First time here? Check out the site's "greatest hits" or read a random post from the archives. Feel free to ask a question, and consider subscribing to the latest posts via RSS or e-mail. Thanks for visiting!

Reader Joe writes in:

I live in Ventura, California, and I was looking at a flight to Philadelphia. But the fares don’t make sense. It’s cheaper for me to fly from Santa Barbara to LAX to Philadelphia than it is to fly nonstop LAX-PHL. I don’t get it. It’s cheaper to connect at LAX??! I’m flying further, so why is it less? About $80 less, too. Why??

Ahh, airline economics. Use more of a resource, pay less! But believe it or not there’s sometimes a logic to it.

In fact, this is quite common. I recently faced a similar thing when buying a ticket. It was cheaper to fly from Greensboro to Charlotte, and onward to San Diego, that to fly nonstop from Charlotte to San Diego. Adding the Greensboro to Charlotte leg actually caused the price to drop about $70.

Two important things to remember:
1) Pairs matter. Distance doesn’t.
Fares won’t necessarily depend on the route you fly. Fares are based on city pairs — the departure and destination city.
2) Supply and Demand.
Supply and competition for a particular route will generally trump other economic factors like distance flown.

Airlines price flights based not only on the costs they incur, but also on the demand for the route and the amount of competition for the particular city pair. In your case, Joe, the LAX-Philadelphia route may have seen hefty sales already, selling out the cheaper seats on that route. But the Santa Barbara-Philadelphia city pair may have seen only light sales, so the cheap seats could still have been available.

And don’t forget fare sales: If a competitor is driving prices lower on the Santa Barbara-Philadelphia route, then prices are likely to drop. This is especially noticeable when a new, cheaper competitor starts service from a city. (The “Southwest Effect” is a common phrase to describe the effect of fares on a city when Southwest starts service in a market.)

[As a sidebar: Given the fact that you’ll have to change planes, thereby risking a misconnection and spending more time in airports, is it really worth saving a few bucks to increase your inconvenience? You might also be paying a nonstop premium, which could easily be worth it. I realize your question was about why the price difference exists, but the lower price may still be a bad value.]

Bottom line: If you’re trying to make sense of an airfare, ignore distance. Ignore where you’re changing planes. And ignore superficial logic. Focus on price for the explanation.

(image)

A recent article on fuel surcharges offers a hypothetical scenario of what consumers might expect in coming months or years:

“If fuel continues at this level, you may have a situation where an airline prices a ticket absent fuel,” said Terry Trippler of TripplerTravel. “Other than that they really don’t have a lot of options (to offset higher fuel costs).”

Much recent innovation in pricing in the travel industry (not just at airlines) has centered on the concept of “a la carte” buying. Pay only for what your use, not for a package of all the services available. So unbundling the cost of fuel isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Cruise lines and hotels have already done something like this, requiring a fuel surcharge that wasn’t included up front at the time of reservation. Travelers were shocked with a bill at the time of check-in. Shady? Yes.

But if fuel wasn’t a surcharge, and was simply a charge that everyone paid in full at the time of check-in, it might be less offensive to multitudes of travelers.

So what might this look like? You’d buy a ticket that covers the privilege of getting onboard, much like you pay a fee for renting a car. Your ticket would reflect your class of service, and any “amenities” you chose (food, baggage, early boarding, legroom… whatever) but the cost of the fuel wouldn’t be included up front. You might pay for the fuel at the time of check-in, or the carrier might give you the option of pre-paying (hedging?) and locking in a rate.

By charging the passengers for fuel on the day of travel, the airline would avoid the fluctuations of the oil market almost entirely. Fuel hedging strategies would be moot. Airlines that did this could sell seats without worrying about the price of Jet-A kerosene. And in a sense, this is logical: Hertz and Avis aren’t really affected by changes in oil prices, so why not Continental and jetBlue?

Of course, this would be awful for consumers, whose ability to predict the actual cost of travel would be flushed down the toilet. Budgeting would be harder. Travel expenses would be much more fluid, and the net effect on prices would likely be upward. And upward by a bit, since the fuel bill on a 7000-mile trip can change substantially with small shifts in the price of oil. “Low fares” would be a thing of the past, unless the airlines started “free fuel” promotions.

The saving grace for consumers is that it would take some cartel-like coordination to see all the major airlines start treating fuel this way. If it’s a single major airline that’s the first mover, there is bound to be a strong negative reaction in the media. But as the article cited above notes, it wouldn’t be the first time someone tried this:

If airlines do unbundle fuel costs from ticket prices, it would not be the first time. During the energy crisis of the late 1970s, charter airlines had separate fuel charges that were set just before takeoff.

Yesterday, it was charter airlines. Today, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Skybus or Spirit try something like this, since they’re already nickel-and-diming their customers and they’re known for doing anything to make a buck.

But either way, look out. Unbundled fuel could be coming your way, and you shouldn’t be happy.

(image)

If you’re booking flights on Continental, you might as well give this promotional code a shot.

To redeem, go to continental.com and choose “Advanced Search” at the bottom of the blue fare search box on the left side. On the following screen enter ZB2UAS82JH in the “Offer Code” box halfway down the page. Then choose flights, etc.

No guarantees on how long this code will be valid, but give it a try.

(Thanks to reader Jim V. for sharing!)

UPDATE: Try ZB5HBFJEBT as an alternate discount code. Thanks, Srinivasan!

Reader Anton asks:

How do you search for Premium Economy fares? Many airlines (trans-Atl, trans-Pac) have them but NONE of the travel sites/search engines allow you to look for them?!

You’re absolutely right, Anton: You’ll be hard-pressed to find a website that let’s you search for premium economy fares in a way that compares apples to apples.

“True” premium economy is typically a separate mini-cabin on long-haul international flights, and compared to regular economy, it usually offers some combination of wider seats, more legroom, more recline, and better food and drink. Better than coach, but not quite business class. As Dave Demerjian noted in his recent roundup of premium economy options in Business Traveler magazine, some airlines also let premium economy customers check in with the (shorter) business class lines at the airport.

Airlines that feature true premium economy include Air New Zealand, ANA, British Airways, EVA, JAL, SAS, Singapore (ultra long-haul flights like Newark to Singapore only), Thai, Virgin Atlantic. (Acronymic airline names apparently increase the likelihood of a premium economy cabin!)

While that list is not authoritative, there’s one glaring (and intentional) omission: United’s Economy Plus. Economy Plus, at the front of United’s cabin, only offers extra legroom, but none of the other features or services typically associated with premium economy.

Fares for true premium economy can vary widely, but they are rarely cheap, making a search engine for these fares especially desirable. When there’s a sale, fares might be a tiny smidge above regular economy, and thus a great deal. Or, they could run above full-fare economy rates, which is muscling into business class fare levels. At that point, you’re overpaying.

So far, there hasn’t been an aggregator or online travel agency that has created a tool that searches for premium economy fares. And travelers — and, I’d argue, airlines too — have lost out.
UPDATE: Reader Brian in comments notes that Expedia’s UK site does let you narrow your searches to premium economy. But you may run into trouble if you need to book a connection (in regular economy) to the long-haul flight in premium economy. But it’s a start!

So why is it so hard to find these fares? Each airline has a proprietary economy fare basis code for premium economy. And because that code is in the economy fare-class universe, search engines can’t parse it out from regular back-of-the-bus economy class tickets in fare searches.

So you’re left hunting and pecking, browsing over to each individual airline’s website and check the prices. Or doing the same thing by phone. Perhaps you could find a travel agent, too. But honestly, there’s got to be a way to solve this problem. FareCompare? Kayak? I’m looking at you guys!

Related:
- Demystifying premium economy
- Space by Space Basis (Business Traveler Magazine)

The appeal of booking on an airline’s homepage isn’t the swank digs of the site itself. It’s typically the savings, and maybe a few bonus miles (though those bonuses are all but extinct). Now US Airways manages to eliminate its home field advantage by actually charging $5 more than some other agencies.

The Cranky Flier is all over this, and he has every reason to be cranky. Why buy from US Airways directly when you can book for $5 less from Priceline or Hotwire, which don’t charge booking fees? (I mean their “regular” bookings, not the “name your own price” opaque fares.)

The fee that US Airways is charging appears to be a fuel-related charge. It’s not a credit card fee or such, as is common outside the US. (Airlines seem to prefer debit transfers…) But don’t think that U.S. airlines aren’t thinking about renegotiating their merchant agreements with credit card networks, so they can introduce that sort of upcharge here. The first moves were made this summer. It’s coming, just wait. But I digress…

Bottom line: If US Airways is your choice, shop around before clicking “buy.” Don’t just buy your ticket directly from them. If you do, you’ll just reward bad behavior.

(image)

I admit, I’m a sucker for the Shatner ads for Priceline. His over-the-top self-mocking is pitch-perfect. But beyond the Shat, there’s great news on the booking fee front courtesy of the firm he hawks. Priceline has “permanently” eliminated the booking fee it once charged on regular airfare.

Note that this is for a traditional flight search, by airline, schedule, etc., not the name-your-own-price opaque airfare they offer. (I wouldn’t recommend opaque airfare to anyone but a backpacking tourist with time to kill.)

Priceline and Hotwire have both previously put their booking fees for scheduled airfare on hiatus, but Priceline’s news is to make it “permanent,” and not just a limited-time offer.

This is a blow to Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, and any other agency, online or off, that charges a fee. But it’s not a death blow. Neither Priceline nor Hotwire have that great of a fare search engine, though you’re able to buy mixed-airline itineraries on both. Priceline allows multi-city routings and refundable-fare searches. (Hotwire punts and sends multi-city requests to Expedia instead.)

Nonetheless, it’s good to see a whittling down of booking fees, especially in an environment of fuel surcharges and all around nickel-and-diming. Bravo to lower fees. And with the ever self-deprecating Shat, to boot.

Related:
- Priceline flight search (aff)
- Hotwire.com (aff)

Golden Age, Golden Books: Travel back in time through the power of kids’ books
Children’s book protagonist Gordon experiences the magic of 1961 air travel: “Gordon ate steak and baked potatoes and lots of dessert — the things he liked best. ‘Food tastes good when you’re high in the sky,’ he said.” Cut to 2007, and little Gordon is a bitter man who can’t get an upgrade, but insists on calling the flight attendant “stewardess.” (Thanks, Brownlee!)

Sweet spot: Buy tickets in advance, but just not TOO far in advance
FareCompare.com CEO Rick Seaney busts a myth: That buying WAY far in advance is a great way to save money. Rarely true. Instead, the best time to really start shopping is about four months before your flight. One big reason: While most airlines sell tickets up to 11 months in advance, Southwest Airlines only sells tickets 4 to 5 months ahead. And since Southwest has enormous pricing power, their competitors don’t even bother trying to compete.

Your 15 minutes were over 20 minutes ago
Richard Branson never met a camera he didn’t love. Apparently neither did Kyla Ebbert, Southwest’s miniskirt bandit. Branson used Ebbert as a PR prop for Virgin America’s new service to Vegas. Classy. But hey, goofy photos result. Why is Branson dressed like a priest? Oh, screw it. It’s only egging him on.

Ryanair-style airline coming to transatlantic travel
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary plans to start a discount airline that connects Europe and the U.S. It won’t be Ryanair, just a lot like it. Always the opportunist, O’Leary plans to wait until other airlines are in trouble, and then buy their aircraft on the cheap.

Skybus dropping West Coast?
Skybus looks like it might drop its flights to California and Washington, focusing instead on its shorter flights. Maybe that’s a good thing. Do you really want to deal with 29″ of seat pitch for a cross-country flight?

How to cut to the front of the security line
This isn’t advice I want to try out, knowing that the TSA has the habit of compiling dossiers on travelers. But Christopher Soghoian, of fake-boarding-pass generator fame, posts his tip on how to get to the front of the TSA line: Refuse to show ID. Instant supplemental screening (SSSS)! And to those wondering, yes, you can refuse to show ID and still legally fly. Print-and-save (pdf).

Your hard drive is a weapon
Since when are external hard drives a threat to security? Sigh.

Downgraded: Odds of seeing pole-dancer art on London-Gatwick approach
First it was the Kentucky Fried Chicken ad featuring a Colonel Sanders image visible from space. Now, a website’s advertisement featuring a giant chalk outline of a poledancing stripper is causing controversy in the UK. The image, in a field below a common approach path for flights to London’s Gatwick Airport, is only visible from the air, but is still causing an affront. It’s likely to be removed soon. But thanks to news reports and posts like this one far more people will see it online than ever would see it from a plane. (Yes, I’m guilty of supporting their marketing machine… I know…)

Upgraded: Kayak.com introduces alliance-based search
Aggregator Kayak.com tweaked its search tools ever so slightly, allowing you to sort by alliance (Star, oneworld, Skyteam) and not just by airline. But you can only sort it that way AFTER you’ve the basic search. (You can search preferred airlines up front, so why not alliances? Meh.) Orbitz has allowed alliance search for some time, but this is the first aggregator that I’m aware of that’s doing this.

Upgraded: Hertz’s environmentalist credibility
Last September, Hertz rolled out its “Green Collection” of rental cars and I was thoroughly unimpressed. Buick LaCrosse? Come on. Where were the hybrids? Well, it took nine months, but Hertz finally got around to buying more genuinely eco-friendly vehicles, with a purchase of 3,400 Toyota Priuses (or is that Prii?). That’s more like it.

Upgraded: Wine in coach. Viva jetBlue!
JetBlue is serving up some slightly more interesting wines than usual the usual coach fare. Thanks to a partnership with Best Cellars, the airline is giving their all-economy class passengers a slightly better guzzle. Choosing wine for coach can be challenging, since it has to be a) cheap, b) in tiny ready-for-sale bottles, unlike in premium cabins, and c) pair-able with a wider range of foods. I hadn’t thought about that last one before: After all, the wine in business and first can presumably be paired with the menu (though that’s not always obvious). But in coach, a wine demands “versatility in pairing with a wide assortment of airport meals people bring on planes, including pan pizzas from Pizza Hut and Taco Bell burritos with chicken and mole sauce.” (Taco Bell has a mole sauce? Really?) Either way, good for jetBlue, and good for their wine-imbibing passengers. (Thanks Tyler!)

Downgraded: US Airways right to serve any wine
Unlike jetBlue… US Airways, which got into trouble for selling booze without a license in New Mexico a few months ago, and which has been serving the sauce with a temporary scrip since then, was denied an extension of its license this past week. Tough break. BYOB, anyone?

Upgraded: Marriott; Downgraded: Ian Schrager (or is it the other way around?)
Look, I happen to like Marriott hotels for what they are: Consistent, clean, competent, and overall comfortable spaces to spend the night. (4 C’s!) They usually don’t have too much bling or pizazz, though some of their big-city properties have that 1980s glitz that has an odd appeal to my mid-to-late-30s, graying-gracefully, receding-hairline self. So when I hear that they’re teaming up with Ian Schrager, king of the boutique hotel, to create a new boutique-y brand, I’m skeptical. It seems like a late-to-the-game attempt to create a “W” chain within a chain. If it adds a little funk to the Marriott decor, great. (Bye bye brass fixtures, please!) But it also smacks of desperation. And isn’t Ian Schrager past this? Seems like he’s here to cash in while the cashin’ in is good.

Upgraded: WestJet’s honesty; Downgraded: Little old ladies’ pensions
Canada’s WestJet (hearts) little old ladies. Not because they’re nice grandmas, but because they’re walking piggy banks, and the airline’s got a hammer. Consider this nugget from the airline’s president:

“There would be a little old lady coming up and she’d have a table and she’d have a chair and she’d have six or seven bags and we’d say ‘Yeah, take it on the plane. No problem.’ Now we’re actually going to charge a little bit of money for taking that table and chair and those extra bags on board. And that incremental revenue that we extract from that little old lady is very, very profitable to us. Some 85% goes to the bottom line.”

Good for him, for saying publicly what other airline executives discuss privately. So I guess the business traveler isn’t the company profit center; the rarely-traveled senior citizen is. Bank it.

Upgraded: Amputees and their TSA experience
Got a prosthetic? The TSA wants to make your security checkpoint experience kinder and gentler. Good! On the other hand…

Downgraded: Sippy cups, and TSA cinema verité
A former Secret Service agent reports that she was harassed when she accidentally carried her child’s sippy cup of water through security. Stupid enough, but it gets more absurd: The TSA actually released a silent security tape of the incident, labeled “Mythbusters,” in their own defense. Feel free to view the videos, read the incident report, review the embarrassed mother’s story, and decide for yourself.

Upgraded: Demolition
Let me make myself perfectly clear: I want to help destroy this hotel. I’ve never been to it, but I want to help Spanish hotel chain NH Hoteles wreck the Alcala Hotel in Madrid. The company is holding a contest to see who can take a sledgehammer to the joint. Only 30 lucky few will get to play rockstar-cum-wrecking ball. Let the spirit of Keith Moon guide you.

While airline alliances were created for the primary benefit of the member airlines, they also promise benefits to the flying public, such as the ability to buy a wider range of codeshared flights. So why are US Airways and United Airlines refusing to sell each others’ flights?

Last night, I tried to reserve an itinerary, sold by US Airways, that involved a change of planes in Charlotte. Ideally, I wanted the final leg of my trip, from Charlotte to Chicago, to be the US-codeshared flight operated by United. The United flight’s time was more convenient, and I could sit in Economy Plus or even try my luck at burning an upgrade or two.

I knew from the timetables that the flight existed, that it carried a US Airways number (US Airways Flight US5909, operated by United Airlines as Flight UA569), and that it was available for sale on sites like Orbitz, at the same exact price as other itineraries that were wholly operated by US Airways.

But US Airways wouldn’t reserve the flight for me.

Here’s how it worked: I started by going online and searching for flights. US Airways’ website did not include a single flight that was operated by United in its search results. Not one. Neither as a US-labeled codeshare, nor as a UA-numbered flight.

So I tried United’s website. Their search engine lets you tick a box to “include Star Alliance flights” in the search results. But it only included some Star Alliance flights, and only ones that carried a United codeshare number. The list wasn’t exhaustive, either — not all codeshared flights were listed. And it didn’t include any flights that were sold under the US flight number.

In the past, I have been able to use United’s site to book flights on other Star Alliance carriers, usually as part of a mixed itinerary. That doesn’t appear to be consistently possible any more. The site’s help page for booking codeshares implies that it should still be possible to book Star Alliance and codeshare flights using their tool. But the options are severely restricted.

None of this would have been an issue if I had been ready to pull the trigger and purchase the ticket right then and there. I could have just gone to Orbitz and bought the flight, albeit with a $6 surcharge. But I wanted to put the flight on a 24-hour hold, and Orbitz doesn’t allow that. US Airways’ website doesn’t allow putting flights on hold, either (that’s a post for another day), so I picked up the phone and called them.

The phone agent couldn’t — or wouldn’t — reserve the flight I wanted. I gave them the flight number — US5909 — but the answer was no. “That flight is not available for purchase.” So I settled for a later flight, which leaves me more time to partake in the Charlotte Airport’s rocking chairs, barbeque stands, and North Carolina wine bar.

My experience doesn’t appear to be a complete fluke. I’ve seen this sort of thing before, but I’ve always assumed it was just a temporary glitch. After seeing this again and again, it seems deliberate. To give them one last benefit of the doubt, I just tried searching different itineraries (some domestic, some international) on both the United and the US Airways websites. US Airways excluded every United-operated option, every time. United’s website included some US Airways flights, but only if they carried a UA number. Other Star Alliance carriers, like Lufthansa, didn’t face the same discrimination.

My only conclusion: US Airways and United are no longer fully cooperating within the Star Alliance. It’s stupid, it’s annoying, and it irritates the consumer. Fix it.

(image)

Several innovative companies have been working to improve information about (and access to) low airfares in recent years. We’ve seen the widespread acceptance of aggregators like Kayak, SideStep (reviewed here last year), and the growth of fare watching/predicting services like FareCompare and FareCast.

So what’s next?

The tech world went ga-ga over Yapta (Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant) recently. And if it’s the real deal, then it could be a great service.

Unlike existing fare alert tools, Yapta also tracks the fares on your trip after you’ve purchased, in order to take advantage of low-fare guarantees and fare-drop voucher policies. If your ticket’s fare drops after you’ve purchased, you get a refund in the form of a voucher. The site is in closed beta right now, and was supposed to open up for public beta this week.

The idea is a good one. One possible snag: Not every airline (or booking site) guarantees their fares in case of a fare drop. If more than 24 hours have passed since the time of purchase, getting a fare-drop voucher is increasingly rare. (For example, United still does it, but US Airways apparently abandoned their fare-drop policy after they merged with America West.)

Perhaps the best of all possible worlds would be 1) using Farecast to get a reading on whether the current fare is a good one, and whether to wait or buy now, then 2) using FareCompare to get e-mail alerts when fares drop (even hours before those fares even go on sale), and finally 3) using Yapta to track fares after you’ve pulled the trigger, so you can collect vouchers or refunds if fares drop further. Sounds like a great combination to me. (If these three companies merge, e-mail me for the address where you can send the finder’s fee for brokering the deal.)

I certainly appreciate all the effort, venture capital, and sheer computing power that goes into giving consumers better access to low airfares. It’s a big reason why airfares are as relatively low as they are today, despite recent fare hikes in light of high fuel costs.

But I’d love to see similar effort put into tracking hotel rates. I know, there’s more variation between hotels, and then more variation between rooms within each property, so it’s harder to make comparisons, but I’m sure there are some clever, entrepreneurial programmers who can figure out a way.

Yapta promises to introduce a hotel tracking feature in the future, and I’m looking forward to testing it. Fingers crossed.

Update December 9, 2007:
The freetraveling.com site is dead. So the list of promotional codes for American Airlines and other carriers, linked below, is down. However, there IS a 5% discount codes for American Airlines, as well as a discount for US Airways Vacations, in the 2008 edition of the Entertainment book, which may be a worthwhile investment.

The text of the original post follows, as originally published.

————————

The folks at FreeTraveling.com have compiled a list of promo codes (Edit: link is deleted, as the site is dead) for several U.S. airlines.

Most of the discounts are for American Airlines, but I found codes for Continental and Northwest as well.

To find your code, you need to select your destination city from a pulldown menu first. At this point, there are about 40 cities with promo codes.

Discounts aren’t always available for every time frame, much less on every airline, but it’s worth taking a look before you buy.

To use the codes, you may need to select “advanced” fare search options on the airlines’ websites. They don’t always make it immediately apparent.

Alternate way to get a discount: Buy an Entertainment book. The price of the book varies according to the “home” location, but each book contains a 5% discount code for American Airlines.

Many frequent travelers swear by ExpertFlyer, which lets you see the availability of each booking class, including some award seat booking classes. It’s a useful tool, but it’s not free.

Enter SeatCounter.

Admittedly, SeatCounter doesn’t have all the features of ExpertFlyer, such as actual fare rule information, but it DOES offer an overview of how many tickets are available for sale in each booking class. You don’t get price information, but you can see how many seats are actually for sale in each fare booking code.

For those looking to grab frequent flyer award seats or check the availability of upgrades, this is a particularly helpful site. You just need to know the letter to look for. That varies by airline, but SeatCounter offers some keys at the bottom of their results pages.

Tip: If you’re looking for a single airline’s availability, especially if looking for award seats, enter that airline’s two letter code TWICE in the “favorite airlines” boxes.