When you’re not sure if you have the best deal or not, holding a reservation is a great way to go. Most domestic carriers, with the exception of American Airlines, have done away with this feature and require instant purchase.
Today, however, UAL announced Fare Lock, a paid feature that lets you hold reservation for up to one week with no further obligation. This was first started by Air France and I predict will soon go viral. In Hawaii travel, it comes hot on the heals of hawaiianairlines.com’s
new leg room fees.
FareLock is only available on certain routes. To take advantage you must book travel through continental.com. That’s right, same company but only one is offering FareLock.
The FareLock fee starts at $5 for a 72-hour hold and $9 for a seven-day hold. Price varies based on itinerary, number of days to departure and the length of the hold.
I only wish the airlines were as creative with making us happy customers as they are with developing new fees.
What do you think about this new fee-based option?.
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After reading today’s post about Southwest Airlines heading to Hawaii in a couple years – well, IF they keep their current policies in force – can you imagine having the flexibility of changing your entire itinerary with NO FEES? I for one cannot wait until SWA flies to Hawaii. Maybe we will just keep our timeshare a wee bit longer :0) Hooray for SWA!!! NO FEES – hopefully EVER!!! They will have OUR business! They have it now in the contiguous states.
Rob, I believe you meant CO, not UAL?
Another fee for something that should still be free. Since I haven’t tried to make a reservation in years, but have merely bought a ticket when the price seemed the best I could get, I had no idea that this simple service had disappeared.
Maybe some brave airline marketing department will break with all of the phony, hidden fees and instead decide to advertise TRUE prices with NO FEES and NO SURCHARGES! They could advertise their relative honesty and reversion to “customer service the way it used to be and still should be”.
Their ads could compare THEIR ADVERTISED PRICES with other airlines’ phony advertised prices when the hidden fees and surcharges are included for a typical person with two bags and a carry-on on a similar flight.
Then, because of all the time they will save with no phony fees and surcharges to argue about with passengers, they can provide the old, free services such as free temporary reservations and free flight changes for Standby-willing passengers.
I would certainly patronize such a carrier.
In principle it is a good idea. I am leery of making reservations, since invariably the next day I wish I had changed the date slightly, or I find a way better price. So it is worth a try. I’d try it, if the opportunity arose. A small insurance policy.
It stinks, like all the other fees.
An added thought – even our good old friend Southwest Airlines have VERY FEW NON STOPS anymore. I guess NO non stops is my biggest pet peeve. It wasn’t that long ago that I flew non stop from STL to Seattle and Oakland. Where did all the non stops go? I don’t even hear anyone complaining except me! And we don’t stop just once from STL to KONA, but STL to ORD, then ORD to LAX and then LAX to KONA. There goes two full days of our 7 day vacation spent in an airport. That doesn’t even count the exorbitant airfare. Have given up on seeing a sale fare to Kona for our hoped for January trip. Looks like it’ll be MX if at all. :o(
How about a $9 fee and I get a NON STOP flight :0)
No one seems interested in giving the customer a break………..
I think the airlines are bloodsuckers who provide poor service, discomfort, bureaucracy, poor maintenance and attitude for a lot of money. they need to be controlled.