by having them “turn on full utilization” whenever needed, meaning all three toggle switches would be turned on to allow cool fresh air in all the cabins. [Turning on this air conditioning in a tarmac confined plane uses up expensive jet fuel that must come from the aircraft fuel tanks, so, to save money, most airlines never turn it on. Or the plane (if located close enough to the airport buildings) may receive power via a linked or portable "power feed station" provided more economically from the airport itself, but still this is an expense airlines do not wish to incur.]
4. When possible, provide a movie for the passengers in the larger planes that offer them on board during long wait times. Also offer pillows to all passengers who want them (too few pillows on most planes), and provide some lap games such as chess, scrabble, or checkers for any passengers who might like passing the time with a fun game.
5. Offer future flight and also some decent food discount coupons to all passengers. (Some of the food coupons could be easily furnished free by popular food chains as valued advertising for them).
6. Offer disposable “wet towels” that passengers can use to refresh themselves by wiping their face, neck, arms, etc.
7. It might even be possible to offer passengers a pleasant 2 minute sit-in-chair back massage performed by trained staff at the front or back of the plane during long tarmac waits. A seat number drawing might be necessary to limit the number of massages when there are too many passengers to permit massages for all who desire them. Then, again, if tarmac waits get any longer than they already have been, maybe all passengers would end up with a 20 minute massage and time to spare!

Seriously, I believe that the airlines could do a lot for passengers that would make tarmac waits almost a pleasant experience for some passengers. The almost unbearable tarmac wait shouldn’t have to be so physically draining, disheartening, and such a waste of valuable time!

Sincerely, Michael Malan
Manager, A. Sterling Worldwide Travel

Comment by Michael Malan — August 16, 2007 @ 2:21 pm
Hi Rick,

I have enjoyed reading your site very much and have learned a lot. I am going to Kathmandu, Nepal from Atlanta via Seoul, SK on Korean Air in October and have been tracking that fare for a few months and within the last 2 weeks the price jumped from around $1500-$1700 to $2,000+. On Monday I decided to go ahead and get the ticket but lo they were sold out (or reserved). This morning I checked FareCompare.com & the Korean Air website and it looked like they had released a ton of formerly sold or reserved tickets for around $2064+. I called the KA Reservation Call Center to check availability and the customer service representative said the segment I wanted was available and the price would be $1700 inclusive of all taxes, etc. So, why the price differential via the website and the call center? I am happy, though, of the outcome no matter how I got my ticket!

Comment by Shane Taylor — August 17, 2007 @ 12:06 pm
I am outraged by “Knee Defender”.

You say in your newsletter that “It’s a little plastic gizmo that you hook onto the tray table arms, to prevent the person in front of you from leaning back.”

Well guess what, the person in front of you BOUGHT their seat, and has the right to lean back in their own seat. This is the worst thing I’ve heard!!!! Lean your own seat back, and gain the room you’ve lost from the person in front of you.

I’m appalled by this idea !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Poor flight attendants. Yes another thing they’re going to have to referree.

Comment by b campbell — August 18, 2007 @ 8:56 am
Hello! I have 3 questions:
1) I was wondering why nowdays quotes on group (20+) travel reservations are higher, than individual or small group’s pricing.

3) Is it advantageous to request bids from the airlines, if one has a large group (250+) traveling to the same destination?

2) Any recommendations on when to buy and approx. how much to expect to pay for a good deal on a 20+ group travel to Honolulu in the last week of June 2008?

Thank you,

Iv�n

Comment by Ivan Broce — August 21, 2007 @ 9:55 am
Do you think Corporations are better off having employees book travel on-line since many employees can find better deals on-line than through a travel agency? Or are travel agencies still worth having because of the services they offer?

Joe

Comment by Joe Daugirdas — August 21, 2007 @ 3:04 pm
We are going on a once-in-a-lifetime cruise with our 3 kids, 3 spouses, and 5 grandkids in February. The cruise is already purchased but no airline tickets yet - they are just too high. What is the best price I should accept going from Minneapolis or Sioux Falls to Miami? Have also researched Ft. Lauderdale but would rather go straight to Miami.

I have shared your website with many- so helpful! Thanks.

Comment by Arleen Kranz — August 23, 2007 @ 4:02 am
Rick,

I went to grade school in Mason City, Iowa with a Ricky Seaney in the late 50’s. Could that possibly be you?

Ken

Comment by Ken Ceradsky — August 23, 2007 @ 6:13 am
Hi Shane,
Most likely, Korean Air released seats at their cheaper price point and the quoting systems here were not in sync.
Airlines have several price points from low to high and they manage them by allow seats to be sold in price points based on all sorts of historical and current sales activity.
Enjoy your trip and safe travels,
Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 23, 2007 @ 6:25 am
Hi Ivan,
I am not an expert in Group Travel (although I am doing quite a bit of research in this area).

Each airline (at least the larger ones), have a department dedicated to group travel. One reason is that reservation systems are normally limited to 6-8 passengers per reservation without using some special interface to book more than that.

I have found that there is not much discount pricing in the group department (normally the going rate), but the logistics getting seat assignments together, documenting the transaction more simply as a group and easing the anxiety of group travel is their forte’.

Competition is always useful, as prices may differ, I am not sure they will “bid” on your group however.

I would need your departure point to give you some good estimates on pricing.

Airlines tend to manage revenue in 4 month cycles and outside that they normally charge a premium (for domestic travel). That said you should take a look at the history chart for the past fews years on the research result page and you’ll see what the cheapest prices are which will give you a good benchmark.

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 23, 2007 @ 6:36 am
Hi Joe,
This is one of those beauty is in the eye of the beholder questions
I wish there was an easy answer to that question. A good travel agent is an invaluable resource (I for example have a travel agent that specializes in Disney who has handled 3 trips for me in the past 2 years). I gladly pay a premium for a great service
Your question revolves around making each individual employee their own travel agent, which means there is time and effort involved which might be used better elsewhere.
Will this save money? On the bottom line probably, but in time and effort well spent … (not so sure)
Over time as tools get better (we have a long way to go) I think the trend will continue with individual employees booking their own travel.
Just as the trend to Megastores like Walmart taking traffic away from local small shops, i believe has and will continue in smaller busineses (larger ones are probably going to stay the same with corporate agencies…)

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 23, 2007 @ 6:42 am
Hi Ken,
I was born a bit after that, but my family origins are from the Midwest and the surname is not very common, so it certainly could have been a family member (I am a Jr. and my father grew up early in Indiana, later El Paso TX)

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 23, 2007 @ 6:48 am
Hi Arlene,

Your options for non-stop are Northwest and American MSP-MIA. Right now Northwest is running about $268rt (AA $40-80 higher) in February. This is a bit high (not if the trip is over Presidents weekend). This is a tough call about the best you will get is low $200 out the door for that time frame so this is only a $40 premium or so (but you have several so it adds up).
I would recommend you fly in the evening before, to take the stress out of flying, debarking the same day.
If you want to gamble a bit then wait and keep an eye on it, for a once in a lifetime trip … I wouldn’t feel bad if you bought at the $268 price point.

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 23, 2007 @ 7:01 am
my husband recently traveled to Hamburg Germany on Continental Airlines. He was supposed to stay for 2 weeks, but he left on a Friday morning and arrived there on Sat. morning at 6:30 a.m. their time. His son passed away here in Florida on Saturday, so he called Continental on Sun. morning to come back early and they said it would cost $4,500.00 to fly back early, even in those circumstances. He finally found an airline - Martinair, and they flew him back to Miami for approximately $650.00. I thought the airlines were supposed to give good rates for bereveavment flights??

Comment by Margaret Buster — August 23, 2007 @ 7:20 am
Regarding the excerpt from Spirit Airline’s CEO, in spite of what the real facts are, I am appalled that this executive did not take the high road when responding to the passenger who felt he had been mistreated. Spirit definitely needs major public relations coaching on image building. Surely I’ll be remembering his comments and attitude before booking my next flight.

Comment by Susie Van Pelt — August 23, 2007 @ 7:46 am
Just a thought, why not having Fare Alerts for first class on international routes (not just US and Canada)? This would really be a great tool.

Also, please check what is being mentioned in the Flyer Talk forum regarding Fare Compare. I think there is some kind of technical glitch, I have esperienced it too.

Here is the link:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=727089

Thanks

Comment by C Abasol — August 23, 2007 @ 7:56 am
Rick - I’m new to your site so maybe you’ve covered this previously but . . .
I live in South Dakota and fly from Rapid City Regional Airport. We have three options - Delta to Salt Lake City, United to Denver, Northwest to Minneapolis. We have children living in Boston, Reno and the San Francisco bay area plus elderly parents in Columbus, Ohio and Orlando. Reading between the lines you can probably see that our choices are minimal. Which, of cource, means we PAY.
Now, if we take one of the big three to their hubs, which is never cheap, we can possibly find a lower cost airline to take us to our final destination. But, searching for such flights takes me hours because I have to go to each of the lower cost airlines’ sites individually to search.
Or IF I find a cheaper flight to Minneapolis, I have to search the economy airlines’ flights from there but it might actually be cheaper to to take the more expensive flight to Denver and find an economy airline’s flight from there.
See my dilemma? I’m sure this is not just MY dilemma. There are thousands of travelers in SD (ND, MT, WY, etc) who, I feel, are subsidizing the cheaper flights for big city travelers (it is usually more expensive to fly the one hour, 400 mile flight from Rapid City to Denver, than to fly from LA to NY).
Maybe you don’t hear from many of us because we just accept this as one of the prices we pay for not having to live in those god-forsaken big cities! Anyway, I have vented. If you happen to have any suggestions, let me know and I’ll share it with my fellow fliers here in the backcountry.
Thanks for helping us find inexpensive ways to visit the rest of the world so we can truly appreciate living out here in God’s country!

Comment by Molly — August 23, 2007 @ 8:38 am
I know you are saying to purchase airfare now for travel during the holidays. But, why are the planes so empty??
My husband and I are going to St. Martin on Dec. 30 - Jan.6
I have checked the seating on all flights that we usually take and there are only a few seats taken. Should I gamble until closer to time to leave? Last April when we went, the fare dropped dramatically about a month before we were leaving. Won’t they try to fill the planes and drop the prices near the end? Right now the price is over $1000.00 per person. We want to fly out of XNA to SXM preferring USAir to Charlotte, or AA to Miami, one stop only!
Please advise…

Comment by KAY TROTTER — August 23, 2007 @ 9:08 am
Hello,

This is just to share a really bad experience I had with USAirways which to this day remains unsolved. This past May I went to Miami with my girlfriend to celebrate my birthday. Upon returning to Washington DC on May 9th my suitcase was lost. After multiple visits to Reagan (DCA) to see if my suitcase had arrived without avail I submitted a lost baggage property form. At first I would call once every 5-7 days, then after 3-5 weeks of getting no feedback I would call once a day. Every time I’d call I get no significant input. The first time I called I even suggested they check with Charlotte (where I had a layover). They reassured me they had checked and were told my suitcase was not there. This went on for about 3 months! Until finally my suitcase was found and returned a few weeks ago.

The problem I’m struggling with USAirways now is that I had to buy clothes in this 3-month time frame since the clothes I brought to Miami were nice/expensive clothes that I wear to work. I have faxed a very detailed list of all the items I had to buy and they keep going in circles. Specifically, they think I’m calling with regards to my lost suitcase even though I have very detailed messages in their stupid voice mail (they don’t even have customer service reps for this sort of thing). Moreover, I never received any kind of apology, much less compensation, for having my suitcase lost for 3 months!!

Sorry for venting, but I’m just looking for advice on how to at least recover my expenses incurred for the clothes I had to buy while my suitcase was being “looked for”.

Thanks,
Jose

Comment by Jose — August 23, 2007 @ 9:22 am
I just wanted to tell you about our first trip on SW. I got on the plane and looked around for the movie screens. I asked the flight attendant about it and she laughed and said “Honey, this is Southwest, we don’t have movies. But, in a little while, I’ll come out and do “hand puppets” for you. She made my trip!!! I have flown SW many times since and have no major complaints whatever.

Comment by Pam Goins — August 23, 2007 @ 10:27 am
Hi Rick,

I am trying to time the purchase of 3 tickets going SFO->LON and returning ROM->SFO for the end of May 2008 returning mid-June. Your ideas on good purchase time? I know the sales are now for Fall 2007. Timing for next late Spring?

Thanks for the amazing service you provide!

Sue

Comment by Susan — August 23, 2007 @ 12:44 pm
You are completely right about the difference in service between Spirit Airlines & Southwest.

I worked briefly at Spirit and the most ironic thing was that even when getting free flights as employees, when middle & upper management needed to get to a place on time, they will make the reservation & pay the airfare with Southwest, and that was flying on the same route, isn’t that interesting.

Comment by Pepe Acuna — August 23, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
On Aug 12th my wife & I flew from DFW to IND. Had coach tickets. I asked the agent at the check-in counter if there were any Y-UP fares available. She said there was and it would be $500+ dollars more per person!! Needless to say, I declined her “generous” offer.

Comment by Drennon Stringer — August 23, 2007 @ 8:10 pm
Spirit Airlines - have saved for 2 years to give my wife an this anniversary present. Since you have no alliances with other airlines I was left out in the cold. Your failure to honor my contract with you for my family vacation has caused me to spend over $2000 in additional airfares and hotels. I was planning on using your airline a lot since I have family in the Fort Lauderdale area but now will think twice about flying with Spirit.For some reason on July 30th you were unable to fly a plane into Chicago O’ Hare even though all the other airlines seemed to be having no trouble causing me to incur additional expenses. This was to be the start of a family vacation and 5th wedding Anniversary that I was giving my wife to the US Virgin Island. Thanks a lot! I guess you get what you pay for. I got no response to my first letters just a computer generated one. If this is what you call customer service then I will have to make alternative travel plans in the future.

Comment by Bill Niquette — August 24, 2007 @ 8:02 am
Rick,

Your site is the greatest. Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. My family of 4 is flying out of Chicago to Madrid on December 20 and returning December 30. You previously said to buy airline tickets as soon as possible for holiday travel this year. Does your advice apply to my trip to Madrid or are you talking about domestic travel? Should I buy the Madrid tickets now or wait? What do you recommend? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Comment by Michael Tallarico — August 27, 2007 @ 10:29 am
Hey, Rick! My husband and I are going to Puerto Vallarta in March. I’ve been seeing some decent airfares (under $500) but the routing and the times aren’t great. Should I just bite the bullet and buy now or do you think I can hold off and hope for something better later on?

Thanks!

Judy

Comment by Judy Jablow — August 27, 2007 @ 11:39 pm
I have never seen anything about USA3000 on your site and wanted to let you know about the good deal I got from them, out of Detroit to St. Petes/ clearwater, Florida…They had the flight listed at $74.00 each way and I received an e-mail telling me that if I booked within a certain time and was flying between certain dates I could receive $10.00 off each way…..I have used this airline before and always had a great flight, have not heard anything bad about this airline.. B. Ridley.

Comment by Berny — August 28, 2007 @ 9:59 am
i signed up for farecompare alerts, which i’d like to receive. I want to hear about fares that interest me.

however, you’ve gone and subscribed me to a newsletter mailing list. with tons of links to this blog. why? i didn’t ask for a newsletter. i don’t care about this blog. i want to hear about cheap fares, not how cool and hip your founder thinks he is.

when i go to unsubscribe, i see that there is no way to opt out of just the newsletter. my only option is to unsubscribe from all alerts altogether. (that itself is a fairly misleading screen, i might add — it is not at all intuitive or obvious that clicking “unsubscribe” will delete all alerts)

i sincerely hope that this is an oversight. when i saw this site, i thought it was great. a welcome departure from other so-called “deal” sites.

honestly - no one wants your newsletter. and the newsletter itself is just so stupid and inane - you’re not going to build “brand loyalty” or whatever you think you’re doing like this.

“hi, i have an mba, i think we should send an unsolicited email! brilliant!”

people want cheap flights, bozo, that’s it.

Comment by why spam? — August 30, 2007 @ 3:06 am
Hi Mr. Spam,

The alerts are a free service, we send out a once weekly newsletter as part of this service.

There will be an option in a future update of the alert system profile to opt out of the newsletter, but for now this is not the case.

Until then you can unsubscribe from the service at anytime.

Cheers,

Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — August 30, 2007 @ 8:36 am
Rick - I am dismayed at what I view as a ‘bait and switch’ regarding hotel arrangements in Aswan, Egypt. When I complained to GTA Hotels (which your site redirects me to) they said it was your fault, not theirs. Here’s the situation. When I search for hotels in Aswan, Egypt, I get a great rate for the Sofitel Old Cataract Hotel. When I click to GTA, it actually shows me the New Cataract (decidedly inferior). For someone who is in a hurry or has done less research, this would be a unfortunate choice. In fact, you can find the New Cataract for much less money elsewhere. I would appreciate an explanation and a fix. Thank you.

Comment by Irene Silber — August 30, 2007 @ 9:49 am
Planning a trip from Central Kentucky to Miami Florida in December for a wedding (Leaving either Dec 14 or 15 and returning Dec 18 or 19) for me and 5 family members. I have tried to be as flexible as possible and have searched from airfare leaving from LEX, SDF, or CVG flying into Miamia, Fort Lauderdale, or Fort Myers. I make this trip often to visit family. I normal pay around 180 round trip and have plenty of flight options. Now the prices are $250 and up (most around 300). I have been following this for months (signed up for fare alerts and searching for airfare periodically). I am waiting in hopes that the price will drop but am worried that because it is so close to the holidays, the price will just go up. I am wondering what advise you can give for someone wanting to travel near the Christmas holiday. Any savings per ticket will add up to big bucks since there are 6 of us.

Thanks,

Tiffany

Comment by stray_chicken — August 30, 2007 @ 9:43 pm
Hi Rick; love the newsletter and website. Got the email today re: the new hotel rate finder program and was wondering if you are considering doing the same thing for cruise lines? I love the concept of ‘it’s a deal’ or ‘not a deal’.

Keep up the good work for all of us road warriors.

Comment by Darlene — August 31, 2007 @ 9:57 am
Hi Rick,

I love your site too and really appreciate all you do to help all we travelers.

I would like some input concerning Skybus airlines out of Columbus, Ohio. We have reservations in October from San Diego to Columbus but haven’t heard too much about this airline and hope it’s safe and dependable. Their prices certainly are attractive but is it worth the low price to fly on an unknown airline?
Thanks for your time. I will look forward to hearing from you.

Comment by Diane Riding — September 5, 2007 @ 1:16 am
Hi Rick,

I’ve heard a terrible story about Korean Airlines. One of my friends frequently flies to Korea because her husband lives there. Whenever she visited her husband, she used Korean Airlines. But, for some reason, the airline lost her baggages multiple times. Fed up with this series of unpleasant experiences, she finally sent an email to the president of Korean Airlines.

What happened next?
She could never book a seat with Korean Airlines since. An insider told her that she was on the blacklist of the airlines. What kind of airlines treats its customer like this? What should she do?

Thanks for reading.

Comment by Justin Lee — September 6, 2007 @ 1:50 am
Hi Rick. How about a list or a link to the type of planes under the Categories title? It would be nice to have some knowledge of the seats when ordering tickets. Perhaps you already have it somewhere on the site, but I could not find it if that is the case. Thanks for bringing all these goodies to us.

Comment by Alberto in Ottawa — September 6, 2007 @ 8:46 am
Please, please, please do not encourage Disney visits. We have stayed at Disney World eight times on site and visited Disneyland many times. In February, our last trip, I got food poisoning from Jikos restaurant at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and it ruined the second half of our vacation–couldn’t leave the hotel room. We were supposed to dine at California Grill the next night and the following night at Victoria and Alberts to celebrate my 50th birthday and had to cancel both. Couldn’t find anyone to take my report seriously while there so that no one else would get ill. Reported the incident after returning home and got the run around–they wouldn’t budge. I told them I would throw my unused park hopper tickets away before ever going back to Disney, so they paid me for them. I wrote Bob Igor and Meg Crofton in April and never received the courtesy of a reply. About a month and half ago, I faxed my letter to Bob Igor and just received a letter from the same “customer server” person I talked with originally, basically telling me to go to hell and leave them alone although not in so many words. Yesterday, I mailed a letter to the Chairman of the Board. I am appaled by the way I’ve been treated, but, considering what I’ve heard from others, it doesn’t surprise me. I can see why they didn’t get the rights to Harry Potter–Universal is going to be reaping the benefits of their total lack of customer service from now on.

So please don’t encourage people to go. Yes, we enjoyed the parks. We’ve enjoyed the hotels although they certainly aren’t up to their price or compared to other hotels worldwide–just convenient for the parks. But this incident showed us how they treat loyal, returning customers. God forbid if something seriously goes wrong there. Thanks

Comment by Shirley Garcowski — September 6, 2007 @ 9:07 am
Just to let you know that the comment about getting back from the Carribean will require a passport. True, except Puerto Rico.

Comment by Sam Rosado — September 6, 2007 @ 9:19 am
Can you give any advice on the best way to book a “you can’t get there from here” trip between two specific destinations? I have been wanting to fly round trip from Greenville, SC to Reno, NV and it seems I must drive to Charlotte or Atlanta to get any deals. I found one GREAT price with Southwest, but to connect from GSP to one of the cities they serve would have qadrupled the price!

Comment by Tom Repik — September 6, 2007 @ 9:25 am
I was wondering if anyone can help me with flying from NY to Aruba Presidents week (16th - 23rd) I am not flexible on the dates because someone is giving me a timeshare on those dates - and my kids are off. Unfortunately, I can’t find a fare for under $1,000.000 per ticket. Even at that price, Jet Blue has sold out on those dates. Other sites like Expedia, Orbits, can get me as low as roughly $800.00- but I have two make at least 2 stops - which I don’t want to do with a 4, 8 and 11 year old! I don’t want the person offering me the timeshare to miss out if I end up not using it - I won’t pay that much - do you think the airlines will add more flights and the prices will go down at all? Or will they only go up higher and sell out as we get closer to President’s Week? Thank you so much for any input - I’m really STRESSING out over this situation - I’d like to go back - it’s been 14 years since my honeymoon in Aruba! Bettyann

Comment by Bettyann — September 7, 2007 @ 10:21 am
Hi Rick - first let me thank you for an excellent blog. I have been reading for about 3 months now and it has certainly helped educate me. I wanted to ask what you think of an idea that I believe will help with all of the major problems with the industry. The idea is … (drumroll) … have less planes in the air! I am not sure how an airline gets “slots” but the FAA seems to have been giving them out like promotional candy. Now, admittedly, I like the idea of less planes as I am a bit of a “greenie”, but I think it would help a lot. There would be less “knock on” effect from bad weather in 1 country for starters. Plus I wouldnt have to wait an hour from leaving the gate to getting to the runway. Airlines wouldnt have to add on time to their scheduled flights etc etc. With my somewhat limited analysis I think less flights would lead to higher fares. But so what? I dont get how people think they have a right to fly 2000 miles for $100. Just my 2 cents. Thanks again - Matt.

Comment by Matt Ward — September 11, 2007 @ 7:35 pm
Rick - one other comment for the “stupidest fees & charges award”. I am flying our two cats via cargo within the US. Continental is charging me a security fee for each cat. The funny thing is, the security fee is by weight! Clearly they know that my 13lb hemmingway cat can impale you in the blink of an eye and requires extra security compared to our other slighter 8lb pet.

Matt.

Comment by Matt Ward — September 11, 2007 @ 7:37 pm
Im having quite a bit of difficulty with Northwest Airlines regarding an Electronic Credit Voucher. I had an ECV on my account for the amount of $676.50. Last week I used that ECV to purchase a ticket for the amount of $192.80. So, that leaves a difference of $483.70. That is where my issue starts. From the beginning I was told that when it came time to use my ECV if the amount of the new airfare was less I would be issued a new ECV for the difference. Ive since tried to book another flight and the ECV apparently is closed. Ive struggled to get to the bottom of it. Ive emailed, spoke with phone reservations, nwa.com support line, you name it. Some are telling me that I will indeed get another ECV or even use the same number for the difference while others say its closed as its a one time MCO and that you shouldve have purchased a ticket in the amount of the original ECV (i.e. Northwest is just going to keep my $483.70). That wouldve been nice to know.
I feel like Ive been completely mislead and misinformed. Any thoughts or suggestions on what actions I can take to get my $483.70?

Comment by Steve — September 12, 2007 @ 8:26 pm
Hey Rick, I love reading your newsletters and appreciate the tips I’ve gotten-Thanks! Question for you- I live in Lansing, MI and my 9 yr old daughter lives with her mom in San Jose, CA. For the last 5 years, when it comes to visitation, I have to fly out to get her and then fly her back. Because I have visitation 5 times a year (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Prez Day, Spring Break & Summer), I can buy up to 10 RT tix for me and 2 1/2 tix (ex & I split) for my daughter per year. I choose the cheapest NWA flights from combinations from all the nearby airports and I have a NWA visa and charge everthing on it then pay off immedediately to earn FF miles which is good but I rarely get to use FF because of all the Holiday travel. I won’t miss out on my time with my daughter but the $ strain on my new family is tough. Do you have ANY advice to help me find cheaper travel? Thanks.

Comment by Rob — September 13, 2007 @ 9:26 am
Hi Rick,

I’m a huge fan of your website - love the email newsletters and the email alerts. I’m really looking forward to your new feature alerting us when prices will be going up.

On that note I wondered if you could suggest to me if I should hold on purchasing tickets for my family from JAX to AUS (for travel Dec 26-Jan 2) or if now’s the time to purchase holiday fares?

Comment by ClareBare — September 15, 2007 @ 2:32 pm
The rant against security screeners abusing their power is a well-worn one… until someone has the persistence to follow up on it like this guy: http://www.netstumbler.com/2007/09/18/my-wonderful-trip-to-south-africa-that-didnt-happen-thanks-to-the-tsa-and-delta-airlines/

kudos to those with the doggedness to hold the authorities accountable (even if they’re essentially *forced* into doing so)!

Comment by Tim — September 19, 2007 @ 12:47 am
Regarding your question “would/have you quit an airline because of service - and regardless of price?”

YES! I’ve traveled fair amount but I never saw an airline treat anyone as badly as they treated an international grad-student I was hosting. We arrived at a small airport (LSE) 2 hrs before the flight departure with the student and two suitcases. They were large but regulation by the web-site and phone support. The check-in agent was anything but helpful and kept pushing the student back and letting others in the line come forward. Finally she informed the student that there’d be an over-size fee of about $350/bag. The student had no choice and signed over the traveler’s checks. The next words out of the agent’s mouth were “It’s too late” and “I’m not helping you” - and refused to get her on the flight, rebook or offer any assistance whatsoever. This student was left with wasted travelers checks, and because the ticket was from Price-line - what seemed like an absolutely wasted ticket. By the way - the student was returning to Taipei - a new ticket would’ve been in the $2k range.

No way would I ever fly NW again - the company and airport were utterly remorseless about their treatment of this passenger.

We eventually were able to rebook - but had to buy new luggage and the same agent tried to pull the same stunt again the next day. It was an ordeal to be sure - appalling actually in such a small town.

Comment by Amy Jo — September 20, 2007 @ 11:59 am
No doubt choosing an airline is based on cost to some degree but, to me, customer service is also important. My two daughters and I recently had round trip tickets to Europe with Northwest. We were there to supervise a family member’s transfer to a care home so it was an emotionally challenging and wearing trip. We were really dissatisfied with Northwest’s customer service through their alliance partner, KLM. We had assigned seats on the trans-Atlantic flights. Having them is particularly important to me since I suffer from chlaustrophobia and need an aisle seat. The outward bound trip was uneventful but on the return, our ‘assigned’ seats were given to two unrelated male customers (we were female and family) with the middle seat being left vacant. No explanation was given to us. When I pushed for an answer as to why our ‘assigned’ seats were changed, the KLM employee basically told me that unless I paid for business class the airline wouldn’t guarantee me anything. Since I had paid nearly $5,000 for our tickets, I wasn’t happy to be told that it was worth nothing to the airline. I have made a written complaint and, so far, remain unsatisfied, although I’m going to continue with my complaint. I would definitely pay more for courteous treatment from airline employees. Traveling is stressful enough without being treated like cattle. Do you have any suggestions as to how I might obtain a response that isn’t a boilerplate “go away” and patently not even the truth in terms of its ‘facts’?
Geraldine M. Sutcliffe,J.D.

Comment by Geraldine Sutcliffe — September 20, 2007 @ 12:38 pm
Planning a trip for 6 to Italy late June to Mid July 2008 and want to know the best time to book between now and then. I want to use mileage (AA) for one ticket and purchase the others. Any airlines. When is the best time to set this up?

Comment by Helen — September 20, 2007 @ 2:17 pm
Rick I would appreciate you to consider to join theWiWiH Hospitality and Travel Bloggers Community

Comment by Happy Hotelier — September 24, 2007 @ 7:45 am
I’m a little confused about how your FareCompare Deal Alerts work. I’ve been trying to book a flight to visit my sister in San Francisco, and over the past week or so have gotten several fantastic low fare deal alerts for the Philly-SFO route.

Each time, I go immediately to the FareCompare site, where, when I try to book, it says Fare Hasn’t Been Loaded Yet. I continue trying every 15 minutes or so, sometimes for several hours, when suddenly it’ll say Fare Sold Out. This same exact thing has happened three times in the past week or so.

What’s the deal? It almost smells of a scam. Is Continental really releasing these seats? Or are the Deal Alerts not quite real? How can I get these fares?

Comment by Rona — September 25, 2007 @ 9:56 am
Hi Rona,

This is not a “scam”, it is the way the airlines have set up the system to work. Let me give some quick background.

1) Airlines publish between 8-12 price points for a given city pair

2) The cheapest published prices normally only go to about 10-15% of passengers on a particular flight — although 100% want the cheapest and these seats are sold at a “loss” to what it costs to operate the aircraft for those seats

3) The alerts we send are filed by the airlines and we receive them directly from the airlines, we process them in minutes and send them to you hours before the airlines post them (thus the not loaded yet message)

4) The airlines decide on a case by case basis, every time you make a query on whether or not they will sell you a seat on a particular flight at the cheapest price, or one of the other 8-12 higher price points. They can and do change their minds often, based on hundreds of variables including the current demand and how well they sold and and what price they sold those eats historically.

We continue to work on tools to make sure you are not wasting your time when you get an alert and the airlines are not releasing seats on the days you want to travel.

The bottom line is that by getting the alert you are now more informed than 99% of all other passengers who for the most part completely stumble upon a good deal by sheer luck — you know what a good price is, you know the airline has filed a good price and that on certain days (not necessarily your preferred days) they are releasing seats at that price — stay tuned for many more improvements in the alert system, our site is still a work in progress.

Comment by Rick Seaney — September 25, 2007 @ 11:29 am
The email alert just received indicated many $225 fares out of Toronto to Phoenix and LAX for example. When checking those city pairs on travelocity, it indicates there are NO seats for the whole duration of the fare. I find that often. Lots of these fares are phantom fares - they exist on paper alone and so what good are they?

Comment by Jeffrey — September 25, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
Hi Rick,

I read with interest the enquiry from the party wishing to travel from DFW to Athens and onto Paris.
I am a UK resident, and have recently booked return seats from UK to Houston with Air France. The total cost was an almost unbelievable 719 ($1400 approx.)for two people travelling in June next year.
I haven’t checked, but flights from the US into Paris could be very competitive with Air France.

Regards,
Paul

Comment by Paul Robinson — September 27, 2007 @ 9:12 am
Rick: Just a note on the senior boarding passes. We can’t do the boarding passes for seniors. Because the airline needs to see there picture ID to verify the age

Comment by Jan Anderson — September 27, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
I would think that the only thing thats important on airline travel is not the food or late departure, but the thing that really matters is seating and leg room. If necessary you can bring all your food and wait for hours to take off but you have to have some room on the plane when you board. A lot of people have got taller so they need the space.
Im very sad I have to fly to Chicago over Christmas. I just hate to be cramped in a tiny seat that’s made for a child.
But the greedy airlines want that extra buck.

Comment by Robert Henry — September 27, 2007 @ 4:48 pm
Saw your article on JET BLUE. Not only are they not very cheap, their service has declined tremendously over the past two years. I can’t stand them. Also, at JFK, they didn’t forwarn me that one had to take a special bus to their gates, even though I had called to talk to them about the fact that I would be traveling with my 86 year old mother, who can barely walk at all!!!! How nasty is that?

Comment by eileen — October 2, 2007 @ 12:46 pm
I was excited about your publicized information:
$299 - Mayan beachfront all inclusive with air

However, in going to the CheapCaribbean.com reference site, it’s just for cruises. Also, it looks like this is an advertiser’s opportunity to get a person on their mailing list only.

As a consumer, I would appreciate your checking the veracity of a referral before publishing it.

Comment by maureen buchholz — October 4, 2007 @ 1:17 pm
Dear Rick, We wanted to get out of the cold this Christmas but realized this is THE busiest time for vacation travel. After receiving an e-mail alert to Honolulu my family of four is now flying to Hawaii for $1300 total!!! Thanks for all you do, we’ll be thinking about you when we are opening Santa’s presents on Waikiki Beach.

Comment by Dan Roth — October 19, 2007 @ 10:18 am
I enjoy and subscribe to your rss feed- unfortunately the ’stock’ photos you include with every single post just clog up my newsreader (Opera) making me scroll down to read the post. If it’s relavant to the post that’s fine but these generic photos add nothing.

Comment by g — October 24, 2007 @ 9:21 am
Hi there everyone,

I just wanted to publicly announce and thank Southwest Airlines for the professional way they handled my complaint. After a little bit of waiting time, they sent me a personal letter addressing the complaint and kept me as a customer.

So kudos to Southwest for good customer service (or making up for initial bad service).

Comment by Megan — October 24, 2007 @ 11:28 pm
Rick - I booked a business trip last week but my wife became ill and I needed to take her to the hospital, where she continues to be.
I had no trouble cancelling my air line ticket that I had purchased through Ultimate Aifares,or Hotel room.

When I tried to cancel my $40.90 Hotwire.com car rental they said no unless I could provide a doctors note on hospital letterhead. While I am in the emergency room at the Hospital I sheepishly aske the attending physician if he would mind writing me a note on his letterhead stating where I was and that I could not keep my appointments or reservations. The physician didn’t have letterhead stationary in the emergency room so he wrote his note on a hospital prescription pad with a prescription number and hospital address and he signed the note.

Hotwire rejected the note saying it needed to be on letterhead and I’m out $40.90!

It’s unfortunate that a company essentially thinks of their customers as a bunch of liars until they jump through enough hoops to prove what they are saying is the truth. “I think you attract more bee’s with honey”

I hope they enjoy their $40.90 theft. They could have made more by retaining me as a customer.

I’ll never use Hotwire again.

Comment by Chad — November 9, 2007 @ 6:54 pm
Hi Rick,

Glad to see the blog has been integrated with the main farecompare site. One request, however: Any chance your IT people could give us the option of viewing all blog posts in ‘expanded’ form? With so much of every post below the fold, it’s a real pain to have to constantly click links to read each post. I’d much prefer a very long page that requires less navigation.

Comment by Nick — November 14, 2007 @ 5:21 pm
How about some RSS feeds on your website? That would be perfect!

Comment by Celine — November 15, 2007 @ 1:48 pm
Where can my wife and I go this spring break (22-29 March) where there won’t be a bunch of drunk college students trashing the place out? The less kids the better! Prefer something within four hour flight of Chicago.

Comment by Stella — November 15, 2007 @ 7:04 pm
Hi Nick and Celine, comment #118-119

We moved to a shorter style because of feedback that people wanted to scan the topic quickly and then if interested get the detail. Since I tended to be wordy some times it was impossible to scan all the posts.

I will put up a RSS link in the next day or so when/if I get back to Dallas (my 2 hour delay is now 5 hours … ugh) — I’ll also be adding back in the search feature as well.

Comment by Rick Seaney — November 15, 2007 @ 10:57 pm
I’ll be honest destinations themselves are not my strong suit — getting you there cheaply is however

I have been told that both Tampa (off the coast a bit) and Destin are comparatively quiet and spectacular places for Spring break — Tampa would be cheaper on airfare, so use the extra money you save from Chicago to get one of those nice condo suites

Cheers,

Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — November 15, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
Hi Chad, comment #117

I’ll have someone, contact you via your email and see if we can’t help out — I know the people at Hotwire and they are usually on the ball — sounds like they might of dropped it in this case …

Comment by Rick Seaney — November 15, 2007 @ 11:06 pm
Hi Maureen, comment #113

As you know our site is completely free and I have 20+ employees who depend on me writing them a check each week. We do this by advertising on the site. We do check out our advertisers, but we can’t vet every ad — if we did I would need 100+ employees — I apologize for this waste of your time and promise we will be as diligent as possible to make sure both our site and our advertisers provides the best value.

Comment by Rick Seaney — November 15, 2007 @ 11:10 pm
Hi Jan, comment #110

You are definitely correct, I just ran into this with my wifes father on Southwest because he hates not getting in Group A, we decided to get him a full airfare and get a friend to print it out for him in the home ticket printing time window — so he gets Group A.

Thanks for keeping me straight

Comment by Rick Seaney — November 15, 2007 @ 11:13 pm
Dear Rick,

The following is the letter I am sending to United CS via US mail. I’ll see what kind of response I will get. That definitely counts as our worst 2007 travel experience. Thank you for all the tips.

=============
Director Customer Relations
United World Headquarters/WHQPW
P O Box 66100
Chicago, IL 60666-9918

RE: Disastrous Flight

Our family of 4 (under three different confirmations) had the following trip:
(Confirmation #:
JNFCSA Jieru Chen 00638195976
JPOMHK Ziwen Guo 00638195984
MW33NN Spencer Guo 03142393130
& Sebastian Guo 03142393149 )

Our original itinerary:
12/21/07: Green Bay (8:04) to OHare (9:05)
OutboundORD (10:45) to Shanghai, China (15:00pm 12/22/2007)

Our actual outbound flight:

We arrived at the Green Bay airport (GRB) at 7am that morning. We were informed that the flight was delayed due to weather in Chicago, then United rep informed us that the plane that was on its way from ORD to Green Bay had to turn around to ORD for an emergency landing. All the passengers were sent back to the ticketing to rebook the flights.

The four of us were rebooked on AA from GRB to ORD, then on United from ORD to Tokyo (NRT) on flight 883, and then on ANA from NRT to Shanghai, scheduled to arrive in Shanghai at 9pm 12/22/2007.

About 4-5 hours away from NRT, the captain of Flight 883 announced that water was leaking on that plane, they had to turn back to land in Anchorage, AS (which was probably 2-3 hours back tracking flight). We were told that we would spend the night in AS, and United was not sure when the next day we would be able to leave for NRT. Around 9pm Alaska time, the plane landed in Anchorage, and all the passengers were bussed to a hotel. The next morning, we learned that we would leave AS 8:30pm that day (12/22/07). On Saturday 8:30pm, 12/22, we were put on a different plane, and flown into NRT. We got to NRT around 9:30pm, Sunday Dec 23. It was too late to fly out of NRT, so United put us in a hotel again.

When we got to NRT, United agents were waiting to pass out new connecting flight information to all the passengers. However, there was nothing for my family. One male agent went into the office to rebook us the connecting flight. He scribbled the connecting flight information on my previous ticket receipt. Our connecting flight was Air China 0158 (leaving 12/24 8:55am). I did not give it much thought until the next morning when we arrived at the Air China check in. We were told our names were not in their reservation. I explained to the agent at Air China the whole situation again, told her United agent did not give us any thing other the scribbling. The agent asked us for the vouchers from the United, which were not provided to us by the United the previous night. I told the Air China agent to call the United, and was told the United office does not open until 9am. Keep in mind that our Air China flight leaves at 8:55am. I told the Air China agent that we have to get on this flight (our flight has been delayed long enough). I gave her the Uniteds US 1-800 number, explaining to her that she connect me with US agent, and I will explain the situation. Then she went to talk to maybe her boss, it looked to me that they might have got through United agent in NRT, and were assured that United will send them the vouchers. Only after then we were put on the Air China flight. It was 11:00am Dec 24th, nearly 2 whole days after our scheduled arrival time, that we arrived in Shanghai.

By the time we arrived in both Anchorage as well as Tokyo, it was midnight Shanghai time, I called my sister informing her about the situation. I did not call my 84 year old mom, since it was midnight her time. My poor mother got so worried about my late arrival that she fell seriously ill.

We feel that a mere certificate from United is not enough to cover the emotional and physical suffering of our families for this outbound flight. Our family expect a compensation that reflects all the sufferings we have gone through

Inbound flight (PVG 5pm 1/4/08 to ORD 4pm 1/4/08); then ORD 5:45pm to GRB 6:45 pm).

The flight from PVG to ORD was delayed almost 3 hours, subsequently, we were rebooked for the 9:45 pm flight from ORD to GRB, arriving in GRB 10:30pm, almost 4 hour later than our scheduled arrival. For the inbound flight, we would accept the certificate from United.

Comment by Jieru Chen — January 7, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
HI,,,
Taking family to vegas - 2/13/08 to 2/26/08 ..from NYC or Islip on Long Island — Do you think airfares will be coming between now and 02/02/08 or purchase now. Leaning towards jetblue or southwest airfares … Thank you for time ..joe

Comment by joe — January 16, 2008 @ 8:46 pm
Airlines used to have a heap of people up on the flight deck - pilot, copilot, navigator, radioman, etc. - but that number dwindled over time as more functions became automated and streamlined. Now, most jets have just two folks at the controls. Will this ever change, or is two really the best number?

Crew, especially pilots, are expensive, but any less would likely be too unsettling to the public (Monday’s Air Canada flight - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3279949.ece - being the latest example; seems the first officer pulled a Britney mid-flight). Airlines could conceivably add another person back to the flight deck, if some new cost-effective function required it, but I can’t imagine any such role.

Comment by T — January 31, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
I thought that Rick and the readers would be interested in reading this e-mailed response pertaining to my complaint about United Airline’s new $25 charge for checking the second bag. I guess that they think that I am a mushroom and live totally in the dark.

“Dear Mr. West,

I am sorry to learn about your disappointment with our new Baggage policy.

Mr. West, I understand you are disappointed and dissatisfied with the new policy, however please allow me to apprise you that our new baggage policy will simplify the checked bags process for our Customer Service employees at the check-in counter, leading to increased efficiency. We also believe that this new policy may decrease the frequency of overweight bags - a safety and workload benefit for ramp employees.

Please be assured, I have forwarded your feedback to our management responsible for formulation Baggage policy for their information and internal review, so they understand how this change felt from your point of view. Your feedback is important to us and in fact, helps us identify our shortcomings and gives us an opportunity to make service improvements.

Please give us an opportunity to provide you the service you expect from United Airlines.

Regards,

Bhupendra Singh Bisht
United Airlines Customer Relations”

—–Original Message—–
Received: 2/6/2008 2:16:28 AM
Subject: Web Request for Customer Relations

Message type: Customer Relations Complaint

Response required: Yes

Congratulations to your misguided upper management team for taking the latest step to destroy whatever little was left of United’s Friendly Skies! The decision to charge an additional $25 to check a second bag for nonrefundable economy class tickets is the final step for the continued demise of a once-proud legacy carrier. I suppose that next you will announce a facilities charge to use the onboard lavatories. ****I am a former long-time Premier member who used to consider United his airline of choice for a considerable amount of business travel in the days when the airline industry was considered to be a “service”
industry.

Mr. Robert West

Comment by Robert West — February 6, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
spirit has brought back their “milf” sale.

they’re calling it “return of the m.i.l.f. hotter and cheaper than ever!!”

how crass can an airline be?

Comment by mel — April 17, 2008 @ 3:20 pm
Does anyone have any idea if prices are going to come down anytime soon? I have yet to book seats for my July travel because I can not stomach paying upwards of 500 dollars per ticket. Last year at this time the same trip cost me 300 per ticket. If things don’t change I’ll have to either dip into some savings or cancel…

Comment by Lara — April 29, 2008 @ 9:46 am
Holey moley, as I live and breath. I found you by accident!! :p I remember you neglecting to tell me that DECUS was really GEEKUS. Do you remember the Plano Research Center?

This is an awesome site, I’m very impressed - and I’ve signed up. Looking for one way tickets from Glasgow to Portland, Oregon, hoping this will help.

Nice job.

Marianne

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Comment by Christine & Josepha — May 22, 2008 @ 10:11 am
I underwent the nightmare of trying to fly to Nicaragua on American Airlines on May 23, Friday. I was supposed to come back on Sunday, May 25. Instead, on the 23rd I sat in a hot plane for 3-1/2 hours, while one of American’s “highly qualified” mechanics tried, unsuccessfully, to fix a minor problem with the intercom system. We were finally booted out of the $%# plane and told to go board another one. Again, same situation, but this time the “highly qualified” mechanics were successful in repairing a minor problem with the intercom system, but the crew “had exceeded their allowable number of working hours”, so the flight had to be cancelled. Talked to AA’s “customer service” people, and I was told that there was no way I could fly out to Nicaragua until Sunday, and I had to come back on Monday. Well, not a whole lot of choice, is there? I flew on Sunday, and when I got there, my bags were not. Surprise!! Talked to the disrespectful AA woman behind the service counter, who told me that my bags had arrived the day before and that I had to come back to the airport the following day to pick them up on my way to catch my return flight (great!!). Showed up at the airport the following day and finally managed to extricate my bags. Returned to my sister’s home and left the bags with her (she will deliver the clothes to the orphanage).Back to the airport, and surprise - NO RESERVATION. KEEP AT IT American. You will not be in business long. And I thank you for the experience.

Comment by Rick Galvez — May 27, 2008 @ 10:53 am
I was really impressed with your concept and have been totally depressed with your responses. We are planning on having our kids down to Tucson, AZ for Thanksgiving. They are coming from NYC, Twin Cities, and Portland OR. I have fare watches on all three pairs and have received numerous fare alerts. Unfortunately, all the alerts I have gotten from you are ALL higher priced than I can buy directly from the airline. In addition, you completely missed a fare reduction that I just received about the MSP-TUS route. I am completely confused and wonder what I may have done wrong or what is going on here. This is mystifying !!!!! Thanks for the help Tom H.

Comment by Tom & Jude — June 4, 2008 @ 1:04 am
I think it is a real shame that some airlines are considering charging extra for overweight people. This is pure discrimination. Where do we stop with this nonsense? As it is now they charge for ever little item such as luggage that is 2 inches to big or half a pound over weight or a bag of pretzels that maybe coast them 3 cents. When they start charging to use that poor excuse of a bathroom onboard I am done!

But back to my main issue this overweight passenger charge. Are they going to make ever person who may look overweight to step on a scale in front of everyone in line? How demeaning and embarrassing. Take a man who looks trim but is tall and has a muscular build and he can way the same if not more that a 5 ft. 2 in. tall woman who is plump. I guarantee she will be asked to step on the scale and he will not. It is pure discrimination. I truly hope the airlines receive a flood of lawsuits if they proceed with this ridiculous behavior.

Comment by Sandy — June 6, 2008 @ 11:03 am
I thought you would appreciate knowing about a new airline. I’m sure your readers would enjoy hearing about it as well.

Save money…lose weight and pack less.
http://flyderrie-air.com/

Hmmm, how will this affect FareCompare’s comparison charts?

Enjoy!
–Jason

Comment by Jason — June 6, 2008 @ 2:27 pm
Rick -

Have you ever heard of the practice of Spirit Airlines issuing boarding passes for seats that do not exist?

When my octogenarian in-laws arrived several days ago, they told me about the confusion they encountered after boarding a Spirit flight from LGA to DTW, and learning that middle and window seats 4E and 4F respectively were apparently not valid seats on that particular configuration of the Airbus 319. Several other customers were also confused, but everyone did eventually find a seat.

I suspected that maybe they were just confused with the configuration of the aircraft, so I have already checked their return journey from DTW to LGA on June 16th at the Spirit Airlines website, and sure enough they have the same seats…and even the diagram showing the seat location shows that 4E and 4F simply don’t exist on the Airbus 319!

Have anyone heard of this happening before, and why Spirit Airlines might do this?

Comment by Andrew Kules — June 9, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
Hi Rick!

Thank you for the excellent article 5/2 on cities with the most loss/gain in # of seats of service.
I have a close friend who has recently been certified as a pilot on commuter aircraft. She was quite impressed with her old routes now gone-Massena to Odgensburg to Watertown,etc..ending up in Pittsburgh. Works for a different company now.
I’m writing to ask about any info you have on Toledo. I get the monthly OAG flight schedules booklet and they no longer even list TOL flights TO or FROM anywhere. They must have a requirement of X 100’s or 1000’s of seats weekly/monthly to even be listed. The only way I know of to fly home now is CO via CLE from BTV, then the Beech 1900 short hop along Lake Erie. NWA via DTW from BTV is the other option and a bit less expensive but still prop service on the last short leg. It rarely drops below $500 RT on either market so I haven’t gone for 2 years.
Any info you have access to on loss of or addition of seats to and from TOL is greatly appreciated. Keep up the great work and the blog,etc…all of your staff.
Best wishes,
Sincerely,Tim Jaqua
Bristol,VT

Comment by Tim — June 12, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
Hi Rick,
I just thought you would like to know something I saw on the AA flight from MIA to LGA I took in April. Half way through the flight, I noticed that a lady across the aisle from me was knitting … with, you know, a pair of brilliantly sharp knitting needles! In this age of plastic utensils both on- and off- ground (like restaurants inside the terminal) it was shocking to see this (apparently harmless-looking) lady with the (unquestionably hazardous) needles onboard. Do you know if there is a TSA rule on knitting in the air?
Cheers,
George

Comment by George — June 13, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
Hi!

I am not receiving alerts via email despite having several set up. Anyone got any advice on how to fix this?

I know there’s no problem with the email address I provided because I have received 3 other emails from the Fare Compare site. I also know that the problem is not that there hasn’t been any alerts to send, because the My Trips page lists several alerts that I should, presumably, have received for each of my trips.

I’ve also checked that the alerts are not in my spam folder and also I’ve carried out a full email search just in case they have been routed to another folder (they haven’t).

Please someone help - I’m desperate to get this working!

Thanks
Dave

Comment by Dave — June 16, 2008 @ 4:18 pm
Dave I have forwarded your message or our mailto:customer.service@farecompare.com — they will help sort things out.

Comment by Rick Seaney — June 16, 2008 @ 11:09 pm
Hi Rick,
We are planning a Spring Break ‘09 trip to Washington DC out of either Tampa Bay or Orlando (a 1 wk stay between 4/10 & 4/19). Based on your historical charts a ticket under $100 would be a great deal. Current prices are well over $200. Given the recent price hikes and no end in sight to oil prices rising, my husband thinks we should just buy now. Given the current state of the economy would you recommend continuing to watch and wait over the next 6 months?
Thanks for your thoughts,
Wendy

Comment by Wendy — June 18, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
Good morning. I am planning a Greek/Italy cruise for August/Sept 09. Is it better to book the trip this far in advance or would you recommend waiting until closer to the date? Logic tells me prices aren’t going down but will likely increase; however, last minute deals can be money saving… Any suggestions on must see in those 2 countries? First trip and likely will spend 10-12 days. Any comments/suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Comment by Amanda — June 19, 2008 @ 7:14 am
Hey Rick, great info on the extra charges. One note: Hawaiian does not serve meals on inter-island flights, but they do on international flights…and they’re FREE!

Comment by Joe Stella — June 19, 2008 @ 9:30 am
RE: Airline Fees: I would like to see the airlines drop the 1st bag charge and start charging for each carry-on that has to be stored anywhere but under the seat. The carry-on baggage is becoming larger and more dangerous. I’ve seen people hit in the head because someone’s carry-on was too large for them to handle and get up in the overhead compartment.

Comment by Linda Elliott — June 19, 2008 @ 9:48 am
Can you make the airline fee chart printable so I can pass on to my clients(great idea-but make room for the toilet charges–ha! ha!)

Comment by Carolyn Marra — June 19, 2008 @ 9:50 am
I experienced what seems like a rather unethical and deceitful practice from United recently. I had a one hundred dollar voucher from a trip that I wanted to use. I search the United web site found a schedule and typed in the voucher number. In red text I was told the voucher could not be accepted. I called United, and of course because this took so long I lost the flight I had chosen online. Once I got through the man told me my voucher had fraudulent activity associated with it, huh? He put me in another long queue on the phone for someone else in India who I had to plead with to get her to issue me a new voucher number immediately, she did. I go back online, follow through with instructions to enter the voucher then make my selection of flight. I find a fare and the next screen tells me I can’t have that fare due to something that didn’t make sense, (seemed like a form of bait & switch?) and here is the fare available. That fare was so much more expensive, even with the discount voucher. I executed the search multiple times and got the same outcome. Has anyone experienced this, anyone know the facts? It has me thinking all sorts of paranoid thoughts and certainly about the future of travel.

Comment by terry — June 19, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
I’ve experienced the fare increases first-hand. I’m in a relationship with someone in Houston so I frequently fly from San Diego to Hobby airport (HOU) or Bush (IAH) every other month. When I fly into IAH use Continental as they are the only direct flight and the prices were reasonable (usually between $220-$300 for a roundtrip). Back in February the fare was typically between $220 and $280. Now the cheapest fare I have received was $400. It has almost doubled. I noticed it used to be slightly cheaper to fly on Continental rather than Southwest back in the winter. Basically it was a difference of about only $50. This has totally changed. Now it is slight cheaper to fly on Southwest, by about $50, but both carriers have increased prices by almost 70%. Previously I paid $224 to fly on Southwest back in Dec and January. They used to have deals of $99 each way so this was great. As the months progressed there were no more deals like this. They have not had a deal like this for 5 months. The cheapest I have seen one way is $139, and those flights are usually not convenient for me, and that is usually only one flight out of the 6-7 they offer. I just paid $377 roundtrip and I had to pick times that were not convenient for me (leaving at 12:50PM on a Friday instead of at 4:50pm). I used to be able to fly to Houston in the late afternoon (5PM) and then return to San Diego on an 8AM or 9AM flight that would get me into San Diego by 11AM or 12PM (usually coming back on a Mon or Tues). It’s just getting more and more expensive. This represents a whopping 68% increase in fare. I thought Southwest bought oil futures so they were not as affected by the increase in the price of oil. I guess they are now charging more for key flights (like the 5PM departures) in order to stay afloat.

Comment by Toby — June 20, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
hello

when will you include business class on your site in checking for international flights? first class is beyond our means on international flights, but i will stay home in preference to flying steerage with its associated discomfort of the very long flights from seattle to europe.

Comment by jim — June 25, 2008 @ 12:19 am
I appreciate your email, however, anytime that I click on a link, it says that it cannot be located in the database.

Any help would be appreciated.

Comment by John — June 26, 2008 @ 4:07 pm
Hi,

I found out that Delta airlines is charging their ticketed passengers for the second checked piece of luggage no matter when they purchased their ticket. If a passenger had purchased their ticket prior to the rate change, they will be reimbursed after they have traveled and once they fill out an online form. Also, about Delta airlines, I’m not sure if it’s a cash reimbursement or a reimbursement for furture trave with Detla. Do you know of any other airlines that are doing that as well?

Comment by Lisa — June 27, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
Rick: Stay-cation - as I recall, the term orignated with Canadian comic Brett Butt from the tv series ‘Corner Gas’.
I agree Rick, it would be a sad day if we could no longer travel due to either economics or politics or both!
I personally have found that those who travel overseas can’t help but have a wider view of the world.
Thanks Rick for your great site.

Comment by Lady North — July 2, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
i have a 5 hr layover in saltlake city airport w/3 kids. any ideas what i can do to past the time? thanks

Comment by joe — July 4, 2008 @ 6:32 pm
Hi Rick,

I am a big fan of Farecompare and I use it regularly, but on one of my searches I came across something that confused me a little, well, a lot actually.

I was searching for a trip from Calgary to Toronto, and found some really cheap flights, but when I did a ‘mouse-over’on the price it indicated that the carrier was Westex, now don’t take me wrong here, I know you are an expert at what you do. But I have never heard of that airline in Canada, certainly not in Calgary, so I did some simple research (Google it) and found out there is a so called ‘virtual airline’ (Fake airline used by flight enthusiasts)that also carries that name. My confusion here lies in the fact that I don’t know if there are two Westex carriers, a real one, and the fake one, or if this is just a simple case of mistaken identity.

My appologies in advance Rick if I sound like a complete uneducated moron, but like I said I’m no expert and I’m just a little confused.

Kind regards,

Rigo A.
Calgary, Alberta

Comment by Rigo — July 11, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
My husband, 3 yr old daughter and I need to fly from upstate NY to Minneapolis for the holidays. We do not mind driving a bit to get a more reasonable airfare. Although we can find several alternate airports on our departure end, we are having less success finding alternate airports for MSP (and the NWA dominated market). Any suggestions?

Comment by Ann — July 16, 2008 @ 8:52 am
In June, I took a vacation traveling from Hawaii to Orlando. I used Alaska Air going to and Delta coming back. Both trips were booked in February and first class. What bothers me is the state of first class accommodation and the food they were serving. On Alaska, it was a 737 that didn’t have any footrest so there was no way to prop your feet up and nap. Food was only OK. I had requested specific meals and was informed that they (Alaska Air) no longer offered that service. No apologies, nothing.

Delta didn’t do much to restore my faith. We did have a 767 but again no foot rest. But the food was probably the worst aspect. Although they serve the meals, it came on those trays that used to serve in coach. Everything came on it…no separate appetizers, salad, main meal. The only “course” was the dessert which was ice cream w/chocolate topping.

Geez, is the state of first class these day? Has to make you wonder. Just last year my wife flew back on United first and said it was great. American, same thing. Seems like we pay more but get less…a lot less these days.

Comment by Ralph — July 24, 2008 @ 12:45 am
How do I find the “lowest fare available on alternate dates”?

Comment by jayant — July 24, 2008 @ 8:24 pm
Rick,

My boss is retiring in a few months…, and we want to give him a gift of travel, not sure of everything that is out there. I’m hoping that there’s something that doesn’t carry an expiration date, and works similar to a regular credit card. It can be either directly with an airline, or even through a Travelocity-type site.

Your assistance, advice, and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Comment by David W. — July 31, 2008 @ 11:24 am
Rick,

Thanks for all the info. We are planning an Alaska land/cruise in June 2009. The travel agent found seats on Northwest going to Anchorage and coming home (Richmond, Va) from Vancouver. The airlines will n ot let you select the bulk head seats in advance. My husband suffers from arthritis really bad and has a hard time sitting in a regular seat for long periods of time.
We have ff with usairways and sometimes do 1st class if it is a long trip. First class for this trip is $1300.00 more than coach.($1200.) Is there anyway to request the bulk head seats in advance or have to pay for 1st class in order to have a pleasant trip for him? I know you can request upgrade 48 hours b/4 the trip but isn’t it a good chance there will be none available?
Thank you for your time
Carol Gregg

Comment by Carol Gregg — August 7, 2008 @ 10:36 am
Was wondering why my name and email don’t

Comment by David W. — August 8, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
Rick, did you see this story:

Airline Cancels All Flights Booked Through Third-Party Systems
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ryanair-travellers-may-lose-bookings-1449260.html

Related commentary: http://techdirt.com/articles/20080808/1057031933.shtml and http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/08/2014229

Comment by mwarden — August 9, 2008 @ 10:52 pm
Good morning - received your recent email this morning. Look forward to them.

I wanted to let you know that I love your emails and website. I love getting flight updates on any flights I am interested in.

This past summer we flew from Atlanta to Ottawa, Canada and we used your website to find the best deals. Really appreciated all the emails regarding that flight. I was able to find a pretty decent price considering the cost of airfare. I had been watching flights and prices for weeks trying to get the best deal… work up one morning and the flight I love from Atlanta to Ottawa nonstop via Delta doubled in price during one nights sleep - I almost fainted when I woke up in the morning and saw the price jump. I used your site and found a much better deal and booked immediately. Thanks for that!!! I will continue to use your site for all our travels this coming year.

Keep up the good work and know that you guys are appreciated.

Jane

Comment by Jane — August 28, 2008 @ 7:53 am
Dear Rick,
I love you and farecompare.com! Got your notice on Friday, August 15 of fare from Montrose, CO to Atlanta for $145! I thought, no way - must mean each way….checked it out quickly - low and behold it was true - didn’t get the $145 ones, but did book two tickets to see the grandkids for $170 each! That is just a little more that what people pay to fly back and forth to Denver from here! WOO-HOO - I am a happy Nana!
Thank you again…

Comment by Eileen — August 28, 2008 @ 10:45 am
Rick,
First I want to tell you that I think you and Fare Compare are wonderful! I love getting all the helpful info I get!
Now for my question: My sisters and I are planning to fly from MSP to SAT in February or March 2009. Tickets right now are $200 round trip, including taxes and fees, on Frontier for January and early February. The price for dates after the week of Feb. 8th are around $365. One sister would prefer to go in March or late February and thinks prices for that time period will come down, especially since there appear to be a lot of seats left at this point. I think that’s a long-shot at best. What is your best guess about what prices will do?

Thanks much! Carol

Comment by Carol — August 31, 2008 @ 11:55 pm
We recently booked a flight on a Canadian airline that had just expanded its flights. Unfortunately, they went under before we were going to fly and before we had purchased trip insurance. We have gone to our credit card company as the airline website recommends, but it is taking forever to get the forms to complete to dispute the charge for the airfare. What can we do to expedite this and what else, if anything, can we do to try to get our money back?

Comment by Donna — September 4, 2008 @ 9:43 am
Heart attack victim can’t change ticket?
My elderly parents flew from San Jose to Cincinnati on United frequent-flyer miles to visit me. While they were here we drove to Detroit to attend a family wedding. My mother suffered a heart attack in Detroit and had surgery. Her doctor said she had to stay in Michigan for a week and then fly home to the Bay Area to follow up with her doctor. We called United to change her ticket to fly out of Detroit instead of Cincinnati, and they’re charging her $300 to change it because they say it’s a voluntary change. It’s not voluntary; it’s medically required (her Michigan doctor is willing to write a letter or do anything else to prove this is necessary). I know the airlines are hard up, but forcing a 72-year-old heart-attack victim to drive five hours to catch a cross-country flight seems over the top. Are there any rules that cover medically-required ticket changes?

Comment by Julie — September 8, 2008 @ 2:03 pm
I have a flight booked with Delta from Seattle to Puerto Vallarta on Jan.6, 06 returning on Feb. 10. I was supposed to leave at 6 am and arrive in PV at approximately 2:30 with a short stop in Salt Lake City. I just happened to check my itinerary online as I was hoping to book a friend on the same flight and to my surprise (and RAGE!!!) I see that the flights have totally changed!! I now go from SEA at 6 am to SL City to Los Angeles and finally arrive in Puerto Vallarta at 9:30 in the evening! No one from Delta has contacted me about this! The customer service agent said that eventually Delta will be notifying all the passengers of this change!!! This really irritates me! As a passenger who booked way back in July, do I have any recourse for this kind of treatment and poor service??

Comment by Norah Lambkin — September 22, 2008 @ 10:39 pm
Further to my dissatisfaction with Delta’s schedule changes… When I looked more closely at the new itinerary that Delta had planned for me, I noticed that the connection times in Phoenix were impossible. ie. my connecting flight was scheduled to leave before I arrived!
Goodbye Delta. I feel sorry for all the people who are still unaware that their holiday flight to Puerto Vallarta has changed and that the ‘new’ schedule is totally screwed up as well. I asked for my money back on a “nonrefundable” and received it! I have rebooked with another airline.

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Comment by Christine & Josepha — September 25, 2008 @ 5:02 am
Rick,

The frequent flier program miles required for an award as shown on your site are inaccurate, in my experience. This past summer I tried to use miles on a Continental flight from NY to ABQ and was told I needed 100K for a coach round trip ticket, and that on a one stop flight with a change of planes. Unless you are a high miles business traveler, these programs are worthless. You can never use your points and my 40K points are worthless.

I have basically stopped flying. I drive everywhere within reason and will only fly now in an emergency.

Thanks for you excellent site.

Mary Fran,
NYC

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Comment by Christine & Josepha — October 9, 2008 @ 4:15 am
Dear Rick,

I need your help in trying to figure out how to set up the reuest I need to know about lower fares. I just set up my profile i farecompare.com. I am in Naples, Florida and my husband and I will be flying out of Fort Myers, Fl. on either Thursday, May 7th (2009) or Friday morning May 8th to New York City for a big family wedding. Which ever is a better rate day. On Sunday, May 10th I want to fly with my husband to London UK because we are taking a Cruise out of South Hampton, England. Want to stay in London two nights Ship leaves on May 13th. Still need to figure out how to get to the port in Southhampton. The RCCL ship end in Barcelona, Spain May 24th. We would like to stay in Barcelona for two nights and fly back on the 26th. We think we may have to fly back to Miami better yet Ft. Lauderdale to get a good rate. The problem I have is the Farecompare.com rate did not show me how to set up the one way rates I am trying to find when rates go down. The request for the destination city ask for round trip dates. Would you be able to let me know how I can do this so I can be on the right track and start watching when rates come down so I can book our flights. Thank you so much for any help you can give me.

Comment by Vicki Feder — October 21, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
Delta pulls a bait and switch!

Dear Rick,

I recently used some of my Delta frequent flier miles to fly my daughter home from college for this upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas. I used a lot of miles to avoid her having a long layover. Last week, Delta informs me that the flights she was scheduled and confirmed on back in August have been now been cancelled. They have rescheduled her but now with long layovers. I feel I should be given some miles back since I used more initially to avoid flights with long layovers. I could have scheduled the flights they now put her on and expended less mileage than I did originally! Your thoughts?

-Phil Ciufo
Pittsford, New York

Comment by Phil Ciufo — October 27, 2008 @ 3:54 pm
With the baggage charges the way they are going I am wondering what you thought about using UPS or FEDEX to ship one’s luggage? I have heard of people doing this particularly for bulky items like skis and golf clubs but it seemed cost prohibitive. Recently it is starting to seem like not a bad option if you factor in that cabs sometimes charge for bulky items and FEDEX, UPS, DHL et al seem to have better tracking than the airlines.

Comment by Don Mark — November 13, 2008 @ 4:53 pm
Rick:
I read your advice to Marilyn who, like me, booked early and watched the fare go down considerably on Northwest.
I followed your advice and was able to obtain the new fare at a cost of $50.00 Administrative fee per ticket.
However, it was not easy. The responses I received from the regular customer service people was that it would cost $150.00 per ticket to rebook and receive the lower fare. Soooooo, I demanded to speak with a supervisor, got cut off, called again and was able to reach a supervisor.
I explained I was aware of the $50.00 charge for re-booking at the lower fare and insisted on it rather than the $150.00 charge. Long story short, I was given the $50.00 option and received vouchers against future travel for the difference in fares less the $50.00 charge.
It can really pay to read your newsletters!!
Thanks again.

Comment by Hal Wesler — November 15, 2008 @ 8:12 pm
Hi Rick,
I was a passenger on the us airways flight 707 last year, and unbelievably im still dealing with the compensation. I was wondering what ever happened to your battle with them?
thanks,
jordan

Comment by jordan — November 25, 2008 @ 11:40 am
Watch out for ORBITZ using Fare Compare
I hve been watching flights to Hawaii for my daughters wedding we finally broke downand bought tickets. We used Orbitz because they had a good price and the SEEMED to have a price guarentee. HAHAHAHAHA!
TWO DAYS after I bought the tickets the price fell by more than $100.00 each. I called Orbitz to check about the guarentee only to find out they only honor that IF they sell the IDENTICAL tickets at this lower price andof course only they will ever know if that happens. I have seen this price advertized for two weeks now and they STILL claim they have never sold another ticket for this flight. Lesson learned THERE ARE NO PRICE GUARENTEES!

Comment by Nancy — November 25, 2008 @ 7:07 pm
Help! 1.your add a trip stayed stuck on bottom right of computer. Please Fix. Send back a reply to alert me you have corrected.
2. I donot like a no reply e mail address! I would prefer a reply email if you are going to write me an e mail. I want equality of consideration.
3. I was unable o change my user name & password. Help. Please send a written reply to my 3 specific concerns if you want to encourage to use us to use your website!

Mr. & Mrs. D. Simeone, San Diego

Comment by Damien Simeone — December 4, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
Damien,

Our customer service staff has emailed you and addressed your concerns.

Comment by Rick Seaney — December 4, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
Hello Rick:

I stumbled upon the below web site and wonder if it is true. Have you heard anything about it?

http://petairways.com/

Regards, Wendy

Comment by Wendy — December 5, 2008 @ 3:17 am
Rick,

I am interested to purchase a Coach fare and travel in Business Class or First Class between Houston and Singapore

Thank you,

Richard

Comment by Richard — December 12, 2008 @ 12:32 am
Hello,

I downloaded and installed the FareCompare Dashboard Widget on my MacBook Pro (Mac OSX). It seems like a great tool and I’m excited to use it. One gripe though: there’s a bug in it that won’t let me deselect DFW as a destination city, and there’s no way to scroll, so 6 cities is the max allowable. I have no desire now or ever to go to DFW (not that I have a dislike - it’s just that I have no reason to) and I’d like to be able to track fares that I actually care about.

Thanks,

Aaron

Comment by Aaron Mentzer — December 24, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
Do you think the TSA is keeping us safe?

check out this blog about someone who carried Gunpowder through Airport Security:
http://wildbee.org/2008/12/09/carrying-gunpowder-through-airport-security/

Comment by Cliff — December 30, 2008 @ 10:19 am
Why do airfares change?

Comment by Thomas Parody — January 5, 2009 @ 7:44 am
The real question about TSA is: Are the costs for what they do reasonable?

Comment by Thomas Parody — January 5, 2009 @ 7:48 am
Dear Rick,
We just had the worst travel experience while flying with Delta this Christmas. I flew from JFK to Bogota with my husband and two babies (1 and 3).
Delta personnel diffuse anger and rudeness. In overall, the way Delta representatives and flight attendants are treating customers is inexplicable: Discourteous check-in personnel, Racist flight attendants, Delta agents raising their voice to the customers, etc.
I had the same experience last year traveling with AA.
Is there something we could do as consumers to stop this abuse?
Is there an agency that regulates airlines?

Comment by Adriana — January 13, 2009 @ 4:04 pm
Hi Adriana,

I’m sorry to hear about your travel experience. There are a few steps you can take. Before filing a complaint, you should check out Chris Elliott’s tips on what to do/not to do when complaining about a trip:

http://www.elliott.org/blog/how-not-to-complain-about-your-trip/

You can file a complaint with the Aviation Consumer Protection Division of the Dept. of Transportation:

http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/problems.htm
http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/escomplaint/es.cfm

You can also contact the airline via email or letter:

Delta Air Lines

email: customer-care@delta.com or
http://www.delta.com/emailus/servlet/EmailUs?cmd=go

Address:
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
1030 Delta Blvd.
Atlanta, GA 30354-1989

You can also try contacting:

Daiquiri Gleaves
Director, customer care
(404) 715-1402
daiquiri.gleaves@delta.com

Comment by Rick Seaney — January 14, 2009 @ 1:29 pm
HELP!!!
My son had an American Airlines RT ticket from St. Louis to Hawaii (Dec 13,2008 - Jan 3, 2009). He only used the first leg from St. Louis to Hawai but did not return because he will having surgery in Hawaii. I paid over $1,400 for the RT ticket. One AA rep told me we could only use the return ticket back to ST. Louis, another told me we could use it anywhere but would need to pay $150 without getting any refund if the ticket cost less. We might want to use it to go to LA, but the one way to LA is less than $300. Is there a way I can get a refund for the diffrence of the price of the ticket? I hate to have paid about $700 plus the $150 ($850) for a ticket to LA that actually costs less than $300.

Comment by gcbcw — January 21, 2009 @ 2:42 pm
GCBCW,

We contacted you directly by email with some thoughts regarding the $150 change fee, the differing advice of the American Airlines employees, refunds, and your specific situation. Please let us know how things work out, and let us know if you need further help.

Comment by Rick Seaney — January 22, 2009 @ 1:00 pm
My business requires that I travel Monday through Thursday, sometimes Friday, to multiple destinations covering 34 states as a Division VP for a large wine importer. I’ve traveled with a number of different carriers and can say without hesitation that my carrier of choice is Southwest. Set the alarm on your pda to go off 24 hours in advance of your flight and log on to their website to check in online. You will be in the low “A” group and have the seat of your choice. They’re friendly, their flights are on time….. the best in the air. JFL III

Comment by JFL III — January 22, 2009 @ 3:05 pm
Rick,
What are your feelings about non-owner car insurance? I live in NYC and do not have a car. When I travel and have to rent a car, my credit card only covers a portion of the car rental insurance. I have been doing research on non-owner car insurance, but from what I’m finding, that doesn’t cover the whole thing, either. And no one can tell me what insurance I really need; they all just give the sales spiel (just how much money does car rental agencies profit from selling insurance??)

Comment by Denise — January 29, 2009 @ 5:15 pm
What is your best guess as to what will happen with airfares to Athens in the next 3 months? I am planning a trip and don’t know if I should wait to book my travel or book now. Thanks.

Comment by Kathy — February 4, 2009 @ 10:54 am
Hi Kathy,

This is the year to go to Europe. We’re going to see sub-$1000 fares for summer travel and sub-$700 for spring travel. Let me know you’re dates and departure city, and what prices you’re looking at now, and I can give you more specific advice.

Comment by Rick Seaney — February 5, 2009 @ 2:57 pm
Would you be able to enlighten me as to if the air fares are going to go up due to the increase in gasoline prices?We will be traveling to Florida in Sept. 2009 and it seems the fares are higher for that month, then they are for the summer…? Usually it’s the other way around..!I don’t know if I am “jumping the gun” by wanting to book our tickets NOW, in case fares DO go up, but I’m leaning toward that thought..I wanted to ask your opinion first, Rick… What do you see happening in the coming months?Also, will the merger of Delta/Northwest and Continental/United affect the fares?Thank you for your help!

Comment by Janine William — February 5, 2009 @ 8:32 pm
I have found a good fare from Washington Dulles to Copenhagen in May via farecast, which sent me to Vayama.com. Travel insurance is available from TravelGuard, which is provided by AIG. Questions: is Vayama a reliable site, and is TravelGuard a reputable company, especially given AIG’s recent troubles? I need to grab the fare soon, so I’ll appreciate your reply.

Comment by Alice — February 7, 2009 @ 12:15 pm
Rick

I believe that the airlines are currently involved in price fixing. I have been research flights from my local airport ATL to NYC and noticed that all airlines were EXACTLY the same price for all flights between 6am and midday for every Tuesday from 3/31 to 4/28. I then searched for other random destinations (Houston, Seattle etc) and found that they too were exactly the same price for all airlines.

Who would I report this too?

Thanks

Matt.

Comment by Matt Ward — February 11, 2009 @ 10:31 am
Hi Alice (comment #198),

Here’s what I can tell you: I am very familiar with Farecast and Vayama and know them both to be highly reputable companies (I know their CEO’s well). That said, why aren’t you shopping on FareCompare.com? We provide the very latest airfares, before other sites can — and we now also feature an airfare feed from Southwest Airlines.

Let me add one thing: when dealing with any insurance company, even the best in the business, you MUST read any and all fine print to be sure that the services offered are right for you. Look for restrictions, maybe cancellation clauses — anything that could affect you, or affect what you need this service to do for you. Only you can decide what’s best for you — and what will work best for your particular situation.

Comment by Rick Seaney — February 11, 2009 @ 3:17 pm
Appears that Delta is going to follow United’s lead about no longer taking customer compaints via telephone and instead require that they be mailed to them. Chatted this morning with an agent at the DL Plat Medillian desk and mentioned my appreciation that DL was apparently not following UA’s lead - the agent apologized and told me that DL would be announcing a similar move in the near future

Keepo uop the great work . . . John Haverland

Comment by John Haverland — February 12, 2009 @ 5:19 pm
Rick,

I too, share the frustration of others when I cannot find the airfare at the “alert” price of $217.

Please share some info so that I can be better informed. I am traveling from:

SDF-PDX or
BNA-PDX

Comment by Richard Frailley — February 17, 2009 @ 1:23 am
I am not that impressed with the fly 1st Class for Coach. I priced 12 trips from my location to different parts of the world and then priced the same flight with the same airline 1st Class and the difference in most cases was less that $10USD, and in some cases the Yahoo Travel site was less than yours. Can you explain or help with this?

Comment by Dee — February 19, 2009 @ 4:37 pm
I need to fly out of Dallas 5/11/2009 to Moscow; returning 5/27/2009. I need a aisle seat because of medical issues. What would be the cheapest tickets I could get?

Also, do you know the least expensive way to be able to talk from Russia to US? Do know of a good website with tourist information and ways to save money in Russia?

I enjoy your blog. Thanks for your help

Comment by Rebecca Munday — March 1, 2009 @ 9:17 pm
Hi Rebecca,

We’re seeing airfare as low as $671+ R/T on Delta for those dates. However, those fares can change quickly, so you can perform a new search and compare prices from multiple airlines and websites.

There are several sites with in depth information on travel to Russia including Lonely Planet: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/russia

and Visit Russia: http://www.visitrussia.com/

Comment by Rick Seaney — March 2, 2009 @ 11:31 am
I heard Rick Seaney on NPR as I was drivng home from work today, and I was thrilled to find the lowest published price of $619, from LAX to Madrid… except, I can’t seem to get to it. When I do my search, the highter price of $915 comes-up as the lowest, even though it is said that $619 is the lowest in price range. What am I doing wrong? How do I get to the 619 deal?

Comment by Helen — March 9, 2009 @ 10:46 pm
enough with the flash and fancy HTML, bring back the basic functionality that made FC useful.
the latest updates to “farecatcher” emails suck

Comment by Jonathan — March 11, 2009 @ 12:27 pm
Just read the piece you wrote for ABC about Cuba.

You say “a lot of [Cubans] would be interested in traveling to the United States as well.”

Are you aware that Cuba is a totalitarian dictatorship? Are you aware that thousands of people have died in the straits of Florida trying to escape? Are you aware that it’s illegal for Cubans to leave their country without their government’s permission (which is a policy that violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)?

Clueless.

Comment by Henry Gomez — March 11, 2009 @ 2:40 pm
Henry you make my point for me, isn’t it time this nonsense ended, it has to start somewhere — your same statement could have been made on a blog 25 years ago about Eastern Europe (except the Internet hadn’t become mainstream quite yet). I suggest that low-cost travel to from/to Cuba could be one of the building blocks to stopping the endless cycle — how clueless.

Comment by Rick Seaney — March 11, 2009 @ 5:08 pm
Jonathan, that “s%^&*” emaily alert — is now using ITA software to check seats for dozens of combinations of days and lengths of stay so you don’t have to hunt and peck for the days where the airlines are releasing seats on their published prices. If what you really meant to say is “Hey Rick, sure would be great if we had a text version or one that was easier to use with mobile devices” — then I’ll take that as a vote for it.

Comment by Rick Seaney — March 11, 2009 @ 5:13 pm
Helen, there are plenty of dates in May on US Airways for for LAX-MAD (via PHL) for $536 roundtrip try May 17 thru 25

Comment by Rick Seaney — March 13, 2009 @ 12:49 am
Rick, yours is a terrific site used and enjoyed by countless travelers. But can you help in creating a multi-city itinerary? The process may just have slipped by me.
Thanks,
Chuck

Comment by Chuck Hooker — March 19, 2009 @ 7:34 pm
Rick:

I noticed that you haven’t commented in your blog on Southwest’s new MSP-DEN flights.

Comment by JeffB — April 7, 2009 @ 11:17 pm
Rick,

Booked flight through you to Hawaii. I was directed to ORBITZ. I booked the tickets with their low price guarantee. Rates went down but no refund for me! I need to have someone else book the exact flight, connections, refund policy, etc. to get a refund. That’s not possible.

I fel I was deceived by ORBITZ and can get no customer service respone.

Rob

Comment by Rob Schantz — April 23, 2009 @ 5:28 pm
Hi Rob,
That is the Orbitz assurance, that someone else has to book after you, getting that lower price, same flight; and, the airlines have a $150-$250 change fee, so unless it dropped more than that, it doesn’t make any sense to rebook. I know it seems crazy that Orbitz hasn’t booked someone else into that flight, but I am assured by them that their processing booking information is accurate. I wish I could be more help, truly, but there isn’t much I can do.
Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — April 23, 2009 @ 6:09 pm
Rick
is it possiable to fly international standby? (NRT) if so how would someone get a ticket?? thanks Michael

Comment by Michael — April 23, 2009 @ 10:44 pm
Rick, I’m sorry but after looking at your website, it’s alot of smoke and mirrors. Do you work or get money from the airlines for it?
I check some fares from My city to Hawaii and EVERY time I could beat what your site came up with by going direct to the airlines.
What is the advantage of looking on your site??
Seems that the novice would be sucks in ok but not most of us who can use a PC. I was really hoping to find better deals and advice but a simple call or two beats what you write.
I’m VERY diappointed!

Comment by Kik Sujittra — April 25, 2009 @ 3:34 pm
Kik,
It is very difficult for me to respond to such a comment w/o any specifics, but I will address parts of your note a) Our site is FREE and is paid for by advertisers, some of whom are airlines, but we never skew our results in any manner to highlight any particular airline, the data is presented as we get it from over 500+ airlines and from a vareity of quoting systems in price order b) Airlines rarely have airfares on their site that are “only on their site”; there is no way you can find better deals all the time on the airlne sites directly, it just isn’t possible, in fact we send out alerts to price drops hours before they hit the airline sites so you know first when new deals come out
c) That simple phone call you made to the airline would cost you a $25 reservation fee for a booking, and would almost never be any different than our prices that many times take you directly to the airline site for booking, it just isn’t possible d) Our goal at FareCompare is to help everyone make better buying decisions in a complex system of ticket pricing, we work everyday toward that goal and will continue to do so, We have helped tens of thousands and I hope that you will look a bit deeper into our site where you will find years worth of tips and advice and the best technology in air travel.
Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — April 28, 2009 @ 1:19 am
Hi Rick,

I’m a big fan of Fare Compare, particularly the alerts, which allow me to monitor deals to virtually every airport on the planet.

I also like being able to see which airports/routes offer the best ‘price per mile’ from my home town. Your site is the only one that I’ve ever seen offer this feature.

I was wondering if you or your team had ever considered allowing the user to be notified when a flight becomes available below a certain price per mile to a destination zone?

For example, the best price to Asia from my home airport (YYC) is usually around 6.5 cents mile. It would be great if FareCompare could notify me when a route to Asia drops below 6 cents per mile.

Keep up the great work,

CM

Comment by Chris — April 28, 2009 @ 1:58 pm
Chris,
For price-per-seat information, let me point you to this tool that makes it easy, and here’s the link:
http://www.farecompare.com/search/flyertalk.html
Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — April 29, 2009 @ 2:58 pm
I am trying to get people to travel more so wrote a blog posting on flying with kids. http://calummaclean.wordpress.com/travel-tips/
Yes, my kids (and wife) are adorable but when the kids were smaller and on a plane it was not pretty. Flying was a terrible experience and we almost stopped traveling altogether. Then we got a tip from a well traveled mom and we never looked back. I hope it helps you too.

Before I had kids I used to watch the parents boarding the plane with rising horror. The closer they got to my seat the more steamed I got.

Now, I have 3 of the lovely little darlings I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to every person that was ever on a flight with me. I was very free with the �I frikkin hate you look� when you were boarding. I am deeply, deeply sorry I was such an unfeeling you-know-what.

Now, I know I will never convince people without kids that they are in the wrong so here is the advice we took and it worked well. We even had compliments from the �we frikkin hate you� lookers upon disembarking. Mind you it was Southwest and they still gave away free booze back then�..

Go to Target a week before departure and buy 15 - 20 items in the bargain bin that you know your kid will play with. It does not have to be the perfect toy (moms) it just needs to be something that will hold their attention for 10 - 15 minutes.
I would go a week before so if you have to take the kids with you it gives them enough time to forget what you bought.

Wrap each present individually. Don�t go overboard with the tape (dads) you want them to be able to open them.

When they throw the fit that is coming, (especially the lap child) hand them one of the presents. They will have fun tearing it open and the toy inside will give them 8 - 10 mins total play time. Maybe more.

Move on to the next toy when the attention wavers and squawking starts up. By the time you cycle through 15 presents there is a mound of paper to play with. Not only that they forgot the toy they had out first and you get to go through them all again for 3-5 minutes each.

You now have a 3-4 hour flight covered and the eternal gratitude of the poor empty childless people sitting in the 3 rows behind and in front of you.

Depending on the age of the child and how long you are at your destination buy wrapping paper and scotch tape for $10 and repeat for the return trip.

Comment by Calum — April 30, 2009 @ 9:24 am
Hi Rick,

I have been tracking a flight and hotel package for the last couple of weeks on Orbitz. It started out in the low $600’s for a couple of days. Then it dropped to $525 and has been steady for a week and a half.

This evening I checked and the price had jumped to $730! After I calmed down, I decided to check the price in a different browser (my default is Firefox). I pulled up IE and ran the dates and guess what…$525!

So I went back back to Firefox and cleared out all my cached information. I ran my trip and it is $525 again.

Is this a common industry practice? Thanks for all the great information!

Comment by Rob — May 15, 2009 @ 12:06 am
Hi,
I was wondering if you know what’s up with flights to Seattle. I’ve been looking for a cheap flight from Indianapolis (July 2-11) for the last few months, every day for the last few weeks. I’ve seen something around $250 a few times, but only for red eye flights or those that leave at 5-6:30am. $350 flights were available recently but most were 2 or 3 hours too long (due to long layovers) or went thru places like LA or Philadelphia. I’m looking at $400 and up now. Should I just take the $400 and be happy to have a seat?! Any idea whether or not a better deal will develop in the next 2-3 weeks? I thought air fares were supposed to be low due to the bad economy and all that!! At this point, $300 would be good. (I’m talking total price.)
Also, if possible, for the fare watch part of the website, it’d be MUCH more useful if you could notifiy people when more seats at a low price were made available, in addition to when a new low fare was posted. The lowest published price for this trip has been $240 for forever, but the seats at that price have been gone for almost as long, so I’ve never gotten any fare alerts.
Otherwise, great site!

Comment by Lisa — May 18, 2009 @ 9:36 am
Lisa,
Back on May 6, I began warning folks to get their summer vacation tickets now (and here’s the link to that: http://rickseaney.com/2009/05/06/the-bottom-is-near-dont-wait-too-long-to-snag-cheap-flights/ )
And what I always preach is, flexibility. Yes, the cheapest flights may be on red-eyes, or a 6am flight. Or, on a flight with long layovers. That is just the nature of the beast. Also, airlines are constantly changing their prices, day by day, hour by hour, which is why I always advise people to sign up for our alerts.
In your situation, I just checked this morning and saw RT flights on your dates for about $350 total, and yes, tickets were available.
Hope this helps.
Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — May 18, 2009 @ 10:07 am
> Once you�re done exploring the splendors of LA, why not drive up the coast to the town of Gilroy - home of the famous Garlic Festival. I�ve heard this annual July event is a lot of fun - and where else will you get a chance to sample garlic ice cream?

Check your geography folks. Gilroy is on the edge of San Jose, a five-hour drive from LA and not on the coast. If you want to take the beautiful coastal drive, it will be more like 7-8 hours before you get to Gilroy.

Try flying to San Jose or San Francisco if you want to check out Gilroy.

Comment by Gordon — May 19, 2009 @ 1:41 pm
Sure, you could fly into San Jose or San Francisco, but that 7-8 hour drive up the coast is more than worth it!

Comment by Rick Seaney — May 20, 2009 @ 9:15 am
peter greenburg says you can find Southwest prices on your site–i’m still looking. Additionally good luck trying to e-mail you.

Comment by harold glockner — May 22, 2009 @ 3:56 pm
Harold G.
Regarding Southwest, we get an airfare feed from Southwest Airlines and use it for providing editorial content. And if you’re trying to reach me or anyone on the FareCompare team, try customer.service@farecompare.com. I must tell you, I get hundreds of requests throughout each day and cannot possibly answer them all � but I have been active on Twitter of late � I invite you to follow along: http://twitter.com/rickseaney
Hope this helps.
Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — May 22, 2009 @ 5:41 pm
Hi,
I don’t understand why Jetblue would advertise an non existing fare.
Everyday I search for fares between JFK and SDQ.
Saturday 5/24/09 around 12 AM under travel deals I found a fare for $89 each way.I tried to book it with no luck ,I called costumer service and was told how to do it to receive that fare(Tuesdays and Wednesday between 6/2/09 and 7/31/09.I tried again with no luck,I called back again and was told that the fare did not exist.Later in the day when I checked it was still advertised for $89 I called them again and I e-mailed them.I have been trying for days now.They keep telling me that they don’t have that fare.What bothers me that today 5/26 they are still advertising that fare.Is there a way to make them honor what they advertise on their website?

Comment by Eve Trimble — May 26, 2009 @ 9:35 pm
Eve,
First of all, any time an airline advertises a sale, you should know that the airline does not put ALL its tickets for a flight “on sale”; just a very few. Your job is to be first in line to grab those few. And searching via the computer day after day is not the most productive way to do this. You should sign up for FareCompare’s email alerts, and we will do that search work for you and let you know when prices drop. Use this link to sign on for our free email alerts: http://www.farecompare.com/signup/?utm_source=FareCompare+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d409eb1545-FareCompare_NOAOL_NOYHO5_26_2009&utm_medium=email
Also you have only been searching the prices on a single airline; when there is a sale, often other airlines join in to match the sale price, and our email alerts will alert you to all the airlines that have dropped their prices. NOTE: when you get an alert telling you of a good price, you must act fast! As I said, the sale fares are few, and they go quickly.
Hope this helps.
Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — May 27, 2009 @ 10:01 am
Myself, wife, and 15 month old are trying to fly from Las Vegas, NV to JAN in Mississippi but can’t find cheap/affordable flights. When should we make a purchase? And one thing I always have had a concern about, is how come flying from a big city to a little city in the country so expensive? Why wouldn’t flying from a big city (Las Vegas) to another big city (New York) be expensive? It just doesn’t make any sense. We fly from a place where the average income per person is well above $50,000 per year, to a place where total household income makes that much. Well, I would appreciate if airlines threw a bone every now and then to the “little man”
Thank You!

Comment by Nate — May 27, 2009 @ 12:50 pm
Nate,
The airlines do throw a bone every now and then to the smaller cities, but it’s not always easy to catch unless you’re in front of your computer 24/7 which is why I ALWAYS recommend signing up for FareCompare’s Email Alerts, and you can do that at this link: http://www.farecompare.com/signup/
We watch the fares for you, and let you know when prices come down.
Why is flying to/from smaller cities often more expensive? It’s a matter of economics. There are fewer potential passengers in these cities, which means fewer people purchasing tickets and fewer profits for the airlines. Often you can get a better deal, if you can drive to the nearest big hub and fly from that city; for you that would be Atlanta or Dallas, but that’s too far to drive. I would look for deals to the hubs, then deals to your final destination, and you can book multi �city trips using this link: http://booking.farecompare.com/flights?mc=y
But before you do anything else, sign up for our email alerts.
Hope this helps,
Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — May 28, 2009 @ 12:41 am
My wife and I are seasoned travelers, as were the couple we were recently traveling with. All of us have been to every part of the world and are always cautious about moving about. We just went to Athens to pick up a Mediterranean cruise ending in Istanbul. This was our third time in Athens and we arrived the day before our cruise embarked. The following morning, we thought we would go to the Placa for a short time so we could do a little shopping and have lunch. Our Hotel concierge suggested that we take the metro (a block from our hotel) two stops to the Placa because it was faster and cheaper due to bad traffic in Athens. About an hour or so later, as we sat down for lunch, I noticed that my wife’s microfiber purse had been cut with a razor despite the fact that the strap was across her body and the zippers and flap were against her body. We also noticed our friend’s fanny back, tucked snuggly under his stomach, had an open zipper. Bottom line was that about $2500 between us, our credit cards, my wife’s driver’s license, identification cards (including a Medicare card with social security number on it), ATM cards, etc. were gone. Fortunately not all of the cash was taken and we still had our passports. We immediately canceled the credit cards, etc.. Fortunately, I was carrying some credit cards that my wife did not have with her, so we still were able to use those cards. Unfortunately, my wife did not see the safe in the hotel room. Additionally, we were told that we had to go to a police station to file a report, which we did not have time to do because of our cruise departure. We also tried the Tourist Police at the Cruise Ship Terminal, only to be told that they could not prepare a report.

The bottom line is that despite being seasoned travelers, we made the mistake of taking public transportation in a city known to have problems with pickpockets, thieves, etc. Perhaps you could include an item in one of your newsletters or blogs about this problem, given the start of the primary European travel season. Perhaps a comment from you might save another traveler from having the kind of problems we had. You should emphasize, or at least suggest, that multiple credit cards should be taken on a trip and that they not be kept in the same place or carried at the same time. You should also emphasize that the use of taxis, though more costly, is infinitely more safe. Keep up the good work. I love your newsletters and blogs.

Comment by Stuart Jacobson — May 30, 2009 @ 6:48 pm
Stuart,
A lot of good, solid information in your note. Sorry for your troubles, but thank you for taking the time to write.
Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — May 31, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
I wish there were fare alerts and easy searches for business class fares and fares by fare bucket.

Comment by Randall — June 11, 2009 @ 8:28 pm
Rick,
I’ve been using FC a lot & booking tickets though it frequently.
I was curious, just like frequent flyers miles, why not have a plan for flyers wherein they’ll be given a package of number of flights for a fixed amount annually.

Say, for $2000 per annum, a person/ or a member of family will get 4/5 trips across the US, at chosen cities on chosen times. (Loosely based on time-share holidays type of deals but more efficient).
I know airfare is combination of fuel prices, demand-supply, time of year etc, but just like shared minutes on cell phone plans, an intensive statistical exercise will reveal travel patterns which will enable better deals for consumers. Also FC or it’s member websites/airline companies will get upfront money.

What do you think!!

Comment by Maulik Gawarepatil — June 14, 2009 @ 4:52 pm
On 5/29 purchased two tickets from den to Freeport on US Airways. Costs 625.00.. Went on site today to cost the tickets today was 1072.00.. Come to realize that getting airline tickets is a FULL TIME job

Comment by Stan — June 17, 2009 @ 4:07 pm
Stan,
No, getting airline tickets is NOT a full-time job — not when you have FareCompare to do most of the work for you. In other words, we will let you know, the moment airfare prices drop.
Here’s what you do:
Step 1: sign up for email alerts here, http://www.farecompare.com/signup/
Step 2: follow your airport on Twitter for more real-time alerts, http://www.farecompare.com/twitter
Step 3: To find the best deals available right now, use the FareCompare Deal Finder, http://www.farecompare.com/deals/datedDeals.html
And remember — deals do not last. If you see something you like, grab it!
Hope this helps,
Rick

Comment by Rick Seaney — June 17, 2009 @ 6:33 pm
The farecompare deals from your home airport are no longer working for me - I used to be able to put in home airport as barbados and then select by airline and date - and it would show me all the airfares by price on American to North American/Canada - now the only field I can change is airline and it says no deals are found - has there been a change on this function in the last 24 hours or so? It does not seem to work properly for US home airports either - Twitter deals does not work as it only seems to accept US aiports - I hope this is sorted out because it was an invaluable tool for me to search airfares to North American/Canadia cities from barbados by month/week.

Comment by sara — June 26, 2009 @ 8:56 am
Sara,
I just tried to duplicate what you did on Deal Finder: Barbados to North America and then I selected New York, and I had no problems throughout the entire process.
Could have been a glitch on our end, or yours, but for now it is working fine here.
Let me know if the problem continues.

Comment by Rick Seaney — June 26, 2009 @ 9:14 am

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