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When you use an Internet booking engine, your order is sent into the airline computer system and into the consolidator or broker computer system. Your order initiates a process that involves verification of available seats and available slots in the contract allotment for that price on that date among other checks. The initial confirmation email that you receive indicates that your order was successfully received and that the processing of your order has begun. Only when all processing is complete will payment be taken and tickets issued.

The Air Travel Center holds alliances with flight and travel consolidators around the world. The web site aggregates the values of these alliances and integrates these specialized inventories by featuring numerous, proprietary, internet shopping engines.

By aggregating our inventory with those of other airline consolidators, air ticket brokers, and airlines worldwide; we provide access to the greatest number of public and privately held airfares in every class with almost every airline in the world. While this website will always have more than one hundred internet booking engines deployed, not all of them apply to a singular shopping situation. All of the engines that do apply can usually be shopped within a period of ninety minutes.

By aggregating our inventory with those of other travel companies; we provide access to consolidator, broker, and vendor published rates for accommodations, vehicle rentals, vacations, cruises, and activities. Using numerous, proprietary shopping engines we provide access to all of those inventories and offer various ways for you to assemble selections into a comprehensive travel plan from-to-within any country on earth.

Always check at least three travel sources to assure that you are aware of all the flights available between any two airports and the true range of airfares and terms. More than 700 airlines are active at any given time. Most of them subscribe to one or more distribution systems and the remainder operate their own database. Sabre,  Amadeus,  Worldspan,  Galileo  together list the collected inventory of nearly ninety percent of all airlines but only about sixty percent of all available airfares. Consolidators, brokers, and major agencies which have contract based or specially negotiated airfares maintain their own databases and may or may not market their products to the general public. Some are using database managers and even the central reservation systems to get their inventory online and available to the public. Some choose the traditional market of travel agencies, governments, and major businesses.

Allotments to a consolidator on any given flight on any given date can be as few as four seats at the lowest price and maybe seven or nine seats at the next up price. When these seats are sold; that ends it for that consolidator's price on that flight on that date. The airline holds the contractual discretion to add another allotment at either price level. Sometimes it will.

The airfare shopping toolkit .. contains all the handy little helpers that facilitate global online travel shopping. World clock weather and distance calculator, multi-year calendar, currency converter, airline airport and city codes, booking status and itinerary look up, free online language translator and other tools are all at hand.

The air travel advice and air travel research .. pages hold pertinent and particular information from officials, experts, industries, organizations, and consumers about air travel. An answer to nearly any question related to air travel - world travel is likely to be found here. Fine tune your strategy with a study of all pertinent travel information, guidance, shopping tips, travel tips, and the "what if" situations that any air traveler might experience. Use the pages to bolster your edification.

Airline seat availability and prices are in constant flux from hour to hour. No seat and no airfare is confirmed until the ticket is issued.

A note of caution regarding special offers: With so many airlines, agencies, brokers, and consolidators applying different terms, rules and restrictions; the "value" of any offer may increase or decrease as you sift through the terms of the offer and relate them to your own priorities.

Airports can save you money .. Airports, the airlines that serve them, the municipality, the local economy, the country, trade agreements with other countries, regulations, ticket brokers, and airline consolidators all have an impact on airfare pricing. The extra effort to study pricing differences between airports can often yield hundreds of saved dollars and the cost is driving or riding just a bit further to get to the alternate airport. This tip applies to every airport of your itinerary.

Try to avoid traveling: Sunday, Monday, Friday, three days before and after a major holiday, via airports serving major events, December 13 through January 7 of each year, between mid-morning and early evening, to increase your chance of finding a seat and a lower airfare.

Scan this page .. for every imaginable tactic, alternative, incentive, type of traveller or reward program that you might want to apply to any leg or aspect of your trip.

Scan the travel news page .. for headlines that might have an impact on you or upon your travel plans or upon pricing.

Scan the global airfare wire .. for special airfare offers that match your travel plans or plan your travel to match them.

The Air Travel Center is a research facility designed to empower any person at any location to inform themselves, serve themselves, and represent themselves to the travel industry and to the world. Regardless of travel topic or aspect, an answer for any query and a resolution for any concern can be found here. Take time to become familiar with the sources, resources, tools, Internet booking engines, guidance and overall content of the Center.

Airfare Shopping Tip One

Timing is not everything but…

If you can shop online between 00:01 and 06:00, you can be first in line and have a better chance to buy airline tickets at newly posted discount prices. If you can take off before 08:00 or after 19:00, you can enjoy the lowest prices of the day. If you can depart on Tuesday or Wednesday, you can enjoy the lowest prices of the week. If you can depart on Thursday or Saturday, you can enjoy the second lowest prices of the week. If you can travel January 15 through March 15, you can pay the lowest prices of the year. By traveling from March 15 through May 15, you can purchase the second lowest prices of the year. When flying between May 15 and June 15 or September 15 and December 12, you will enjoy paying the third lowest prices of the year.

If you can shop at least five full calendar days before departure, you improve your chance to pay a lower fare. If you can shop at least twenty one days before departing, you improve your chance even more. Most pricing contracts held by airline consolidators and air ticket brokers require five days between sale and departure. Many airlines offer their own discount fares at seven, fourteen, and twenty one days advance purchase with twenty one days being lowest in price.

Exceptions are the three days before and after a major holiday, special event mass travel periods, December 13 through January 7 of each year, when all lower price seats are sold and nothing remains but published airfare.

There are exceptions, even to the exceptions, but the information provided above applies to every airfare shopper on earth and offers consistent and reliable guidance for them all.

Time itself is important when using the Air Travel Center to find discount and reseller airline tickets. Familiarize yourself with the website and focus on three or four Internet booking engines that seem likely to hold the inventory you want. Then run some test searches to become familiar with each engine. Consolidators each have their own subset of fifteen to thirty five airlines which they contract with and pricing is specific to itinerary. Global distribution systems each have their own subset of airlines that subscribe to their booking service. The online air travel industry is only a bit less fragmentary than offline. Taking time to become familiar with the Center will help you locate the best itinerary at the lowest price when you are travel shopping for real.

Conserve company revenue:

saving hundreds of dollars on business trips can be as easy as buying two tickets instead of one. Reserve business class for the long haul flight segments and book with a low cost carrier or an airline consolidator to cover the short haul flights. You also gain more control over your trip itinerary and expand your choice of airlines.

Airlines rarely let business and first class seats go to consolidators or offer discounts through any distribution scheme. By shopping business class only for the long haul flight segments, you have a better chance of finding a discount seat. You might then be shopping major to major airports and be looking at a greater selection of flights. You might then be shopping a route that adds carriers via the international air freedoms. Both can occur together and both yield an increase in the number of flights and airlines and thus improve your chance of finding a discount among them.

For a quick example, when flying to Europe or the Mediterranean or even North Africa on business, shop the major airports for your business class arrival and take advantage of the fifty plus budget carriers to go from there to your destination. Try London Amsterdam, Paris, and Frankfurt among others. Finding a discount for a business class seat into those fields is much less difficult and booking a flight for pocket change from there to your destination is easier. The same tactic holds up well when doing business in Asia and especially the Pacific. Seoul, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai make great arrival cities for business class flights and offer many low cost flights from there onward.

Using two or more tickets will increase headaches and risk. Cross ticket connections are not covered by airline policy so allow plenty of layover time between tickets and consider travel cover. Since a person will often save hundreds of dollars or more, travel cover or even a sleepover between cross ticket connections will still show a profit. Before you shop this way, secure all essential travel documents. Additional transit visas or special permits might become necessary, although rarely. Most of the time, your multiple tickets will get you through customs as well as one ticket. It usually comes more with the buy as you go travel that the roll your own itinerary presents a need for additional permits and visas.

By the way; this money saving shopping strategy works from the departure side as well as the destination side of the business class segment. Drive or ride or fly at low cost from home or office to a major airport that offers the cost reduction opportunites discussed above. Thinking outside the Interenet booking engine will often yield precisely the itinerary you want at a price you are quite pleased to pay. Bon voyage. Gute Reise. Buen Viaje. Have a good trip.

Airfare Shopping Tip Three

Pay yourself a dollar/minute or more.

Beyond the 700 plus active airlines on a given day and beside the central reservation systems they subscribe to; nearly 4000 independent companies hold airfare that they prepaid or negotiated and keep in unpublished databases, managed privately. These privately held airfares range from 40 percent to 60 percent of the prices published in central reservation systems. Remaining are those airlines which do not subscribe to a centralized system but manage their own database of flights and airfares.

Typically, the independent companies market their fares to niche customers, travel agencies, businesses, and governments. A growing number of them make their databases accessible online and open to the general public. Many of the airlines that manage their own database have done the same. For you n me airfare shopper, this means we have Internet access to hundreds of databases holding flight information and money saving fares plus the centralized distribution systems that hold discount prices when a member airline offers promotional fares or price incentives for booking online or membership or participation plus those airlines that manage their own database and offer routinely low and or discounted fares.

Take a deep breath and shake off the frustration. Take the time required to find the Internet booking engines that will give you access to the airfare databases you want to leverage for your current trip. Then take the time you need to shop them. No single database and no centralized system will ever hold the best itinerary or the lowest price all of the time. Discount seats are offered and sold out, promotions begin and end, air routes change, flights are added and discontinued, independent companies make their prices available and their seat allotment becomes sold out, airlines alter their base prices, a regulatory body adds or removes a fee, a government adds or removes a tax, operating costs change, and airlines sometimes engage in pricing contests; all of these and other influences mean that prices are constantly in flux and that the impact upon one database of fares will not be the same as upon another. Shop at least three; but four, five, and six Internet booking engines are better and better for making sure you are not missing an appreciably lower price and or a better itinerary and or a favored airline.

To begin your research; use travel, business, or Internet directories to locate airline consolidators and airline ticket brokers and budget airlines appropriate for current trip planning. Find those that make their inventory available to the general public via Internet booking engines. Local search or advanced search functions might be more expedient when using a general search engine. Many of the independent companies specialize in specific destinations and or world regions. Pricing will be lower for those flights. Those companies serving niche customers might only be found when they advertise in your local newspaper or topical journal. They might be known by a local travel agent. Many will continue to serve only corporate and government customers.

Consistently, when someone makes time to research a trip, locate those booking engines most likely to access lower fares for that trip, and shop them; they save at least a dollar for each minute spent. That dollar per minute saved is below the published fares and for one person. The savings are multiplied when shopping for two or more. Once your initial research is done, it rarely takes more than ninety minutes to find the lowest available price. For simpler flights, fifteen to thirty minutes will often save you an equal number of dollars. Make time. Apply strategy. Research, Shop. Pay yourself a handsome fee.

Airfare Shopping Tip Four

Refining the approach airport strategy.

When private or discount fares are not available on the travel dates of a trip you must take or want strongly to make, pulling connecting airports into service will often put that discount back in your wallet.

Using any published airfare Internet booking engine, input the long haul flight itinerary you want to price from origin airport A to destination airport B. Select the lowest price for an acceptable itinerary displayed in the flight search results. Examine that itinerary and note the connecting airport C immediately before your destination. Now input for A to C and check that price. Then input for C to B and check that price. Total the two ticket prices and compare it with the one ticket price.

Example: Zurich, Switzerland to Nadi, Fiji at 1700 British Pounds which connects via Sydney, Australia. Compare Zurich to Sydney at 932 GBP and Sydney to Nadi at 337 GBP. Tally is 1700 minus 1269 which equals a savings of 431 Pounds when using the approach airport strategy. Be certain that you allow at least four or more hours layover at Sydney between the cross ticket flights. Be certain that you document passport, visa and transit requirements before buying air tickets. Consider buying cover in case you miss connections. Consider a relaxing overnight stay in Sydney between tickets in at least one direction. With all considered and spent, you still have money left over for something more than airplane seats.

An even more striking example is cutting cost in half by booking ZRH SEL, SEL SPN instead of ZRH SPN. Both examples use the same Internet booking engine throughout.

You might learn that one public or private airfare engine has a specially low price to an approach airport A to C and a different engine is showing a promotional fare for C to B. Expanding this strategy even further, a person might come to know that a particular airport always has good prices or better flights to a certain region or country and shop that for the A to C approach even when it is not shown as a connecting airport in the initial flight search results for A to B. An outside in helper could come from scanning special airfare lists to spot a potential approach airport.

Note: Sometimes you can use the multiple city function of an Internet booking engine to route a flight via the approach airport and get the same price reduction put on one ticket.

This strategy will not be of great value for intra-regional european and mediterranean flights. It will often have an appreciable to great value going long haul to hundreds of destinations worldwide. This tactic will not work with every published airfare search engine or with every departure airport or with every approach airport or with every destination. Where and when it does work, it will not work every time. Nonetheless, it is worthy of a studious attempt. Each try will add knowledge toward perfecting the next airfare search.

 

Airfare Shopping Tip Five

Building the approach airport strategy.

When private or discount fares are not available on the travel dates of a trip you must take or want strongly to make, pulling connecting airports into service will often put that discount back in your wallet.

Note: document your passport, visa, and transit requirements before buying airline tickets. Book a layover of four or more hours between cross ticket flights at the approach airport. Consider travel insurance to cover missed connections. Consider an overnight stay between connecting flights to reduce risk and get a good rest.

The approach airport shopping strategy will often yield a savings of three hundred USD or more per person. Consider the big picture because you might realize that saving any less than that amount may not be worth the risk and effort involved.

Examples: Trips from North America into the Pacific region and especially to island nations can often make use of Seoul, Bangkok, and Hong Kong. Some areas are as well or better served by Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo. Leaving the East Coast for Asia and the Pacific, you might find better prices using a European or an Arabian airport as an approach. Trips into Africa are well served by London, Amsterdam, Zurich, and Paris while Brussels, Madrid, and Frankfurt can be better for some African destinations. Trips into the more eastern parts of Europe often benefit by booking into western cities and trips into the Middle East are well served via London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt. Flights into Central and South America are well served via Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, and Miami. Trips into the Caribbean can use Miami, Fort Lauderdale, San Juan Puerto Rico, New York, and Philadelphia as intermediate airports. Atlanta will often work well when going to southern Africa. When the Mediterranean is on your mind, try using London, Madrid, Rome, or Sofia as approach airports. The idea is that buying a ticket to an intermediate airport and matching it up with a second ticket onward to your destination will often yield a lower total cost. Sometimes you can use the multiple city function of an Internet booking engine to route a flight via the approach airport and get the same price reduction put on one ticket.

This method uses the same Internet booking engine throughout: Using any published airfare Internet booking engine, input the long haul flight itinerary you want to price from origin airport A to destination airport B. Select the lowest price for an acceptable itinerary displayed in the flight search results. Examine that itinerary and note the connecting airport C immediately before your destination. Now input for A to C and check that price. Then input for C to B and check that price. Total the two ticket prices and compare it with the one ticket price. There are additional ways to discover an intermediate airport.

You might learn that one public or private airfare engine has a specially low price to an approach airport A to C and a different engine is showing a promotional fare for C to B. You might come to know that a particular airport always has good prices or better flights to a certain region or country and shop that for the A to C approach even when it is not shown as a connecting airport in the initial flight search results for A to B. An outside in helper could come from scanning special airfare lists to spot a potential approach airport.

This strategy will not be of great value for intra-regional North American flights. It will often have an appreciable to great value going long haul to hundreds of destinations worldwide. Where and when it does work, it will not work every time. Nonetheless, it is worthy of a studious attempt. Each try will add knowledge toward perfecting the next airfare search.

PS:  The nearby airport shopping strategy might save you money in any country where a traditional or modified hub and spoke air travel system is used. For example, when traveling to Los Angeles (LAX), you might save money by flying into the Burbank (BUR), Orange County (SNA) or Ontario (ONT) airports. A trip to San Francisco (SFO) might be cheaper when flying into San Jose (SJC) or Oakland (OAK), while travel to Miami (MIA) could be less expensive if you fly into Ft. Lauderdale (FLL) instead.

Airfare Shopping Tip Six

Five rules of air travel shopping.

The prime rule of travel shopping online or offline is to check at least three resources before booking. No single source will ever have the best product at the best price all of the time.

The second rule is acknowledging the volatile nature of travel pricing and availability. Airfares and rates will vary with numerous factors, fluctuate often, and expire rapidly. Travel products are finite. Airlines cannot manufacture one more seat, hotels cannot build one more room, and rental companies cannot make one more car to meet your need. When you see an available product or service at a price you are content to pay, it seems wise to secure it before someone else does.

The third rule is acknowledging the complex nature of travel products and services. Travel products and services are offered in commercial and regulatory environments which require contracts, terms, rules, procedures, and restrictions. A little time devoted toward becoming familiar with product and service specifications is time well spent. You will better understand what you are buying and be better prepared for any of those "what if" situations that might arise.

The fourth rule is patience. At any moment more than 700 scheduled air carriers worldwide are offering such an array of flights and code shares and class assignments and specials that many millions of different airfares are available on a given date. Add to that the privately held airfares that are negotiated or prepaid by nearly 4000 companies worldwide. Each company operates their own database of itineraries and airfares. The aggregate total of privately held airfares dwarfs the numbers published by airlines. Public and private airfare totals are overwhelming. Hundreds of databases hold all that inventory and no single access point online or offline will ever be feasable. What you pay for your seat is a product of the care and strategy and time you spend upon shopping.

The fifth rule is timing. Since allotments to consolidators might be as few as four seats on a given date for a given flight and since discounted ticket prices are always limited in number, the early shopper will find them and the later shopper will not know that the lower prices ever existed. Consolidators will often sell out their inventory during the first few weeks of a new contract. Discounted seats will often be sold off during the first hours or days after being posted. Shopping in the wee hours of the morning will often put you first in line for that days discounts and shopping during the first few days of a newly active consolidator contract period will often enable you to buy airline tickets at prices other shoppers will never see. For example, people who shop in January for flights that depart during the first six to nine months of each year will often pay low prices that later shoppers will never see.

Saving money while flying around the world or taking multi-leg flights across one or more continents is quite an art. There are some general tactics to help us along. Take most of your long haul flights midweek or sometimes Saturday. Buy consolidator tickets or take advantage of airfare sales for the region to region or transcontinental or overseas flights. Use air passes, low fare carriers, rail or bus service or even ferry transportation to explore regions of special interest. Take advantage of trade agreements between countries by departing from and arriving in those countries that share the best (lower airfares) agreements. Use the approach airport strategy of ticketing to a major airport that offers cheap tickets to your actual destination. The major caveat for using the strategies explained on this page is that when buying multiple tickets, the airlines are not obligated to you if you miss connections between tickets. To greatly reduce the chance of costly problems, allow at least four and better five hours layover for the between ticket connections and consider spending a few dollars on a travel insurance policy which will cover you for this caveat and for other contingencies as well. Customizable insurance is available and fairly priced.

Multiple destination engines can be combined with or let go in favor of the following method of using our alliances in each region of the world.

Select the region that you want to depart from and use the Internet booking engines stationed there to shop for and purchase the flights you want.

Continue that process in each region that you want to visit until you have assembled a complete itinerary for your complex flight itinerary or RTW trip.

Air pass programs are well developed within each world region and often provide an excellent and inexpensive way of taking multiple flights between regional points of interest. They can be a convenient and highly flexible component of a round the world or multi-national, multi-regional trip. You can learn everything about air passes on This Page. The no frills airline model is now present in every world region. These low cost carriers provide additional options for exploring a specific region. That brings up the final idea of a roll your own as you go your own complex or circle earth flight. Given over 700 active airlines, nearly 4000 airline consolidators and ticket brokers, a viable number of low cost carriers, electronic and cross border ticketing, plenty of intra-regional transportation alternatives, and everything available online; find the cheapest flight to your first stop, stay as you wish, find the cheapest flight from there to your next stop, stay as you wish and continue the process throughout the trip. The caveat with roll your own go your own is the entry and transit requirements at each stop. Please make sure you have met and carry certification of meeting all those requirements before you by your first ticket.

Airfare Shopping Tip for South America

for flying out of Central and South America.

We are often asked how to buy tickets on air routes that do not transit United States airports. The answer is similar whether departing from Central America or the northernmost countries of South America and whether flying to Canada, Europe, or Africa. Make use of airports in Mexico, Cuba, and many of the Caribbean islands which are not holdings or protectorates of the U.S.

For example, many direct flights to Canada are available from Mexico City, Cancun, and Havana. For Europe, those islands in the Caribbean that are holdings of Great Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, and France offer direct flights to those countries and others as well. The more tourist traffic an airport has, the better chance for a direct flight that bypasses the United States.

Before using the following methods to buy your tickets, please be sure to have your travel and transit documents in hand.

You can buy a ticket from your origin to one of the airports suggested above and then buy a second ticket from there to your final destination on a flight that does not transit in the States. You can also use the multiple destination function of an Internet booking engine to set your itinerary to make use of the suggested airports and have the entire trip booked on one ticket.

Air routes are constantly changing. Try a regular booking first because an Internet booking engine just might display a direct flight from origin to destination that does not transit a U.S. airport. If none appear in the flight search results, then make use of the hints above.

 

Airfare Shopping Tip Two

Airports can save you money.

Among the ways that airports influence prices is the fees they charge hosted airlines. But that influence pales when you study which airlines have slots at the airport. The presence of a no frills carrier or a low cost charter service surely makes a difference but a not so visible influence are the connections with other airports that hosted airlines offer.

While the business model of low cost airlines and charters has diminished reliance upon traditional hub and spoke airport systems, the traditional model is here to stay. A flight itinerary that begins and or ends at a spoke airport is often priced lower than one that originates and or terminates at a hub. Then we have trade agreements.

Some countries have trade agreements with other countries that result in lower airfares. Your ability to transit airports in those countries can make a big difference in the price you pay. When using this tactic, please be sure to check the entry and transit requirements of each country before you purchase your airline tickets.

Beyond trade agreements are airport passenger fees and taxes imposed by the host country. Sometimes one or both of those charges are not entered into central reservation systems and cannot be included with your original ticket payment. Such charges can have a significant impact on total trip cost by their presence or absense. Make an effort to learn of charges not included with your ticket purchase and imposed by each airport and each country before you buy.

Then there are sales. Countries, airports, airlines, tourism interests, and municipalities all initiate or participate in special incentives for people to visit or use their service. You can often take the advantage even when your destination is not the one being promoted. Simply make use of the airports and airlines involved in the promotion when the discounted airfare is available to you. Sometimes the special fare requires additional spend at the destination so be sure to check all sale terms before you buy.

Two or three tickets are often cheaper than one. Whether it be a discount airfare, a low cost airline, an airfare sale, consolidator pricing, tax n fees, or trade agreements; being able to take advantage is often a matter of airport choice. When flying to airport D, drive to airport B instead of A, take advantage of a low cost flight from B to C and pay pocket change for another ticket from C to D.

The Internet is helping us do things like that and much more. Electronic and cross border ticketing are becoming commonplace so that we can easily choose what airports to use, in what countries, to get the lowest possible trip cost. It also facilitates the finding of answers to questions like, what does it cost to fly from this field instead of that field or transit through here instead of there and arrive at one destination rather than another. Unregistered charges can be found out, entry and transit requirements can be ascertained, airports can be explored, and destinations can be researched before we spend.

Whether on a domestic or a multinational trip, airports can save you money.

Airline Consolidators and Air Ticket Agencies

what they are and how to shop them…

Airline consolidators buy air tickets in bulk and resell them to a niche market. They usually negotiate with one airline or several for ticket prices that range from 40 percent to 60 percent of the published airfares. Since their overhead, distribution and promotions are carefully budgeted, the price you pay will range from 50 to 80 percent of the regular fare for the flight you want. Many consolidators serve an ethnic or expat group. Some focus on a specific destination city or country. For example, in local newspapers you might see a consolidator advertising low cost flights from your city to Krakow or Tel Aviv or Mumbai. That company is likely owned by someone who emigrated from Poland or Israel or India and wants to serve their fellow expats and visitors.

Other consolidators operate on a larger scale. They might negotiate wholesale prices with 35 or 40 airlines and focus on serving destination regions like Europe or Asia or South America. They might arrange a wider distribution through air ticket agencies or large organizations. Large or small, the forte of consolidators is international flights. With the development of the internet, some of the larger companies are winning special pricing for domestic flights and using web based reservation systems to add the short haul to the long haul inventory in one database. Small consolidators might contract an air ticket agency to actually issue the tickets for them and larger companies usually issue their own. Either way, the staff who issue airline tickets must have the same training and certification from the ARC (airline reporting corporation) or IATA (international air transport association) as do the airline employees who issue tickets. And whether you book online or through a newspaper ad, your order is processed through a series of checks in the airline and the consolidator computer systems before payment is taken and tickets are issued.

One drawback with consolidators is that nearly four thousand of them have enterprises across the globe and each one holds their own database of fares so each one must be shopped separately. Their is no central reservation system and no common distribution system that can pull all of these privately held fares together through one interface. The most convenient development yet is that several technology companies have developed programming to allow consolidators to enter their inventory into a database shared with other companies. That way, one interface or one internet booking engine can access the inventory of multiple consolidators. That makes it possible for a travel agent or a person to shop that multiple company inventory and book flights in one session. Another drawback is the limited number of seats that a consolidator is allotted for each flight. Airlines usually set allocations at four seven or nine seats per flight per date per company. That reflects the number of seats at the lowest next and highest negotiated price tier. When those seats are sold, that ends it for that flight on that date for that company. Shoppers have to move on to check another database to see if another company has any seats available on that date.

Still another caveat is that all negotiated pricing is itinerary specific. Airlines will usually keep their most popular itineraries for themselves and restrict bulk ticket sales to less popular flights where they actually need the help of discounters to fill the seats. Finally, terms are tough. Pricing contracts rarely allow cancellation or change priveleges and when available the charges are often twice the amount of regular priced tickets. Beyond all of that though, you will have the same contract of carriage as any other passenger on that flight.

A parting note: whether you buy airline tickets or any travel product online or over the phone or in person; do not pay cash. Please use your credit card so that you have the financial protections they offer and the benefits like insurance and rewards programs.

 

Shopping the Air Freedoms Way

Let A represent the nation of airline origin. B will represent the country of bilateral agreement. C will represent a country of bilateral agreement with A or B or both:

Countries, major cities, and airlines have all been involved in negotiating bilateral international air service agreements for more than sixty years. Market access, pricing, capacity, and other aspects of civil aviation have all been kept under heavy regulation and strict controls. About the only concern given consumers was the upward level of their willingness to spend. Open skies is a concept for bilateral agreements that is less than twenty years old and not yet in wide use. Open skies agreements let market forces determine access, pricing, and capacity while a regulatory focus is kept on performance and safety and other aspects. Consumers are finally being shown some concern beyond wallet capacity. General adoption of open sky agreements is not so much an expectation as it is an option for negotiators to consider and modify when facing political, economic, and market factors.

For shoppers, air freedoms five and six are the most beneficial. In particular, it is the individual flight segments that yield the most benefit. Where freedom five allows A to B to C, the segment A to B is often provided at the lowest published airfare and quite often set at a reduced price. Where freedom six allows C to A thru B, the segment C to B is often set at a low price. And the remaining flight segments allowed by five and six are also worth a look. They are nearly as likely to be found at a reduced price as are the segments first mentioned.

If you are not already familiar with the air freedom itineraries of a favored airline, you can get a good start by examining airline timetables either online or offline. For example, if you shop for a flight from Canada to Kenya, the timetables might display many itineraries that stop in London (if a UK carrier) or Paris (if a La France carrier) or Frankfurt ( if a Deutschland carrier) or Zurich (if a Die Schweiz carrier) etc. From then on, whenever you want to fly from Canada to London, Paris, Zurich, or Frankfurt; it might be wise to shop those respective airlines first. And for that flight to Kenya; check the pricing from Canada to one of the air freedom stops on one ticket and then the price of a second ticket from there to Kenya. Compare the total cost of both tickets to the total cost of one Canada to Kenya ticket. Sometimes the two ticket price will be appreciably less than the one ticket price. Sometimes, you can give yourself a discount when no other discount is available.

Play with this when you have time and keep notes. With a world of travelers and about two hundred countries, freedoms five and six yield thousands of A to B, B to C, C to B, B to A flight segment and pricing possibilities. Then a few thousand more avail for the A to B combined with B to C and vice versa two ticket strategy. Much of the savings are in the ten to thirty percent off published fares but now and then you will stumble across a two ticket purchase that is half the cost of one ticket. Once you become aware of the flight segments available, using just one Internet booking engine to apply the air freedom one segment or the two segment two ticket strategy is often all you need. Chances can be enhanced by shopping several booking engines to locate and take advantage of privately held airfare. But that is another story and another shopping tip.

 

Airfare Shopping Tip Asia

Thinking outside the booking engine box.

Example One: Departing Singapore (SIN) with a destination of Ho Chi Minh City (SGN). The best airfare returned was 647 USD on Garuda Indonesian Airways. While this is certainly a good fare for a non stop flight, a simple stop in Bangkok (BKK) can save 80 USD by flying Finnair from SIN to BKK for 176 USD then continuing on to SGN on Thai Air for 392 USD.

Example Two: Departing Hong Kong (HKG) with a destination of Kuching, Malaysia (KCH). Best airfare returned from a simple search was 890 USD on Malaysia Airlines. Options include flying from HKG to BKK on Emirates for 230 USD. Next we take Thai Air to Kuala Lumpur (KUL) for 298 USD and finally on to KCH on Air Asia for 57 USD. The 890 fare so easily and quickly found has been cut to 585 saving 305 USD.

Governmental glitches: Air Asia has routes from BKK to KCH but they apparently can not write you a ticket for the route as it has not been approved by the governments of Thailand and Malaysia. What you can do is purchase two tickets. First from BKK to KUL for a price of 168 and again from KUL to KCH for the 57 noted above. Now, we have saved an additional 130 for a total savings on our trip from Hong Kong to Kuching of 435 USD.

Using Bangkok as an intermediate or approach airport has served as a good example but among many. Other airports can provide similar savings depending on the trip you are taking. Look at all the possibilities offered by alternative routes.

Some Airfare Shopping Hints

for flying within and out of Africa.

When travelling from Sub Sahara Africa to destinations in Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East; appreciable amounts of money can be saved by dividing your trip into two flights. Book one flight from central or southern Africa to northern Africa and a second flight from there to your destination. Casablanca, Marrakesh, Algiers, Tunis, Monastir, Jerba, Tripoli, Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor, Hurghada, and Sharm el-Sheikh will often work best as intermediate airports between sub saharan departures and destinations in Europe and countries of the Middle East. Otherwise, if you learn of alternate airports that have high levels of tourist traffic from the final destination, check the total cost of a ticket to that airport and a second ticket from the alternate airport to the final destination. That brief effort could save you a lot of money.

Air travel pricing within Africa is affected by a myriad of factors and fares often come at a premium. The cost of a trip can often be cut in half by using an approach airport and buying two tickets instead of one.

Using any Internet booking engine; input the itinerary from origin to destination and examine the flight list. If the prices are higher than you want to pay, make note of connecting airports shown in the flight results. Check the prices for origin to connecting airport and then shop the connecting to destination airport. The total price of those two tickets will often be less than the price of one ticket and sometimes just half.

The foregoing uses the same booking engine throughout.

You might learn that one public or private airfare shopping engine has a specially low price to an intermediate airport and a different engine is showing a cheap fare from the intermediate to your final destination. You might come to know that a particular intermediate airport always has good prices or better flights to a certain region or country and shop that one even when it is not shown as a connecting airport in the initial flight search results. An outside in helper could come from scanning special airfare lists to spot a potential approach airport.

Africa has a wide variance of trade agreements between African countries and with countries on other continents. There are relatively fewer airline consolidators and air ticket brokers holding contracts. This forms a caveat and an opportunity at the same time. The not so good trade agreements will result in higher fares comprised of taxes and fees the airlines must pay and of taxes and fees that passengers must pay all piled above the operating costs of the airline. The opportunity is taken by shopping different airports in different countries and subdividing your trip into two or more shorter flights so that the total cost of several tickets will be appreciably less than one ticket for the entire trip. That same reduction of cost can be obtained by using the multiple city function of an Internet booking engine. That allows you to input those connecting flight segments between airports that yield the lowest cost overall and put them all (or most) on one ticket.