For Low Air Fares, Lose the Modem, Use the Phone

Savvy online travelers know that the best way to snag an air fare bargain isn’t necessarily in cyberspace, despite bonus frequent-flier miles and other efforts by airline and travel Web sites to persuade them otherwise.

The latest evidence that picking up a phone can still be cheaper and easier than booking on the Web: the airlines’ new customer service plans, which took effect Dec. 15.

Snubbing their own Web sites and popular online agencies such as Travelocity.com and Expedia.com, two of the voluntary plans’ most highly touted features--the right to lock in not only reservations but also fares for 24 hours and a one-day grace period for canceling a purchase--typically don’t apply online.

What’s more, the airlines promise to improve the way they handle telephone reservations. They’ll guarantee would-be fliers the lowest available fare for a specific itinerary and, in some cases, even prompt them to change plans in order to get a better rate. That’s the kind of coddling that passengers would get from a good travel agent but certainly won’t find on the airlines’ often poorly designed Web sites.

Designed to thwart both federal legislation and the ire of their disgruntled customers, the airlines’ new plans also include provisions for such problems as cancellations and delays, overbooking and lost baggage. Most of the plans are reproduced on the airlines’ Web sites, but finding them can be a challenge. On American’s home page (https://www.aa.com), for example, the plan is buried beneath a drop-down menu labeled “corporate.”

Easy to locate or not, the plans translate to bad news for the estimated 3% of passengers who book their trips online. Case in point: The new 24-hour fare guarantee offered by America West, American and Continental applies only to airline telephone bookings, not to sales made through online booking agencies or through conventional travel agents (who still sell nearly 80% of all airline tickets). American extends the 24-hour guarantee to bookings made on its site, but America West, Continental and Delta don’t.

Furthermore, pledges by Northwest and United to allow refunds up to 24 hours after purchase also apply specifically to telephone reservations, not to those made through bricks-and-mortar travel agents or online booking agencies. Competitors TWA and US Airways include travel agents, but not online agencies. US Airways won’t let online agencies make refunds.

David Fuscus, spokesman for the Air Transport Assn., the industry group that helped develop the service plans, defends the airlines’ decisions to limit 24-hour fare guarantees and refunds to phone reservations.

The provisions were “designed to let passengers shop around for a better fare on another carrier,” says Fuscus, something they can theoretically accomplish already by calling a travel agent or comparing fares online.

But the moves clearly put Web sites requiring instant purchases at a disadvantage and “don’t make any sense” because they penalize consumers using what the industry touts as a money-saving alternative for airlines and passengers, says air fare expert Terry Trippler of 1travel.com (https://www.1travel.com), an online booking agency.

So where does that leave online travelers? Where they’ve always been: in the middle of a still-evolving industry that rewards those who hedge their bets. A personal computer may be a great tool for uncovering a variety of fares, but the old-fashioned phone remains an important weapon in the battle to find the best deal.

Electronic Explorer appears the second Sunday of every month. Laura Bly welcomes comments and questions; her e-mail address is LSBly@aol.com.