Ric Garrido of Loyalty Traveler, the blog devoted to maxing out hotel points and value for the frequent guest, picks up on my post last week on Travelocity’s prepaid hotel rate guarantee.

Ric argues that hotel companies’ own best-rate-guarantee programs are superior to the new Travelocity program, for three reasons: 1) Travelocity caps the number of claims to 5 per customer per month. Hotel chains typically don’t place such a limit. 2) Group rates, such as AAA rates, aren’t covered by the Travelocity guarantee. 3) The loyalty benefits of booking through the hotels’ own sites exceeds the value of the potential rebate via Travelocity.

Ric’s argument may make sense for the high-frequency traveler with high frequent-guest program status — and established loyalty to a given brand, as his blog name implies. But the Achilles heel of the hotel chains’ programs remains their timeframe for making a claim. If you only have hours after purchase to find a lower rate, that’s not a really meaningful guarantee. To Travelocity’s credit (and, to a lesser extent, Orbitz’s credit) the agency’s rebate lasts days, weeks, or even months. And the five-claim limit per month won’t be a problem for all but the most high-volume travelers.

The Travelocity guarantee is far from perfect, as I’ve argued. But it’s not worth dismissing wholesale in favor of the hotels’ own programs.

Travelocity is upping the ante in the ongoing wars between the major online travel agencies. The agency is offering refunds if a hotel rate drops between the time you book a room and the time you stay at the hotel.

Here’s their pitch:

While competing sites offer price protection on hotel bookings only when lower prices are found on their respective sites, or only within the supplier`s cancellation window, Travelocity customers who find the same hotel booking for less elsewhere online (excluding hotels booked using a name-your-own-price service) any time prior to the day of check-in, can notify Travelocity and receive a refund for the difference in price. Additionally, as a special offer to introduce the hotel price match guarantee, between now and Dec. 31, 2009, customers will also receive a $50 discount toward future travel.

The new guarantee is aimed at two competitors: the hotels’ own lowest-price guarantees, and Orbitz.

Hotel websites typically offer a 24-hour window for filing a claim if you can find a lower rate. (See Hyatt’s terms, for example.) That’s not that impressive.

Orbitz offers an automatic refund (”Price Assurance”) if another customer on Orbitz books the same room for the same dates at a lower rate. Those are some slim odds. Yes, it’s automatic, but again, the odds are against your ever seeing a penny.

Travelocity’s guarantee is stronger than both of these offerings, insofar as the rate simply has to drop, and in a huge window of opportunity. But since you have to do the legwork and call Travelocity in order to get the refund, they are effectively betting that you won’t be tracking rates on a regular basis.

To be clear, this is only relevant (and possible) for prepaid reservations anyway. A cancelable reservation can always be replaced with a new reservation at a lower rate, after all, should the price drop. Travelocity calls their prepaid rooms “Good Buys” so look for that label to be covered by the new guarantee.

So, how DO you track rates once you’ve booked? Bring in Yapta.

Yapta allows you to receive updates when rates drop for specific hotels’ rooms (they do it for airfare, as well). So if you book a hotel room on Travelocity, you should immediately run a search for that specific hotel on Yapta, then select “track price drops.” If the price goes down, you get an e-mail. Then, contact Travelocity. Collect refund.

I don’t believe Travelocity was counting on customers using automated assistance when they launched this. But they’re about to find out if this is a feature they can actually sustain.

Related:
- Orbitz Price Assurance re-examined: Real savings or gimmick?
- Check in the mail: Orbitz refunds airfare price drops, but is it worthwhile?
- Less Choice: Expedia excluding hotels from searches
- Track airfare before and AFTER you buy?

Today, Travelocity dropped its booking fee for airline tickets. A week ago, Expedia did the same.

Both agencies are promising that the fees will be on hiatus until May 31, 2009. But bringing the charge back may be tough: Back in 2007, Priceline and Hotwire dropped their booking fees “temporarily,” and they still haven’t brought the fees back.

That leaves Orbitz as the lone holdout among the biggest U.S. travel agencies. So when will Orbitz, the biggest holdout, throw in the towel on fees?

Consumers should welcome the rollback of these add-on booking charges. But this episode shows how brutal the online travel marketplace is right now. If online travel agencies want to collect a surcharge, they’re going to have to get creative, and earn it. Simply offering price comparisons and a few online alerts — which are free elsewhere — won’t cut it. And Travelocity, Expedia, Priceline, and Hotwire have admitted that.

Sure, Orbitz may counterargue that they provide value-added with their price guarantee, but since that service is of relatively limited value, I wouldn’t pay a premium for it (though maybe it’s worth the $6.99+ gamble for someone else…)

Travelocity is even poking a stick in Orbitz’ eye by copying their “Price Assurance” model and bringing it to vacation packages under the name “PriceGuardian.” If someone else books the same package as you, and the price has dropped, you get a check for the difference. Yeah, good luck with that.

What we may see is a shift to voluntary fees for add-on services, much like the airlines are going a-la-carte themselves. Want a price-drop guarantee? Pay a few bucks up front. Want text message alerts? A few more bucks. That I could see happening. But the standard one-size-fits-all fee is history at the mainstream agencies.

Reader Julie writes:

I’m looking to buy tickets from Newark to San Francisco for the holidays, and Expedia has the lowest price for tickets on United. (Even lower than united.com) Can I upgrade these tickets if I buy them from Expedia? Thanks!

You’re in luck! For travel within the United States, most every airline allows upgrades if the tickets were purchased from online agencies like Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, CheapTickets, etc. As long as the booking class is legally upgradable, it doesn’t matter where you buy it.

(The exception: If you bought “opaque” tickets from Hotwire or Priceline, i.e., you didn’t select the airline and/or flight times when you made your purchase, then you can’t upgrade.)

For international tickets, upgrades are generally a little more complicated. Not all booking classes are upgradable, either with miles or certificates. But again, as long as the ticket you buy conforms to the upgrade rules of the airline, then it shouldn’t matter where you buy the ticket. As long as you are buying a “published” fare, you should be fine. (And even then: I’ve upgraded a ticket purchased from a consolidator. But it’s up to each airline to set such rules.)

Buy the ticket from Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, or wherever it’s cheapest. And good luck getting the upgrade!

P.S. In theory, you could buy the ticket from United and invoke their low fare guarantee by pointing to the lower fare on Expedia to get $50 in credit, but it’s probably not worth the trouble…
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Reader AJ writes in. His question:

I would like to find an airfare search engine where I can put in an airport and see:

a) Where all the direct flights go and the prices for each.
b) specify “Europe” or “Asia” and see the best prices to countries in those regions.

Why you ask?
We frequently travel last minute, and frequently we do not care where we go, we just like to go. So if we have 5 days with nothing to do and want to go someplace, anyplace, in Europe it would be handy to see what the lowest price option is.

First off, I admire your flexibility, AJ. Way to go.

Your first criterion, finding only the nonstop flights from a particular departure point, is tough. Some search engines will let you specify nonstops only when you’re searching specific dates, but I can’t find a nonstop limitation on any of the broad, flexible searches I’m familiar with. (Other readers are invited to chime in with suggestions in comments!)

As for looking for the cheapest flight for ultra-flexible destinations, you’re in luck:
The two best options right now are offered by FareCompare and Mobissimo. Travelocity offers an option for domestic travel. ITA Software has a solution, too, but it requires more work and is not as flexible on dates. Here’s the breakdown:

- FareCompare offers a flexible destination search through their “Destination Deal Maps” in the middle of the page. Click on the continent you want, and a list of fares will appear. Clicking on a fare shows you the dates eligible for the fare. Pick a date, then an airline, and the system checks seat availability. FareCompare doesn’t sell tickets, so you’re directed to one of the major online agencies to close the deal.

- Airfare aggregator Mobissimo also offers a search like this, bizarrely located in the “activity search” tab. After selecting your departure point, you can select the desired continent from the pulldown. It’s odd to see “Europe” or “Africa/Middle East” listed as an “activity” right alongside “beaches,” “gambling,” or “opera houses.” But hey, the search works. Like FareCompare, Mobissimo doesn’t sell tickets, but directs you to the seller.

- Both FareCompare and Mobissimo effectively mirror Travelocity’s Dream Maps in format. But Travelocity recently neutered this tool for international travel searches. It still works well for domestic searches, and the site sells tickets directly. (The flexible international search was taken down because the fares didn’t include the fuel surcharges. See here for an explanation.)

- One final idea would be to use ITA Software’s search. ITA’s search requires you to input destinations, but it allows you to string a number of options together. For example, you could enter your departure city, then add a boatload of contending city names or codes to the destination field in the form. Say you’re interested in going to Europe, you could enter something like “ams;fra;par;lhr;dub;mad;cph;ath;rom” — a string of European cities’ airport codes, separated by semicolons. Then widen the destination search by using the pulldown menu to include any airport within 300 miles. Then click “more options” and uncheck “allow airport changes,” to make sure you arrive and depart the same city. That will pull in a LOT of destinations for the dates you want. ITA doesn’t sell tickets, and doesn’t point you to a seller — take your pick.

Both Expedia and Travelocity rolled out similar features yesterday, allowing travelers buying airline tickets to placate their guilt over the environmental effects of air travel by purchasing carbon offsets. The way it works: You pay money to pay for trees and carbon-dioxide reducing environmental projects. The price you pay depends on the distance flown.

The programs are fully voluntary, and link up with existing programs such as TerraPass, which has been pushing carbon offsets for some time.

Amusingly, both Expedia and Travelocity claimed to be the first online travel agency to offer such a service. (If it’s a battle between press releases, Travelocity’s hit the wire an hour earlier. First to the gate!)

My question: Should they charge premium cabin passengers more than they charge economy passengers? On the one hand, you take up more room on the plane, as measured by square footage. On the other hand, you’re not really adding any more weight to the equation, so your presence in the front vs. the back doesn’t change the fuel requirements. Any ethicists out there want to take this on?

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Separately, the European Union is pushing for limits on the amount of greenhouse gases which airlines legally produce each year. Treating airlines like power plants, the system would allow for “carbon trading” — companies that go over their emissions quota are required to buy “credits” for their overage from cleaner competitors. Since companies thereby have incentives to reduce emissions, both by avoiding fees, and by potentially profiting off the sale of credits, emissions trading schemes are widely viewed as successful. We’ll see how it works in aviation.

Related:
- Are open skies dirty skies?
- Buy, not fly, green

In fall 2006, Travelocity is rolling out a program that will allow you to book travel using points and miles from one or more loyalty programs. Initially limited to hotel bookings, the program has the potential to be a huge deal.

“Book with Points” will allow loyalty program members access to Travelocity’s online booking engine. They will use points or miles to book and purchase the travel reward, exactly as if they were purchasing their travel with cash rather than loyalty points and miles.

My first reaction is positive: Anything that makes it easier to actually use your miles is a step in the right direction. Details of the program haven’t been made public yet, but the Travelocity program will be run by Points.com.

Uh oh.

As I’ve posted before, Points.com is a great way to turn one dollar into 15 cents. The devaluation of points when you transfer between programs is brutal. So I am skeptical of this new joint offering with Travelocity. Hopefully Travelocity will put pressure on Points.com to give better value, but we’ll have to see. After all, the airlines and hotels have your points and won’t just give them away for free. Points.com takes a cut as the broker. And Travelocity’s roaming gnome will inevitably want a piece of the action. What’s going to be left?

(hat tip to Airfare Technology/FareCompare)
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Travelocity has disabled its flexible search function for international destinations. According to SmarterTravel.com, the online agency pulled the option because the U.S. Department of Transportation argued that the existing search did not offer sufficient price transparency. The culprit: fuel surcharges.

Indeed, this was my own pet peeve with Travelocity’s flexible search. You start with a great fare to Paris and when you finish clicking, your fare went up $300 — $100 in taxes (expected) and $200 in fuel surcharges (suprise!). Often, Travelocity would come back with a message like “We found a lower fare for you than the one you selected.”

(The change also affects the international component of Travelocity’s Dream Maps. Interestingly, you can still see fares to international locations posted on the maps, but you can’t go the next step to find airlines or book them.)

I part company with SmarterTravel’s blame game: I actually think the DOT was right in pressuring Travelocity to offer a more transparent fare search. The existing product was misleading. It’s Travelocity’s fault for not configuring their fare search product in a way that includes surcharges. Fuel charges are a specific, identifiable line item in building a fare. Why can’t it be included in a search?

But for those who loved that flexible international search, now gone, what are the alternatives? Here are my picks, ranked in terms of similarity to Travelocity’s defunct search.

1) Zuji
(Update: Zuji has killed the old flexible search-by-fare feature. The original post remains below for the sake of posterity, but this feature has been disabled. It is replaced by a +/- 3 day flexible search, which is not nearly as powerful. Skip it.)
Outsource! Zuji is Travelocity’s Singapore-based subsidiary, and it looks and feels much like the American site. And guess what: the international flexible date search is still there. The site is in English, and results are in US dollars. (If you’re based in the US, choose “other” for a country on the first page.) Some airlines are missing (but they were missing from the flex search on the US site in the last few months, too). Suggestion: Run your search on Zuji, then actually book the specific flights you find on Travelocity or elsewhere. Booking on Zuji may work, but you’ll incur higher booking fees plus extra charges for using a credit card overseas.

(Update July 29: A reader e-mail asks about Zuji and Dream Maps (referenced above). I can’t find a Dream Maps equivalent on Zuji. However, since Dream Maps will still show base fares (for now), but won’t let you click through to see airlines or schedules, here’s my advice: Use Dream Maps to find a good base fare in your desired region. If you see one, do a flexible date search on Zuji for that particular destination.)

2) FareCompare
On the plus side, FareCompare’s search acts much like Travelocity, except it’s organized by fare, not by airline. The downsides: It doesn’t show total prices (will it be targeted by the DOT next?). It also doesn’t let you book directly, but refers you to the big online agencies, where the price is often very different from what FareCompare quoted. Finally, it’s missing a number of smaller (but still mainline) international destinations.

3) ITA
The engine behind Orbitz, Continental, and others, allows you to search for fares to just about anywhere in the world, and it shows final prices including all taxes. It also finds codeshares and mixed-airline itineraries that are often good values. Its “month-long search” isn’t as broad a search as Travelocity’s, especially because you need to specify the length of your stay within narrow ranges, but it’s worth checking. But … it won’t let you book anything. You’ll need to go to an airline website, online agency, or traditional travel agent to buy the ticket.

4) Kayak
Kayak allows flexible search to international destinations, but only within 3 days of your specific dates. Some reliability problems here, too, for international fares that are quoted well below what the target sites actually charge. It’s not the free-for-all price-first dates-later approach of Travelocity (or Zuji) but it’s an option to consider.