From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Jun 13 2001 - 19:11:56 MDT
In my multitudinously available free time (being mostly unemployed at the
moment), I saw on one talk show an airline reservations guy who wrote an expose
book on the industry, where he gave lots of tips to save on airline tickets.
Allegedly, when you talk to a real reservations person, they have a whole host
of different prices for tickets on the same flight on their screen. The trick,
he said, is to ask them to scroll down the screen on their computer and tell you
what the lowest possible available fair is for that flight. They are sorted by
price, so the most expensive ones are at the top and on the first screen. When
they tell you what the lowest fair is, tell them you want that faire, and
supposedly its in the FAA regs that they are supposed to honor it....
hal@finney.org wrote:
> John Grigg writes:
> > For various personal reasons(lack of money as well as opposition from
> > others) I postponed buying an airline to fly from Anchorage, Alaska to San
> > Jose. Now, ticket prices are VERY high. I have surfed the net trying to
> > find a good price but do not fully understand the intricacies of buying
> > online and not getting burned. I only have $500 to spend.
>
> Unfortunately, as you have found, last-minute airline reservations are
> very expensive. Most last-minute flyers are businessmen whose travel is
> paid for by their companies, making them relatively insensitive to price.
> Consumers can usually plan their flights some weeks in advance and the
> airlines offer many more discounts to attract their business.
>
> The best I found for you was using www.orbitz.com, a new reservation
> service. Anchorage to San Francisco International airport, going down
> Friday afternoon and returning Monday afternoon, is $733 round trip.
> That is above your $500 limit, but most other options were over $1000 so
> it is a relatively good price. Flights to San Jose airport were more
> expensive, San Francisco International was better. It's a half hour
> ride on the commuter train down to San Jose, a few dollars.
>
> I have never used Orbitz but I have bought tickets online through
> Microsoft Expedia (www.expedia.com) with good results. Expedia does
> not have that fare, though.
>
> You might also consider priceline.com. They supposedly sell last-minute
> unsold seats at a discount. "Name your own price," as the commercials
> say. You could try offering $500 and see if it worked, it couldn't hurt.
> I'd try SFO first and then SJC if you have time.
>
> Sorry that you had to run into this last-minute bad news.
>
> Hal
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