Come fly with me: a few sites offer discounted airfare, but comparison shopping is the best strategy

Black Enterprise, Sept, 2004 by Tariq Muhammad

The convenience of online travel booking has sent many agents the way of the dinosaur. For international travel, multiple destinations, other special trips, an agent might be your best bet, but for the do-it-yourselfer searching for a great deal on domestic airfare, look no further than the nearest Internet connection.

Type "airfare" in any search engine, and you're likely to find everything from commercial airline sites to online booking agencies such as Travelocity, Expedia, and Orbitz to ticket consolidators such as Hotwire and Priceline. With so many options, it can be overwhelming. Just invest a little time and effort and you're sure to find the airfare deal that: suits you best.

GO TO THE SOURCE

Check the cost of your trip with major airline carriers to get a good sense of the price range once you move on to the online agencies. Try to find out which airlines have established hubs in your area. Looking for the airline with the most real estate in the airport nearest you should provide a clue. Those will be the ones likely to have some of the best fares since they offer more flights. You're also more likely to get a nonstop flight. As an added incentive, individual carriers often offer bonus miles to frequent fliers for booking through their site.

Once you've got your travel dates and a sense of the fares, it's time to do some real comparison shopping.

ARMED AND DANGEROUS

Before you head off to sites such as Expedia or Orbitz, check out FareReport.com. This site will give you airfare averages on routes throughout the country. You'll find out which airline has the largest market share for your destination and airlines with the lowest fare. Unfortunately, FareReport.com doesn't have every U.S. departure city, and international destinations are somewhat limited.

With your airline price quotes and fare report in hand, its time to check out the likes of Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz. These online booking sites have deals with numerous carriers and usually offer choices from several airlines. Since they only provide access to airlines' published fares, these sites usually give you similar results. Once published and filed with the government, a fare is available directly from the airline as well as from all its appointed agents, including brick-and-mortar travel agencies, online agencies, and those that sell both online and offline.

The Airfare Checker at BetterBidding.com (www.betterbidding.com/airfarechecker) lets you check all three online agencies at the same time. You will need to know the three letter airport code (i.e., LAX not Los Angeles) of your departure and arrival cities to use this site. Plug in your travel details and you'll get a split screen that displays the results from Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz.

One advantage the booking sites have over single carrier sites is that they can often find better deals for multiple-destination trips because they cart combine flights from different carriers. Some booking sites offer special tools to help you find the best deal. Orbitz Deal Detector lets you plug in a target price for a flight and will alert you via e-mail when that price, or a ballpark figure, is available.

DEEP DISCOUNTS

You've probably heard of friends or co-workers getting tickets to some fabulous destination for hundreds less than you thought possible. Not everyone is related to an airline employee, so there must be a way. There is. Ticket consolidators, such as Priceline and Hotwire, also have deals with the airlines. However, these sites have access to unpublished fares--typically made up of unsold flight inventory that is purchased wholesale. These fares usually have more restrictions on travel dates, cancellations, rebooking fees, upgrades, etc.

To protect their airline partners' fare structures, both Hotwire and Priceline obscure some, or all, of the flight information until the purchase is made.

With both Hotwire and Priceline, you're locked in to buying once you accept, the deal or name your price for a flight so be sure it's the best option. If you still can't find a price that you're willing to pay then you'll at least know how low to bid to get the best deal available. All of this can be achieved in less than an hour in front of your computer. And isn't that a small price to pay for the best price you can find?

YOU'D BETTER SHOP AROUND

Want to get the best deals on flying the friendly skies? Here's how and where to start:

1. Check the cost of your trip on a few major airline to get a good sense of the price range.

2. Head to an online hub such as FareReport.com and the Airfare Checker at BetterBidding.com (www.betterbidding.com/airfarechecker).

3. Consider ticket consolidators such as Hotwire.com and Priceline.com.

4. Book your fare, pack your bags, and head out.