The price is … vague:

Customers may choose FareLock when booking reservations at continental.com and opt for a 72-hour or a seven-day hold. They may return to complete the transaction at any time between purchasing the lock and its expiration, or they may choose an auto-ticketing feature which tickets at the end of the lock period. FareLock fees, beginning at $5 for a 72-hour hold and $9 for a seven-day hold, will vary based on a number of factors such as the itinerary, number of days to departure and the length of the hold.

So essentially, Continental is selling you a call option on an airfare, with the “call” expiring in either 3 days or 7.

(When Continental starts selling puts, as well as calls, call me… Can you imagine the secondary market?)

This could be useful for some people, if the fare is rock-bottom enough and worth buying insurance for. But remember, if you can figure out your plans within 24 hours, you don’t need such an insurance policy in the first place. After all, Continental still offers a 24-hour flexible booking policy, meaning that you have 24 hours from the time you purchase the ticket to cancel for a full refund, for any reason.

Interestingly, the press release reaffirms the existence of the 24-hour flexible booking policy, so the company is seemingly signaling that the courtesy-cancel isn’t going away. That’s good.

It’s not clear how much demand there really is for such a service. If the price is too high, that demand will disappear really quickly. For now, I’ll most likely rely more on the 24-hour courtesy-cancel, but it’s good to know there’s an insurance option available.

(image)

An economist, Makoto Watanabe, has calculated that the optimum time to buy an airline ticket is eight weeks in advance of flying.

His yet-to-be-published findings also suggests that airline tickets are cheaper when purchased in the afternoons, rather than the mornings, prompting him to speculate that airlines are assuming business travellers will book their tickets at work in the morning on the company account, whereas leisure travellers are more likely to book from home in the afternoon.

The eight-week result stems from work published in the latest edition of the Economic Journal in which Watanabe and his colleague, Marc Möller, offer intimidating equations such as ?A = gUG + min(k – g, (1 – g)(1 – r)) as part of the complex formula, where ? equals profit, that determines advance ticket purchases.

The eight-weeks-in-advance rule is plausible, though even then it’s more likely a rule of thumb than a rule as such.

It’s also potentially geographically limited in its validity: If the study was based on flights originating in London, then eight weeks may be the sweet spot for London travelers. But not necessarily for every market.

The buy-later-in-the-day guidance may be more problematic. Recall the myth that buying Wednesday at midnight is the best time to buy airline tickets? This is a variation on that theme.

Finding the cheapest fare is much like picking the precise bottom for a stock. You’re better off trying to buy cheap (I like the email alerts from FareCompare.com for finding fares that are below the norm), not trying to pick the bottom.

(hat tip to Budget Travel)

“Explore” set some business media hearts a-twitter (for example…) upon release, with stories of how innovative this site is, but I’m sorry, it’s not good enough. “Explore” is neither a new idea nor the best possible execution of that idea.

Travelocity had “Dream Maps” years ago, which mapped fares from a given city. You clicked on the fare on the map, and you got a detailed list of the fares, the airlines, the fare codes (!), and the rules/dates applicable. You could click on a fare and a calendar with eligible dates popped up. You could choose dates and search for availability on the spot. I miss this.

One major reason I miss Travelocity’s Dream Maps is because they listed all the publicly available fares that were loaded into Sabre. Sure, you had to click through a number of fares before finding something that met your dates, but they were bookable. That’s not what Kayak is providing. You’re not seeing all possible fares. Instead, Kayak’s “Explore” pulls fares from a much more limited pool. From the site itself (emphasis added):

Fares displayed are for round-trip economy class travel found by Kayak users in the last 48 hours. Fares include all taxes and fees but may not include baggage fees charged by carriers. Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights or days. Fares are subject to change and may not be available on all flights or dates.

A rolling 48 hour window of search results is problematic in a number of ways. Not only are fares rapidly outdated, and thus useless in a search, but by limiting your results only to those cities where someone else has found a fare in the past 48 hours, you’re only getting a small number of actual fares. You’re essentially relying on others doing the searches for you. And those fares are pulled for specific dates, not a range of dates. Not necessarily your dates.

The fact that the range of results — based on other people’s searches in the last two days — is likely to be limited is especially problematic if you’re searching from small airports. New York fares might be pretty reliable, but how about Walla Walla, Washington fares?

Other sites have taken a stab at this, too. FareCompare currently comes closest. But I’ve had trouble actually booking some of the fares that come up. Mobissimo lets you search by regional destinations, too. And again, some of those fares aren’t bookable.

Bottom line: I like the idea of Kayak Explore. It’s a great concept. But someone (else?) can and should make it better. I know it’s a moving target, and a big set of data to sift through, but it was done once. Let’s map the complete range of bookable fares — again — to truly empower the consumer.

Related:
- Flexible-date search alternatives for international destinations
- Reader mail: I don’t care where I go, it just has to be cheap

Upgraded: Deals to Europe
Jared Blank may have posted this on May 27, but if you’ve procrastinated your summer travel plans, you can still (!) book roundtrip flights from Newark to several European cities for only $399 including all taxes, for travel through June 30, 2010. I found seats to Oslo, Berlin, and London, with relative ease. The catch, if you want to call it that: You have to fly via Iceland, with Iceland Express. Be sure to check that volcano ash forecast…

Downgraded: EasyJet’s name
Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of British discount airline EasyJet, has parted ways with the company he built, and is now preparing to sue to have them remove the “easy” prefix in their name. Sir Stelios wants to set up an online travel agency with the same name, which sounds like it’s going to be a delightful time for everyone involved. Haven’t the trademark battles over classic rock band names like Pink Floyd, Yes, and Black Sabbath taught us anything?

Upgraded: Me
Yes, this blog has been out of commission for two weeks, and I apologize for the unannounced absence. After some time fine-tuning the work-work balance, traveling to conferences, and grappling with an unpleasant illness, we’re back on the beat, baby! Thanks to those who wrote expressing concern.

Blame seasonality. Beyond the economic slowdown that’s killed premium-cabin traffic, there’s the seasonal slowdown, as business travel grinds to a halt near year-end. What this means for the leisure traveler is premium class deals in premium economy, business class, and first.

Most of the deals are to Europe. Very few deals target Asia. There are a handful of deals to Australia, too, but they’re not the best I’ve seen.

Sure, even the discounted premium seats will still cost you more than a coach seat. But there are some decent prices nonetheless.

Some examples:

Compare a roundtrip in coach from New York to Paris for $858, all-in, on American, with a $1415 fare for the same dates on OpenSkies, the British Airways subsidiary operating an all-premium configuration. (The quoted fare is for a cradle seat, which they call “BizSeat,” vs. their lie-flat “BizBed” product. It’s arguably a high-end premium economy seat, or a low-end business class seat.)

Or Continental’s BusinessFirst sale: Houston to London for $2087 all-in, vs. $1096 for the same flights in coach.

Or check out Lufthansa, which is running specials to a range of European destinations from each of the US cities where it has nonstop departures to Frankfurt or Munich. Cities that don’t see regular fare sales, like Charlotte, get a little love thrown their way, though it’s not quite as generous as the discounts New Yorkers get. (E.g., Charlotte to Amsterdam for $2278 all-in, vs. $1099 for the same flights in coach.)

These flights would cost thousands more at other times of the year.

But not all airlines are playing along. I test-drove Virgin Atlantic Upper Class fares, and I wasn’t impressed at all. Over $3000 for a flight from New York to London? That’s hardly a sale.

Bottom line: If you haven’t booked international travel around the holidays, don’t neglect to search for business class fares. You may find a deal.

The Expedia fee was scheduled to go back into effect on June 1. The company had two choices: Quietly reinstate the fees, and face the marketing wrath of the no-fee competition, or “permanently” kill the fee with a big fanfare. How’s the fanfare sound on your end?

The big agencies still get a cut of the sale, unlike most mom-and-pop travel agencies, so the extra booking fee monies were additional revenue. Many customers (31%, according to here) were doing their searches on the major agencies’ sites, and then going to the airline to book directly and save the fee. Now, the agencies’ fares should be on the same level as the airlines’ own websites.

Interestingly, Expedia also cut change fees in the same breath:

Other fee changes also were announced Wednesday. Expedia.com said it will eliminate the change-and-cancel fees on hotel, car rental and cruise reservations and on most flight reservations. Flights that are part of certain package deals will still be subject to a fee when reservations are changed or canceled. Expedia.com said it will resume charging $20 [on June 1, 2009] to make a flight booking over the phone, a fee that was halted during the promotion.

Eliminating change-and-cancel fees is nice, but it’s just the surcharge, not the totality of relevant fees. Airlines are charging $100, $150, or more to change itineraries for non-refundable booking classes, and Expedia can’t waive those fees. The elimination only applies to the surcharges which Expedia tacked on.

In any case, this puts pressure on Travelocity and Orbitz to make fee cuts permanent as well. Both of those sites’ fee-elimination policies have a sunset clause, and fees are scheduled to re-emerge on June 1. Neither site is commenting on whether they’ll follow Expedia’s lead or not. We’ll see if there are more announcements of newly-permanent fee reductions in the coming days…

Two weeks ago, George Hobica of Airfarewatchdog posted about a seemingly dramatic new change in the ways airfares are collected and disseminated, which he claimed would throw a wrench into the already-frustrating system of regularly fluctuating prices. “[A]irlines will be able to change their fares more often and more quickly than ever before, and consumers will need to keep on their toes like never before.” His suggestion caught my attention. The problem is, it’s a non-problem. The more I thought about it, his post just didn’t add up.

Under the title, “Airfares may change more often than ever in the near future,” George writes that “ATPCO, the folks who act as the airfare intermediary between the airlines and you, the consumer, via airfare distribution systems such as Travelocity, Expedia, and your local travel agent, will soon be implementing real time, instantaneous airfare updates, according to a person who is familiar with the matter.” The consequence of such a change, according to George:

What it means for you is that fares can fluctuate much more frequently than before, which may make shopping for airfares even more of a challenge.

What is means for airlines is that in order to respond to their competition’s airfare increases and decreases, they could conceivably have their pricing analysts work in a 24 hour environment. On the plus side for airlines and the online travel agencies such as Travelocity, they’ll be able to eliminate fare mistakes almost instantaneously instead of waiting for the next fare update, which could be hours away. On the minus side, airlines might have to add staff to their pricing and fare analysis departments, and really keep on their toes.

Right now, airlines file fares continuously throughout the day with the ATPCO clearinghouse, who then distributes those fares to reservation systems at set times (3 times daily for domestic fares on weekdays; once daily for domestic fares on weekends; up to 8 times daily for international fares on weekdays; and 3 times daily for international fares on weekends). Subscribers to those ATPCO feeds — airlines, and the global distribution systems such as Galileo, Amadeus, etc. — pass the information on to their clients, usually agencies. As long as inventory holds up (and if fares are low, that’s a big if), fares will be stable for a several-hour window.

On the surface, George’s account of the possible shift from periodic updates to real-time updates of airfares sounds like a plausible tale, and a big shift in the way the business works. (Except for the “pricing analysts” working 24-7… They have computers that do this sort of thing these days, you know…) But the more you think about it, the more it just doesn’t make sense for anyone to worry about this.

For starters, the concept of live-updated fares in ATPCO isn’t new, so George’s post is a few years too late. It’s been around for at least five years, and I can find evidence of it on the ATPCO website going back to at least February 2007. It’s currently pitched under the name “Instant Subscriptions.” It’s an option for subscribers, not a new standard. So the service is available, but it’s not being implemented. Which begs the question, why not?…

I called Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare, who works closely with ATPCO and knows more about their airfare products than any person really should. I asked Rick about the prospects of a shift to an instant-fare-update world. He confirmed my skepticism.

For starters, Rick pointed out, the technical challenges of implementing a system like this are huge. Huge hardware investments. Rewriting software. In today’s environment, this is highly unlikely.

Then there’s a collective action problem, and the issue of fare variation: Let’s assume that some agencies subscribing to ATPCO feeds would opt for the live updates, but others don’t. Then assume Airline A raises some of its fares. If Agency XYZ gets its fares through a live-updated feed, but Agency ABC doesn’t, then ABC will show the old (lower) fares. Now XYZ’s low-fare-guarantee would kick in, because its competitor ABC would be offering the same flight for less. So XYZ could lose money if it offers the live-updated fares. Unless everyone opts for live updates at once, it’s going to be a problem.

More to the point: Even if — if — airlines were signed on to constantly update new fares in real-time, would they want to? What’s the benefit in doing so, if you’re an airline? There are already multiple updates, only a few hours apart, so when one airline lowers or raises fares, their competitors don’t have long waits before they can respond.

And finally, even if the published fare changes, there’s still the matter of inventory. Airlines can publish all the fares they want, but if there’s no inventory of seats to back it up, any fare war is moot.

So is it possible that we’ll see live-updated fares someday, with prices bouncing around like a bank stock on options-expiration day? Sure, if every subscriber to airfare prices joins the fun, and if there’s plentiful inventory to back up each price point. None of this is happening anytime soon.

So let’s not fearmonger (or faremonger)…

For starters, there are sites which have folded, some new competitors, and sites that changed their model significantly. At the same time, there has been pushback from airlines and suppliers, some of which have resisted the aggregator model. (The lawsuits between American Airlines and Kayak, which initially resulted in American Airlines no longer being listed in Kayak results, was perhaps the most prominent case of pushback. Since October 2008, aa.com results are back in the results. More on that below.)

The result: The golden ring of a truly complete search, covering all the options and all the providers, is still a ways away. No single site actually finds every flight option, every fare, or every seller.

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t differences between the aggregators. It’s time to disaggregate the aggregators again.

This year, each site was put through multiple tests. Four kinds of itinerary were tested: A large-city to medium-city domestic US flight with multiple carriers offering direct service; a medium-city to small-city domestic US flight with at least one change of plane required; an international flight with a US origin; and international flights (from Paris to Dubai, and Manchester to Madrid) to test how sites do for non-US flights. For each of these flights, I tested a short-term booking (7 days advance purchase) and a longer-term booking (30 days advance purchase).

This time, I compared Kayak, Sidestep, Mobissimo, TripAdvisor Flights, Momondo, Skyscanner, WeGo (formerly Bezurk), Trax, Farecast, Fly.com, and Dohop. Sites which were on the list last time but either folded or stopped doing metasearch include FareChase (bought by Yahoo, then abandoned in March 2009), PriceGrabber, and Qixo.

So which aggregator came out on top in 2009? Here’s the summary, with site-by-site reviews thereafter…

• Overall best bet: TripAdvisor Flights. Low fares, good features, a solid performer overall. It took them a while to join the game, but it’s a strong product with a small but important edge over its closest competitor, Kayak.
• Lowest price, domestic: If you’re searching for domestic US airfare, most of the aggregators did pretty well, but the lowest fares were consistently on TripAdvisor Flights, Mobissimo, or Momondo (Kayak and Sidestep would have been included in this list, but they often offered the lowest flights at the same base fares, but typically directed you to Orbitz, instead of to the airline or to a no-fee site like Priceline, to buy the ticket. Orbitz still charges a booking fee as of this writing, so single-airline itineraries can typically be purchased for less elsewhere.)
• Lowest price, international from US: If you’re searching for international flights starting in the US, try Kayak and Trax.
• Lowest price, international, ex-US: If you’re search for international flights that don’t originate or end in the United States, Mobissimo and Momondo performed best.
• Class conscious: If you’re looking for a deal on premium cabin fares, fly.com is your site.
• Sorting features: If you want control over options, and like to tweak and limit your results, Kayak gives you the most power.
• Real total cost: TripAdvisor Flights lets you estimate what your actual costs will be, including luggage checking fees, headphone charges, etc.
• Avoid: WeGo, which offered impressively-low search results, but none were actually bookable. Also avoid Dohop, whose prices were consistently higher than their competitors.

Individual site reviews

TripAdvisor Flights
Although a clone of its competitors in many respects, TripAdvisor’s new aggregator offers one big difference: The site offers an analysis of how much the flight will actually cost you, once you figure in the baggage fees, the headphone fees, etc. It even considers what your elite status is. That’s a great feature. Second, and more disappointingly, the site (unsurprisingly) favors its sister sites Expedia and Hotwire in its results. But those sites add no booking fee right now, so no big whoop. The site combines the best sorting features of Kayak with the added value of fee analysis. TripAdvisor takes it by a nose.

Kayak
Kayak is the largest of the metasearch sites, and it offers solid results. But it didn’t consistently offer the cheapest fare, because the universe of sites it searches is sometimes limited by agreements with individual partners. (American Airlines, for example, won’t allow results from its website to be shown alongside AA flights sold through Orbitz.) Orbitz puts demands on its partners, too, and subsequently, Kayak is heavily Orbitz-centric, with no representation of Expedia, Travelocity, or Priceline. Actual fare availability was good when I clicked through to sellers’ sites. Kayak’s sorting features are still the best (so good that they’re copied wholesale by TripAdvisor), with the ability to narrow search results by time, airline, or aircraft type (e.g., no props or RJs), to name a few. The site has recently added “flight quality warnings,” such as on-time percentages and tight-connection alerts, but those aren’t a big deal.

Sidestep
Kayak bought Sidestep a few years ago, but continues to operate the site as a standalone entity. Frankly, I don’t see why. The results are identical, the search tools are nearly the same, and there’s nothing to recommend this site over its parent. Everything stated above is true here as well, but why bother?

Farecast
Farecast, now owned by Microsoft, is most famous for their fare prediction engine, which suggests whether ticket prices for your route will drop in the future. The predictions are pretty accurate, though they don’t account for times of day, routing, or airline, if you have preferences on those matters. (And you should.) Farecast also offers up an aggregator, albeit a fairly minimalist one with few options and a favoritism for Orbitz results. Come here for the fare predictions, but for live fare comparisons, you’re better off elsewhere.

Mobissimo
Mobissimo claims to search more sites than anyone else, but not necessarily for a domestic US search. They have good coverage of Asian and European airlines, but their controls and filters are less than others’. Decent results, but I preferred others’ display of information.

Fly.com
From the folks who brought you TravelZoo, Fly.com offers one gimmick that’s worth noticing: First- and business class fare comparison. That’s it. Otherwise, it’s a clone of other sites. If you’re not looking for premium cabin seats, skip it.

WeGo (formerly Bezurk)
Big on teasers, low on success. WeGo touts some amazing fares, but good luck buying them. They also don’t list the lowest flight first: They show a sponsored link at the top. Bad, bad, bad.
Update April 9, 2009: WeGo has eliminated the sponsored results feature.

Skyscanner
Britain’s SkyScanner offers decent results for UK-based searches, but it’s not as helpful to others. For US and non-UK searches, SkyScanner searches returned far higher fares than the average.

Momondo
This Danish site is quite good at ferreting out obscure sellers of travel, especially for intra-European itineraries. But be aware that you’ll often get results from suppliers in countries outside the destination or origin. Flying Chicago to Baltimore? Your ticket could be sold by a British company (which could mean a 3% credit card surcharge).

Trax
Update December 2009: Trax has retrenched, and is no longer touting their fare comparison as their primary product. Their homepage shows a disclaimer as of December 7, 2009. But their search engine is still up and running if you dig for it… This is odd, to say the least.
Trax.com offers a Kayak-lite search that works well for domestic US itineraries. They include Priceline and Cheapoair, which others don’t, but the results weren’t significantly better.

Two other sites of note:
1. An aggregator you can’t use for booking, but which is great for research, remains ITA Software. Their engine powers Orbitz, and backs up Kayak and TripAdvisor results. They’re a great resource. (Click “log in as a guest” to use the search without registering.)

2. No discussion of fare search would be complete without a mention of FareCompare. The site’s alerts give you a heads-up on future sales by notifying you when fares drop, before they go on sale. They offer fare search, too, which is powered by Kayak.

So… what’s your experience with fare aggregators? Hit the comments to share your stories.

What this used to mean: If the price of a ticket would drop in the time after you bought it, and if you were alert enough to notice the change, you could go online or call the airline and “refare” the ticket. You’d receive a voucher for the difference in the mail. Three years ago, I detailed the process here.

Repricing a ticket at a lower fare will now involve a reticketing fee — you’re cancelling the earlier “nonrefundable” ticket, paying a penalty, and using the credit from that transaction toward a new ticket.

United was the biggest airline to be doing free re-faring of an identical itinerary. Alaska, JetBlue, and Southwest still offer it for free. Most other airlines allow you to reticket, but there’s a fee of between $75 and $150. (It could still pay off if the fee is less than the fare difference.)

One warning to anyone repricing tickets, with fees or not: If you’re waitlisted for an upgrade, you’ll lose your place in line, and you may need to reapply. It’s a new ticket, so you’re starting fresh.

On the one hand, United’s abandonment of free refaring makes economic sense. Why give voucher refunds to people who have already paid for their (nonrefundable) tickets? The airline has your money, so there’s no incentive to give it back.

On the other hand, the voucher system is a way of guaranteeing future business. This is what the folks at Yapta, the service that tracks price drops after you’ve purchased the ticket, argued when they first launched their fare-drop tracking service:

Look, as an airline I still keep your cash. I’m taking a short-term hit, and over the next 12 months I have the opportunity to turn that $100 coupon into a $500 ticket. I’ve locked in your loyalty.

The voucher logic isn’t being abandoned entirely, after all. United and other airlines still give vouchers when there’s a customer service issue, and that voucher is designed to both show goodwill and lock in a future sale.

United’s change also means that they’re reneging on a benefit they offered as part of their “customer commitment.” As Gary points out, this was launched in order to ward off a passengers’ bill of rights, nearly a decade ago. Perhaps they’re planning to play the same card again: If pressure builds for another PBOR, then United can trot out a re-faring policy, just like they did last time.

The agency is now offering price guarantees that mimic Orbitz’ “Price Assurance” for airfare and Travelocity’s “PriceGuardian” for packages:

That’s why starting today [we're] backing up every Flight AND Vacation Package purchase with Free Pricedrop Protection for orders booked by June 1st. Now you, and your users, are automatically covered if prices drop before the trip!

Up to $300 Cash Back if Flight Prices Drop:
If another priceline customer books the same flight for a lower price, we’ll automatically refund the difference in cash…up to $300.

Up to $600 Cash Back if Vacation Package Prices Drop:
If another priceline customer books the same vacation package for a lower price, we’ll automatically refund the difference in cash…up to $600.

As I’ve expressed before, I don’t think that a price guarantee that relies on another customer booking exactly the same itinerary is worth that much, unless you’re booking a really, really common route (and, in the case of a package, a midrange mainstream hotel). But hey, if it’s not costing you anything and doesn’t take any effort on your part, why the heck not.

Bottom line: The competition for your business is heating up. Who’s next?