Comments on: Unfair fares: 5 secrets for avoiding the bait-and-switch

By: mindy

mindy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:59:12 +0000

“On November 17th, 2008 at 10:11 pm axle said There is an acid test -

Do price switches ever work in the passenger’s favor?

IE will a $900 fare ever suddenly become a $400 fare after booking?”

Yes Axle – that does happen. A good Travel Agent can amost always get the airline to reduce that for you although you will still pay the airline’s change fee. So while the new fare is $500 less, you will only yield $500 minus the fee which is usually $100.

By: John F

John F — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:20:09 +0000

Travel agents (online or off) are tied into the airline reservation system so when an airline makes a fare change it is immediate across all platforms.

There is also speculation that the online sites are using cookies to influence pricing as well. Say you go to Orbitz and price a SFO-HNL ticket and Orbitz leaves a cookie. Then you go to Expedia and look for the same thing. Well now Expedia knows you were not happy with the Orbitz price (or are shopping) so they can tweak the pricing. Not saying it happens, and I have no idea if it is but I have heard the speculation.

By: axle

axle — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:11:46 +0000

There is an acid test -

Do price switches ever work in the passenger’s favor?

IE will a $900 fare ever suddenly become a $400 fare after booking?

By: George Booth

George Booth — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:47:59 +0000

I recently purchased a ticket for a friend to fly from Austin to Indianapolis. His wife was in ICU. I first looked on NWA and found the rate. Far from cheap for next day booking. I was in a hurry to help out so I called the airline directly to book. Same rate plus $20 transaction fee, no problem…
I gave them all info and had a confirmation # for his flight.
He arrived at the airport expecting to get on the flight when they told him the transaction was not approved. He called me about the situation so I immediately called NWA. They said my transaction was not approved. So I called Mastercard and they told me they approved the charge. Now I am really pissed… So I call NWA and ask for a supervisor…they stated it wasn’t approved.

Why would an airlines refuse my charge? No wonder Delta had to take them over. I of course told them that. Not only were they rude but stupid. I have never been on Nwa nor will I. Why did they go through the motions of booking a ticket and receiving confirmation only to deny the purchase? Needless to say my friend paid for the ticket with his card. They knew this was a third party charge from the moment I said “hello”.

By: Lyngengr

Lyngengr — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:16:45 +0000

All of the issues in this article would be moot if the airlines simply priced their tickets BASED ON HOW MUCH IT COSTS TO FLY. Sort of what Southwest does. Just think – all of the mathemeticians and banks of computers could be eliminated. Customers would have a good idea of how much it costs to fly from Point A to Point B without doing the “booking” game. Unfortunately, the majors love to play yield management, and it may work, but the last time I checked SW was the only carrier making any money. This whole article reminds me of the story “If airlines sold paint”. Do I hear the word “regulation”?

By: Richard Gonzalez-Hogan

Richard Gonzalez-Hogan — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:13:58 +0000

I have had the same bait and switch with Expedia, too. I found a low fare from Buffalo to Maui. I booked 3 seats, filled out everyone’s information including seat selection (3 legs x 3 pax x r/t = 18 seat selections) when I hit “pay” I was told the price was no longer available it was $150 more. I called Expedia and was told the airlines are always changing prices. I opened another window went through the same process and got the same “price is not longer available”. How long does it take the airline to remove the ficticious price from the list of Expedia offerings?

By: mindy

mindy — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:10:40 +0000

You left out the term “capacity controlled” – probably the most important one in terms of air fares. I won’t go into a long disucssion of that – I’ll leave that to you, Chris.

The other issue – here is how I handle this with my clients: “Right now I see a fare of $XXX, but I must tell you that air fares are never guaranteed until actually purchased. In the meantime, let’s make a reservation for this one and see if we can get this fare to stick.” The Travel Agent in your column made a fatal error – s/he did not grab the fare when she had it, s/he obviously let some time pass between the client’s initial call and actually holding those seats.

By: Bodega

Bodega — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:08:50 +0000

Like John F, I don’t think this is a bait and switch. The pricing for domestic ticketing is going the way of international pricing. A fare ISN’T the cost of the ticket. Is is the base and then there are the taxes, fees and surcharges to be added. An example I can give is for travel from SFO to HNL. I priced an itineary that had a fare of approx $289, but with all the taxes, fees and surcharges, the ticket cost was actually over $560.

As to Christine’s experience of having a price change during the booking process, it happens daily. The airlines change their fares 3-4 times a day. I have been in the process of booking a reservation to have the fare go up or go down before the ticket gets issued.

Chris, you really need to have someone in the industry proof read your work before submitting it. If you are going to write about travel, you need to have your facts correct.

By: John F

John F — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:12:04 +0000

I am not so sure it is a legitimate bait and switch. Fares are there one minute and not the next all the time. Any product has price fluctuations…the travel industry just has more of them in a shorter time period.

While I have never seen airline fares drop to the point where the new cost will cover the change fee, I do see price reductions in cruise prices and packaged vacations all the time.

The only firm rule, and one that is explained by almost every agent I know, is that the price of an airline ticket is NEVER guaranteed until it is ticketed.

By: john m

john m — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:04:02 +0000

I have to point out that the problem that Expedia, Orbitz and their ilk have is that what the consumer sees can be up to 4 hours old. Given that airlines change their rules and fares more than a million times a month and that frequently there are a limited number of seats for the low fares, this time lag creates the situation that Andy Daniel ran into.

Christine Austin’s situation is one that happens periodically due to the fact that airlines are allowed to participate in the four GDS or Global Distribution Systems at different levels. This means that in one system an airline may offer real time, last seat availability and yet in another system they offer limited availability or they may opt not to participate at all. What happens when an airline opts for a low level of participation in one or more systems is that the information displayed to the travel agent may not be current and until the agent actually tries to book the fare, the agent doesn’t know that it is going to be valid.

The first problem is one of the online booking companies own making as they didn’t want to deal with the technological challenges of having their displays deal in real time availability. It would be incredibly expensive to do so.

The second one isn’t one that the travel agent has created, it is one that the airlines have created. Most travel agents that I have dealt with are fairly good at informing their customers that a given fare may or may not be available and they won’t know until they try to purchase it.

Sometimes, the airlines will pull or change a fare without warning. No one has any control over this other than the airlines.

Bait and switch generally enriches the vendor, not the travel agent as most agencies make their money from the fee that they charge given that most of their vendors don’t pay them any commission any more.