Entries for the 'Airfare Tips' Category
Posted by
George on Tuesday, November 11, 2008
This is a two day sale. We say "almost" systemwide because Washington Dulles and Orange County/Santa Ana aren't included.
Travel up until February school vacay, but you can be sure that peak holiday travel will be more expensive on most routes.
Fares range from $49 to $159 each way, which, come to think of it, is pretty close to their normal fares. Book at Southwest.com.
The fine print:
Book by November 13 for travel December 2, 2008 - February 11, 2009.
21-day advance purchase.
Fares do not include federal excise tax of $3.50 per takeoff and landing, airport-assessed passenger facility charges (PFC) of up to $9, and government-imposed September 11th Security Fee of up to $5.00 one-way.
- Available only on southwest.com.
- 21-day advance purchase is required.
- Purchase November 11 through November 13, 2008, midnight central standard time.
- Travel December 2, 2008 through February 11, 2009.
- Fares do not include federal excise tax of $3.50 for each flight segment. A flight segment is defined as a takeoff and a landing.
- Fares do not include airport-assessed passenger facility charges (PFC) of up to $9.00 and government-imposed September 11th Security Fee of up to $5.00 one-way.
- Seats are limited. Fares vary by destination and may not be available on all flights during key travel dates (12/20/08 - 1/4/09).
- Travel not available to/from Orange County, CA or Washington (Dulles), DC
- Offer applies to Southwest Airlines-operated, published, scheduled service.
- This fare is available for one-way travel.
- If combining with other fares, the most restrictive fare's rules apply.
- Tickets are nonrefundable but (except for tickets purchased through our Group Tickets program)
may be applied toward future travel on Southwest Airlines.
- Fares are subject to change until ticketed.
- Any change in itinerary may result in an increase in fare.
Posted by
George on Tuesday, October 21, 2008
By Andrea Bennett
Recently, we got an email from Ken, who wrote that he had bought a round-trip ticket from Atlanta to Kuwait from Northwest Airlines, operated by KLM, for the bargain basement price of $1175 round trip (this fare usually starts at $1500). Knowing that a low fare like this would be heavily restricted, he assumed he'd pay a penalty plus the difference in the fare if he needed to change his flight dates. But he didn't expect to be told, "Use it or lose it" by the airline when he tried to make a change, over a week in advance, to fly a day later than his ticket was scheduled. As in: No changes, not even for a penalty, and if you purposely "miss" your flight? No stored value for you. (Incidentally, there were seats available at the same price on the later flight.)
We contacted NWA's call center to ask about the flight and were told, "Well, it was a 'T' fare, so of course he couldn't store the value." Actually, this isn't quite accurate. We checked with NWA spokesperson Michelle Aguayo-Shannon, who confirmed that, while T class fares are usually quite restricted, they're not always "use it or lose it." The lesson here: While it would have been smart to thoroughly check the restrictions first, one class of airfare doesn't always hold the same restrictions within even a single airline. And one airline's "T" fare class could be another airline's "K."
Sound confusing? It can be. And it's certainly possible to simply cruise through airfare booking, never learning a thing about fare codes. But there are a couple of reasons to familiarize yourself with the basics: Anecdotal evidence is that, with airlines cutting capacity and in a constant state of financial flux, you'll be seeing more fares, like Ken's Northwest Airlines fare, that come with far heavier restrictions. Naturally, the most restricted airfares almost always come with the most attractive prices. But if you're always succumbing to price alone, you can miss out on some benefits that come with certain fare classes, such as bonus mile offers, elite status miles, special promotions, or quirky upgrades (which we'll get to later).
Why not just sell first and coach class tickets, and call it a day?
Before we get into the intricacies of class of service codes, here's a little background. Of course you know of the major classes of airline service: first, business, and economy. Those classes are subdivided into a variety of sub-classes: restricted business, full-fare economy, discounted economy, deeply discounted economy, etc., based on restrictions. A full-fare economy ticket will have fewer restrictions, such as advance purchase, minimum stay, or penalty-free refund than a discount economy ticket, but you'll pay for the privilege.
That's the reason you could find yourself sitting next to someone in coach who paid $200 less for his seat than you did, while waiting the same number of infuriating hours on the tarmac and buying the same overpriced snack boxes as you. But we digress. It's all part of inventory control. In order to stay profitable, years ago airlines began subdividing their seats, allocating a certain number of seats (or a "bucket") at each fare level per flight. The number of these seats depends on complicated formulas that factor in the route, the time of year, the expected breakdown of leisure vs. business passengers, and the time of day, among other things. The inventory control department will release certain "buckets" at different times, tightening or loosening the spigot as needed to capture as many potential passengers paying as much as possible. And no, the airlines don’t make public how many buckets they’ve created in any subcategory.
What fare codes look like
The letter that denotes class of service is only one in a string of letters and numbers the airline puts together to describe the fare you’ve bought. You’ll find the fare basis code in the fare basis box on a physical ticket, or on most e-ticket confirmations. Here’s an example: Say you bought a ticket with the fare basis code KL14LNR. The letter K refers to the class of service for booking; the L refers to low season; the 14 refers to a 14-day advance booking; and the NR means non-refundable. More than one fare may exist for each class of service. For example, there might be two “K” fares – one for midweek travel and one for weekend travel.
Searching by class
The first letter of the string is the one you’ll want to search for. Generally, first class fares are coded as F or P, business class is C or J, and full-fare coach is Y. After that, economy class fares run the gamut of alphabet letters, with the hierarchy varying from one airline to another. Here’s a chart of major airlines’ codes
| Airline |
First |
Restricted First |
Business |
Restricted Business |
Coach |
| Delta |
F |
A |
J,C |
D,I |
Y,B,M,H,Q,K,L,U,T |
| US Airways |
F |
P,A |
C |
D,Z |
Y,B,M,H,Q,N,V,W,U,S,T,G,K,U,E,R |
| Northwest |
F |
F,P |
J |
C,Z |
Y,H,Q,V,K,L,T,V,W |
| Continental |
A |
C,D |
J |
Z |
Y,H,I,K,L,N,O,Q,S,T,U,V,W,X |
| American |
F |
P,A |
J,D |
I |
Y,B,C,G,H,K,L,M,N,Q,S,V,W |
| United |
F |
P,A |
C,D |
Z |
Y,B,M,H,K,L,Q,V,W,U,T,S |
Next, we'll tell you all about how to search for airfares by fare class, why and how to buy Q-UP, Y-UP, and Z-UP upgradeable airfares.
Posted by
Tracy on Thursday, October 09, 2008
It's been a zany day for fare finding here at Airfarewatchdog headquarters. The culprit? Wishy-washy fares on Travelocity. What appeared to be some pretty terrific fares from Northwest this morning made quite a leap in price whenever we attempted to actually book anything. And this afternoon, we're seeing the same thing from American Airlines. For example, Los Angeles to Wichita has a base fare of $224 round-trip, but try and book it and you’ll see it jump to $294 after taxes and fees. We even saw a $344 base fare jump to $485. Obviously, taxes and Travelocity fees don't quite explain all of that mystery number. Is there a new secret fee they aren't telling folks about? Whatever is afoot, be wary of whatever amazingly low fares should appear in your search results on Travelocity today. Save the oohs and ahhhs until you see that final number at booking time.
Posted by
Tracy on Thursday, October 09, 2008
Remember when we asked you guys for tips on keeping the kids in check during those long holiday flights? Well, you had a ton of great advice. We've narrowed down the best of your tips below, so read up:
1. Have a discussion on expected behavior prior to the trip, as well as a little refresher before boarding.
2. A bag stuffed with essential treats. In our case, that would be Teddy Grahams.
3. Pack plenty of books, stickers, paper, crayons, magazines, and anything else that can be read, or incorporated into an easy mess-free craft project. Remember, obviously, no scissors.
4. Fresh out of craft ideas? Here's an easy one! Bring a fine point Sharpie marker and allow your children to - just this once - add moustaches to all the faces in the in-flight magazine. Or blackened teeth. Or both! Hey, go wild (quietly, and to yourself)!
5. Three words: Portable. DVD. Player.
6. Fly a kid friendly airline like Frontier, JetBlue, or Virgin with seat-back televisions. There's almost always a channel with children's programming.
7. Request a window seat so your child can look out and lean at will without disturbing other passengers.
8. Never do early boarding. The less time on board, the better. Sitting around, twiddling thumbs (or using up all your games and activities before you even take off) while you wait for the plane to fill up will probably take longer than you think.
9. Don't hand out all the toys at once. Conserve what's out and for as long as you can. Who knows? You might not even make it through the entire bag of tricks, which can be a real bonus on the trip home.
10. For smaller children (under one year), try using a Boppy pillow on your lap, to fill that scary gap between your lap and the seat in front of you.
11. For the slightly older kids, who may potentially taunt one another: Pay them off! $5 an hour, $1, a quarter, whatever you think sounds about right. Personally, my mother would clutch her pearls at the suggestion that she pay her children to behave, but hey. I'm certainly not above it. Says the person who suggested that one, "We used this trick when going to Disneyworld, and they only lost one hour's worth of bribes.” See?
12. Let them stay up a little later the night before the flight, or wake up very early the day of. Once onboard, bring blankets and pillows and let them catch up on sleep.
13. Still in the sippy cup years? When the beverage cart comes 'round your way, ask the flight attendant to fill up those sippy cups instead of plastic cups that tend to spill.
14. See other children acting up on your flight? Remember to thank your own for not doing that, and for setting a good example.
15. If all else fails, and your child cries excessively or rubs an open pudding cup into your seat mate's face or something horrible, bring along little I'm-sorry gifts to "bribe"/"win over" your fellow passengers. A $5 Starbucks card, a box of chocolates, etc.
Have a tip of your own to share? Let us know in the comments section below.
Posted by
Andrea on Monday, October 06, 2008
By Andrea Bennett
Part one of a two part article
They're elusive. The airlines don't like to talk about them (we asked). And determining their legitimacy from among the myriad websites that claim to specialize in them is a Herculean task. We're talking about consolidator fares, those secret airfares the airlines release in limited "buckets" to companies that re-sell them for big. Yes, they do still exist and you can get them, but as with any purchase (such as “grey market” electronics), you'll always trade something for the price break. There are reliable ways to get them, just as there are ways to get burned. And just because they're specially negotiated deals doesn't mean you might not be able to find a better published fare on your own.
The Backstory
To understand what consolidator fares mean today, you'll need a little history. Decades ago, it became clear to airlines that only selling highly visible, published airfares to travel agents and consumers made it easy for competing airlines to beat their fares and make off with their customers. To ensure they could fill up less popular flights, airlines began quietly selling discounted seats through consolidators. They reasoned that a little revenue per seat was better than none, and because the discounted prices weren’t published, other airlines wouldn’t be able to swoop in and drive down overall prices. You’d often find these fire sale fares in ethnic storefront travel agencies or even bodegas, which offered them only sporadically. According to Bob Harrell of New York airline consultancy Harrell Associates, the airlines employed plenty of tactics to get around pre-deregulation rules about tariffs, which required large numbers of seats sold this way to be part of a tourism promotion. “They’d print up five brochures, pass them around, and call it a tour,” he says.
Consolidators Today
Consolidators have come a long way since those early, often risky times. Airlines now see consolidators as a reliable distribution channel, negotiating annual contracts with them, establishing revenue targets, and tightly controlling ticket sales through a specific kind of booking class, or “bucket.” If you were wondering, consolidators and bucket shops are essentially the same thing, though the name, like the practice, has been refined over time. The fares are also known as “private” and “bulk” fares. But for the record, not every unpublished fare is a consolidator fare; military discounts, corporate discounts, and other specially negotiated fares – such as cruise and package fares – are also considered “unpublished” and are almost never consolidator fares.
We talked to Greg Rholl, Vice President of Pricing and Distribution for Minnesota consolidator Centrav, one of the largest consolidators, with contracts with more than 30 airlines, who ran us through the process: A consolidator will have a contract to sell private fares at a lower price than the published fare. If there’s a printed ticket, only “bulk” generally appears on the receipt. They generally can’t – or won’t - sell the ticket straight to you, but will offer it through a travel agent (including an online travel agent such as Travelocity or Expedia), or agencies such as the ones that advertise in Sunday newspaper travel sections. The agent adds their markup – keeping the margin slim so they’re not out-priced by published fares – and passes the remaining savings on to you. True consolidators don’t buy in quantity or ahead of time. Rather, they pull availability from their assigned class until the airline decides to close the window. It can be a great way to find a fluke fare, and consolidators now keep each other honest. Centrav, for instance, is a charter member of the United States Air Consolidators Association, which requires that its members sell at least $20 million in consolidator fares and have uninterrupted sales of at least two years. This may not mean much to you, since you can’t buy tickets from the USACA, but it should: If your trusted travel agent chooses a dicey consolidator that reneges on the deal or goes under, you’ll be relying on your credit card or your agent’s integrity to buffer you from the loss.
In the second half of this article, the best ways to shop for consolidator tickets
Posted by
Tracy on Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Ok, so as we've established, carting the kids along on your travels can be a little bit of a headache. At least the getting-there part of the trip. There's the unavoidable sippy cup mishaps, the disapproving glares from other passengers, and -for the solo travelers - the seat kicking, and (everyone's fave) the crying. So, how can parents and passengers survive the upcoming holiday travel blitz, minus the headaches? Minus the crying? How do you keep your little angels in check on those long dull flights? What's your smooth operator approach to handling junior seat kickers? Share your parenting travel tips, tales, and advice with us below! And maybe your wise words will be of use to other folks flying with/alongside the kiddies this season.
Posted by
Tracy on Wednesday, August 13, 2008
We get asked a lot of questions here at AFWD and --chalk it up to great minds thinking alike --some questions we see in our inbox on an almost daily basis. So we thought we'd take a sec to round-up some of these frequently asked questions (besides the usual "Who does your hair?" Ok, no one ever asks that. But hey, you could show a little interest!). If you haven't pondered the answer to at least one of these, chances are you will down the road.
Split Fares
Q. I wanted to buy a ticket from A to C but it was $1000. Then I discovered that the fare from A to B was only $300, and a second fare from B to C would only cost $200 round-trip. I called the airline rep and was told I'd have to buy a through ticket and couldn't split the fare. Why not?
A. Find out...
Bereavement Fares
Q. There's been a death in the family and I need to fly to _______ tomorrow. All the fares I've seen for a last minute trip are beyond expensive. Are bereavement fares still an option?
A. Read On...
Consolidator Fares
Q. I hear about consolidators all the time. Which ones, if any, are reliable? Should I even consider it?
A. Find out...
Travel Insurance
Q. Do you recommend buying travel insurance, even on shorter trips? And is it possible to buy after booking my flight?
A. Read On...
When to Buy?
Q. When is the best time of the week to find the lowest fares? I've always been told Tuesdays and Wednesays. Is that true?
A. Find out...
Fair Credit Billing Act
Q. What happens if I buy a ticket and the airline goes belly up? Will travel insurance protect me?
A. Read On...
Nonstop vs. Direct
Q. What's the difference between a nonstop flight and a "direct" flight? Or are they the same thing?
A. Find Out...
Against all Odds
Q. I have a very narrow window of time in which to make my connection from ______ to _____ and I'm worried I may miss it. What are my chances?
A. Read On...
Skipping a leg of your trip
Q. I recently was trying to get a good fare from A to B, and was not having much luck when I thought I would try departing from C. I found a great deal but then saw it connects in A. Can I just scrap C and get on in A, like I wanted to in the first place?
A. Find Out...
Lost Luggage
Q. My luggage was lost and the sum the airline is offering in compensation is nowhere near their limit of liability. What can I do?
A. Read On...
Posted by
George on Friday, August 08, 2008
As you know, our fare widget appears on several airport web sites, including Dayton International. Well, yesterday we got a call from the Dayton Airport asking if we could help a passenger in distress. Seems that Airtran had cancelled her flight to Charlotte, but she absolutely had to get there last night for a volleyball tournament the following morning. Airtran was willing to refund her $220 fare (under Rule 260, involuntary refunds, in its contract of carriage); but they would not Rule 240 her on United or USAir (they just don't do that, pretty much ever, as our Rule 240 chart explains). She was welcome to buy a last minute "walk up" $440 RT ticket on USAir, however, but that was way beyond her student budget.
So what, Dayton International wondered, should they do (by the way, it was very nice of them to help her, don't you think). Well, the answer, as it turned out, was bidding for travel on Priceline.com. So we bid $200 RT for the flight and were offered a $230 RT fare for travel that night that would get the stranded passenger to Charlotte "sometime between 6 PM and 1 AM the following day." Sure, we had no idea what the airline was, or the flight times (that's the way it is with bidding on Priceline) but this was a pretty decent last minute fare. We know some of you don't love Priceline (maybe it's those TV ads). But if you are looking for a last minute deal, they are your best and sometimes only hope. Tracy has used them several times this year in family emergencies, so we practice what we preach.
Posted by
George on Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Gabriel, our crack Senior Fare Analyst, has discovered some crazy low $106 RT "travel any weekend" fares on United to or from Cincinnati and to or from Salt Lake City. This means you can depart any Friday or Saturday and return any Monday/Tuesday for a full 330 day period! For example, Cincinnati to LA is just $106 RT, or $148 RT with taxes. We haven't seen crazy low fares like these in ages. And note: you DO NOT have to return the following Mon/Tue. It can be ANY Mon/Tue within 330 days, subject to holiday sell outs.
In fact, we found 113 routes so far in this sale. Check out our Cincinnati and Salt Lake City fare pages to see them!
Here's an example:
Posted by
George on Friday, August 01, 2008
This came in our mailbox, since we're signed up for alerts from Airtran.
It's cool that you can forward it to a friend and they get the discount too.
First person to use our certificate # gets the $25 off (we're not going to use it, so someone should!)
