Jun 22 2009
Head On-line To Get The Best Airfare Deals
Can I call the airlines and still get these amazing deals?
In a word, no. I heard from two readers who tried calling American 
Airlines to get the $140 fare between LA and Maui that I wrote about last week. They were told that the fare did not exist. When I checked again, I found the fare still available for the dates I indicated.
So what’s the problem and what should I do?
It won’t come as a surprise that the airlines aren’t all that keen to give you a great deal. If they can get more money out of you, their telephone representatives are trained to do just that. In addition, the cost of maintaining telephone call centers is very high when compared with the cost of maintaining websites. Therefore, with very few exceptions, the airlines do not release their best promotional airfares via telephone.
The bottom line: you need to book on-line using the airline website or an on-line travel agency website (like Expedia or Orbitz) to get the best deal.
You won’t be alone. According to Sabre, up to 50,000 global reservations are made on-line every second. And given that airline customer service isn’t always stellar, do not expect the airlines to even remind you that there is a better deal on-line. Add to that is the fact that the agent you are speaking with won’t likely have a job if more of us book online.
Fares are complicated.
There may be up to 200 different fares paid by the passengers on your flight. You need to know the fare you are looking for and you need to know how to find it. Or you can keep reading sites like ours, since we are painstaking in watching for them. We monitor hundreds of websites daily in order to find fares that often go unnoticed.
Before publishing any fare on Beat of Hawaii we do the following:
- Triple check fare availability. We actually go through the booking process to make sure the fare is valid.
- Look for and suggest the easiest way you can locate the fare.
No one tool consistently yields the best fares. That’s why I try all.
It is best to try a number of different tools when looking for the best deals. I suggest using the airline sites, the on-line travel agency sites as well as the meta-search sites.
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Many airlines also charge you a fee to book by phone or in person, so it’s generally better to book online, either via a third-party website or directly with the airline.
Avidly read BOH emails, but still new to this. Planned trip is 10-17-09 to 10-31-09, San Diego to Kona/Hilo RT. Have an offer supposedly 2-for-1 air tix from a credit card, but the price quoted was $938 total including tax for 2 persons. I suspect I can do better if I keep following your emails. Comments?
This trip includes a couple of nights with friends on Kona and Hilo sides of the island, but need hotels in between, and a car. Is it possible to work a package in those circumstances? Appreciate any comments. Thanks for running this show, it’s excellent.
Hi Kim,
Thanks for your nice comment.
Here are some thoughts.
1. You can fly from LAX to HNL for $255 (total) on your dates. Then add $100 roundtrip to the Big Island. An excellent deal, but obviously a very nasty drive is required.
2. Out of SAN, it is about mid-$600’s right now round-trip to Kona. Flying to Honolulu and buying separate inter-island doesn’t really help.
Therefore, I’d either do #1 above, or wait and see what happens. Deals for fall are coming out and we might see something at any point between now and Labor Day. It does down to a bird in hand vs. in the bush, so to speak.
Hope that helps.
Aloha, Jeff