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Faux Fare Sales
Cheap Charlie · October 31, 2001

Make sure you scour the Internet for cheap seats on airlines. There is no "best site" for getting the least expensive ticket and there are fewer and fewer bargains for advance-purchased tickets.

I took a look at Thanksgiving travel to try and get an idea of what's happening with airfares. After all the media blitz about very, very, very cheap tickets, my mouth was watering.

On, October 23, 2001, I searched for the "best fares" between Boston and Charleston, SC for departures on November 22 with a return on Sunday November 25.

There are no big deals.

US Airways shows Internet-only fares ranging from $280 to $567 according to Orbitz; Expedia shows flights ranging from $368 on US Airways to $1,898 on United; and Travelocity lists fares from $475 on US Airways to $650 on an unlikely American/United combination ticket.

I then shifted to a return flight on Tuesday, November 27. Yes, the prices fell considerably, but nothing spectacular. US Airways listed $247 as the lowest price with the flights I selected ending up with a price of $648; Expedia listed the lowest fare as $252 on an Expedia Bargain Fare, then $257 on US Airways, then $376 on United; Travelocity prices ranged from $263 on Delta to $266 on Northwest.

These prices are not significantly different from pricing in place pre-September 11th.

I then checked out flights between Boston and Minneapolis for the same Thanksgiving dates.

Departing on the 22nd and returning on the 27th Expedia and Orbitz displayed the best prices led by AirTran for $205 and followed by Northwest for $291 and ranging up to about $425 on US Airways. Travelocitys lowest fare was on American Trans Air for $212.50.

For the departures on the 22nd with return on the 25th Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity came up with the same lowest fare: $291 on Northwest.

So what does this all tell us? The upper range of fares have come down, but the advance-purchase fares for the most part are still at pre-September 11th levels. You still have to compare fares between airlines carefully. The same itinerary on the same day can still vary by more than a thousand dollars.

When you see all the ads and hear the PR-induced newscasters announcing "fares slashed in half," realize that it may be true for some advanced-purchased full-fare business class tickets without Saturday-night-stay requirements and so on. But not for the majority of leisure travelers who purchase tickets for deep discounts in advance.

Las Vegas notes: I just returned from Las Vegas. I flew on US Airways. The flight out was filled to about 80 percent capacity and the return flight was packed with standby travelers left at the gate. I stayed in the 4,000-room Excalibur Hotel. Every room was full on Friday and Saturday night. No conventions have been cancelled. The days of big bargains in Vegas are over. Its back to business as usual, it seems, for the near term.

Two big Bronx Cheers: US Airways has removed all pillows and blankets from its planes as a cost-saving action. A fellow passenger commented that the planes that US Airways has stored in the desert must be stuffed with pillows and blankets. I kinda like that image.

I realized that there would be some schedule changes when the airlines downsized after September 11th. My latest US Airways flights were changed twice and I was ultimately put on another airline without my approval. Gads! Thankfully, I got it all sorted out by flying standby on the flight I wanted. The airline wanted to charge me $100 to change my flight after they already changed it two times. By my calculations, I should be paid $100 for their changes. Hummm. I should probably ask for it.

Charlie Leocha is the Boston-based author of Travel Rights: Know the Rules of the Road and the Air Before You Go. Cheap Charlie appears every Monday on this site. E-mail him at leocha@aol.com or access his Web site.