Airline Consolidator Selling E-Tickets

Cheap Tickets Inc., one of the larger airline consolidators--businesses that buy blocks of discounted tickets from airlines and resell them to consumers--has begun offering electronic tickets.

The e-tickets are available by phone at (800) OKCHEAP and at the company’s 12 stores nationwide, including ones near Los Angeles International Airport and in Fullerton and Burbank. Officials said they hope to offer e-tickets online at https://www.cheaptickets.com by the middle of next year.

E-ticket customers of Cheap Tickets can buy their tickets later than can paper-ticket customers and also save money. Customers buying paper tickets by phone--which is how the company does 60% of its business--must order them at least five days before travel and pay $11.95 per order, a so-called delivery charge, to receive them by mail. E-ticket customers pay a “processing fee” of $7.95 per order and can travel as soon as the next day, according to spokesman Vik Seshadri. Customers who order tickets at the stores don’t have to pay either fee, he added.