164 Comments »

1. 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

2. > 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Rick,

    Thank you for your help and advice.
    Bill

    Comment by Bill Kenney — July 21, 2007 @ 2:53 pm

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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

28. 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

29. 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

30. 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

31. 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

32. 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

33. 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

34. 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

35. 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

36. 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

37. 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

38. 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

39. 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

40. 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

41. 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

42. 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

43. 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

44. 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

45. 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

46. 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

47. 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

48. 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

49. 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

50. 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

51. 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

52. 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

53. 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

54. 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

55. 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

56. 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

57. 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

58. 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

59. 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

60. 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

61. 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,

    Iván

    Comment by Ivan Broce — August 21, 2007 @ 9:55 am

62. 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

63. 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

64. 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

65. 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

66. 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

67. 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

68. 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

69. 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

70. 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

71. 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

72. 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

73. 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

74. 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

75. 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

76. 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

77. 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

78. 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

79. 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

80. 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

81. 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

82. 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

83. 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

84. 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

85. 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

86. 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

87. 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

88. 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

89. 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

90. 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

91. 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

92. 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

93. 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

94. 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

95. 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

96. 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

97. 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

98. 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

99. 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

100. 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

101. 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

102. 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

103. 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

104. 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

105. 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

106. 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

107. 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

108. 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

109. 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

110. 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

111. 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

112. 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

113. 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

114. 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

115. 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

116. 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

117. 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

118. 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

119. How about some RSS feeds on your website? That would be perfect!

     Comment by Celine — November 15, 2007 @ 1:48 pm

120. 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

121. 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

122. 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

123. 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

124. 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

125. 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

126. 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

127. 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

128. 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

129. 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 — March 6, 2008 @ 1:45 pm

130. 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

131. 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

132. 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

     Comment by Marianne — May 11, 2008 @ 11:57 pm

133. I like it because is very useful.[url=http://2105crep.w8w.pl/?where-can-i-get-a-free-credit-report-online]where can i get a free credit report online[/url]

     Comment by Christine & Josepha — May 22, 2008 @ 10:11 am

134. 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 (