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Archive-name: travel/air/online-info
Last-modified: 2006/04/16 No changes from last week. Please look through this entire document, particularly the PLEASE NOTE at the end, before e-mailing me a question or comment, since most of the questions I get are already answered in it. * March 2006 update The US airline industry is still in lousy shape, with some airlines in much better shape than others, but about a third of the US industry now bankrupt. The post-Katrina spike in fuel prices hit the industry hard, particularly the already fragile carriers who don't have fuel price hedges. Prices retreated from the spike, giving them a small amount of breathing room, but conditions continue to be very tough. Planes are fairly full, schedules about back to the level of 2001. Low fare carriers Southwest, Jet Blue, Frontier, and Airtran have been profitable in recent quarters, with Alaska, American, and Continental also making profit in the April-June 2005 second quarter. But after 19 consecutive profitable quarters, Jet Blue lost money in the last quarter of 2006 and says they won't be profitable again any time soon. National, Midway and Vanguard Airlines are out of business, United, ATA, and now Northwest and Delta are flying in bankruptcy. Independence Air threw in the towel and stopped operating as of Jan 5. After being turned down for government assistance three times, and being in bankruptcy for an astonishing 38 months, United emerged from bankruptcy on on February 1st. They are losing money much, much, slower than they used to. Oh, joy. They say they'd make money if fuel were cheaper, which does not sound all that encouraging to me, Northwest and Delta went into Chapter 11 within minutes of each other in early September. Of the two, Delta is in worse shape having hocked everything in sight before finally throwing in the towel. Speculation abounds on what will happen; one possibility is Continental picking up some pieces of Delta with the rest being merged into the smaller but healthier Northwest. Northwest's mechanics union is locked out, and has rejected a proposed contract in December, but the critical pilots and flight attendants are not honoring picket lines and they've hired replacement workers that look to be permanent, so most NW flights are operating as well as they ever do. Delta has wrung givebacks from the pilots union and other employees, which has limited the bleeding a little. Hawaiian has emerged from bankruptcy, and Aloha recently rounded up some money and emerged, too. It's hard to say what the prospects for either will be. Maybe they'll merge and die together. US Airways slogged through its second bankruptcy, which makes me so thrilled that I have Gold Elite frequent flyer status this year. They've merged with America West, with the combined company to be called US Airways but run by the management of profitable America West, which hasn't been bankrupt for a couple of years. For now they're operating separately, to be integrated during 2006. Special bonus: if you are a 2005 elite member of either frequent flyer program, your status is extended indefinitely until they get the two programs merged. ATA made a surprise deal with Southwest to provide codeshare service between Midway and places Southwest doesn't go, such as New York LaGuardia and Hawaii. Air Canada emerged from bankruptcy in OK but not great shape, and has been modestly profitable, making it look like a survivor, particularly since low-cost competitor JetsGo turned out to be so low cost that it ran out of cash and died. Passengers are subject to much more extensive screening than in the past, including screening of checked baggage at check-in time, and, according to news reports pat downs that approach groping. Airlines recommend arriving at least an hour earlier than before. In my experience the extra delay is rarely more than 15 minutes, even with the extra baggage screening, although I usually fly out of smaller airports, not big hubs where you can get the killer two hour lines. The TSA has taken over screening at most airports but the inconsistency in procedures from one airport to another, particularly with respect to your shoes, is worse than ever. I've gone through the metal detector, it beeped, I went back and took my shoes off, walked through again, it beeped again, and they didn't notice (so neither did I, since I'm pretty sure I have no plans to blow up any planes.) A variety of extra cost "trusted traveller" may allow people to get through the screening faster, or may just involve waiting in a different line. The TSA makes no promises. They have a web site with estimated wait times (http://waittime.tsa.dhs.gov) based on averages in previous months, not real time numbers. Foreign airlines are flying to and from the U.S. normally. Other changes include: some airports have stopped curb-side baggage check, anything vaguely resembling a knife or lighter may or may not be confiscated, you're often only allowed one carry-on plus a purse, briefcase, diaper bag or the like, non-passengers aren't allowed past security without a gate pass from an airline, all passengers must have a document that looks like a boarding pass at most airports to get past security, some parking areas close to terminals are closed. But check-in clerks no longer have to ask you whether you packed your own suitcase. * What's in this document? There's an enormous amount of information available on the Web about airlines and aviation. This FAQ concentrates on two things: schedules, fares, reservations, and tickets for commercial airlines, and on-line travel agents. We list both airline-sponsored and independent information. The first parts of this FAQ discuss on-line sources of airline schedules and fares, of which there are several general-purpose services. After that it lists airlines that have any of online schedules, fares, reservations, ticket sales, and flight status. Next comes a listing of on-line specials, sources of special fares and other deals available over the net. Many airlines have short-notice specials which are worth checking out. The rest of the FAQ lists travel agents that offer service over the net and have indicated that they'd like to be listed. I am not a travel agent (I consult and write computer books which you can find out about in my web site at http://www.johnlevine.com, and the agent listings are provided free to any agent that asks and sends in a short description of what he or she offers. * Where is this FAQ available? It's on the Web at http://airinfo.aero, and perhaps at mirror sites. Anyone is welcome to mirror the web version so long as the mirror is kept up to date with the original. If you make a mirror, please let me know by e-mail so I can tell you when there are updated versions. You can also get it by e-mail every Sunday. To get on the mailing list, send a message to containing the line "subscribe airline". (Don't type the quotes, nor any other punctuation.) * How do on-line reservations work? Four giant airline computer systems in the United States handle nearly all the airline reservations in the country. (They're known as CRSs, for computer reservations systems, or more often now GDS for global distribution systems.) Although each airline has a ``home'' CRS, the systems are all interlinked so that you can, with few exceptions, buy tickets for any airline from any CRS. The dominant systems in the U.S. are Sabre (home to American and US Airways), Galileo (home to United), Worldspan (home to Delta, Northwest), and Amadeus (Continental and many European lines.) Many of the low-price start-up airlines don't participate in any of these systems but have their own Web sites where you can check flights and buy tickets. Southwest, the largest and oldest of the low-price airlines, doesn't participate, either. Southwest's web site gets car and hotel info from Galileo, but the info seems not to flow the other way. Orbitz, one of the big three online travel agencies, runs its own system which is linked directly to many of the airlines. In theory, all the systems show the same data; in practice, however, they get a little out of sync with each other. If you're looking for seats on a sold-out flight, an airline's home system is most likely to have that last, elusive seat. If you're looking for the lowest fare to somewhere, check all four systems because a fare that's marked as sold out on one system often mysteriously reappears on another system. Some airlines have rules about flight segments that are not supposed to be sold together even though they're all available, and at least once I got a cheap US Airways ticket on Expedia, which didn't know about all the US Airways rules even though I couldn't on their own site or Travelocity which did know about them. On the other hand, many airlines have available some special deals that are only on their own Web sites and maybe a few of the online agencies. Confused? You should be. We are. The confusion is even worse if you want to fly internationally. Official fares to most countries are set via a treaty organization called the IATA, so most computer systems list only IATA fares for international flights. It's easy to find entirely legal ``consolidator'' tickets sold for considerably less than the official price, however, so an online or offline agent is extremely useful for getting the best price. The airlines also can have some impressive online offers on their web sites. Here's our distilled wisdom about buying tickets online: * Check the online systems to see what flights are available and for an idea of the price ranges. Check more than one CRS. For tickets within the U.S. and Canada, the prices in the CRS are for the most part the real prices that people are paying. * After you have found a likely airline, check that airline's site to see whether it has any special Web-only deals. If a low-fare airline has the route, be sure to check that one too, since most low-fare airlines don't appear in CRS listings. * If your schedule is flexible, check ticket bidding sites including Hotwire (http://www.hotwire.com) and Priceline (http://www.priceline.com) and ticket auctions such as SkyAuction (http://www.skyauction.com/). * Particularly if you don't qualify for the lowest fare visible on the CRS, check with a travel agent to see whether he can beat the online price, and buy your tickets from the agent unless the online deal is better. Most agents get no commission on fares visible on the CRS, so you can expect an agent to charge you for ticking them. * For international tickets, do all the steps above in this list, and then check both online and with your agent for consolidator tickets. This is particularly important if you don't qualify for the lowest published fare. See Edward Hasbrouck's Consolidators and Bucket Shops FAQ (http://hasbrouck.org/faq) for much more detailed information on consolidator tickets. * How can I get airline schedules on the Internet? There are many sources listed in later sections. Many of them will also let you book and buy tickets. Until mid-1996 there were paid services were considerably better than the free ones, but now I find that the free services are just as good. * What's available on the Internet? There are now several Internet gateways to airline CRS (computer reservation systems) described later in this section. Also check this interesting comparison of many of them (http://www.travelterminal.com/cgi-bin/compare.pl). * Are these the same systems that travel agents use? The underlying data are the same, but the interface is different. Some data are visible to agents, but not to these systems. A good way to work is to make the best reservation you can on-line, then call a travel agent, tell him what you've reserved, and see if he can do better. * How do I get access to them? Most of these systems are provided through web sites. Many of the sites use frames and SSL secure connections so you need a relatively recent browser such as Mozilla (http://www.mozilla.org/), Opera (http://www.operasoftware.com/), or, if you're willing to accept the security risks, Microsoft Internet Explorer (http://www.microsoft.com/ie/default) 5.0 or later. A few systems provide their own software which invariably is a plug-in for Microsoft's Internet Explorer, again if you're willing to accept the security risks. Travelocity: Travelocity (http://www.travelocity.com) is an online agent owned by Sabre. You need to provide a credit card number to make reservations, but they won't charge you until you tell them to. Tickets can be issued as e-tickets or, at extra cost, by mail. There is also a great deal of travel destination information of variable usefulness. Unlike most other web-based systems, it sometimes lets you hold a reservation without buying it. Also handles hotels and rental cars. A nice fare watcher feature lets you list a few routes you're interested in, and it sends you e-mail when an interesting fare becomes available. They have a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Their flexible search option provides a fare calendar, table of what fares are available on what dates, that's better than any other site I know. Unfortunately, just because a fare is available on a date doesn't mean that any actual seats are available at that fare, so a certain number of the fares are cruel jokes, great bargains if only the airline would sell you a seat at that fare which they won't. Some fares are marked "good buy" which means that they're only available on Travelocity. But that doesn't mean that they're any cheaper than other fares. All fares now include a $5/ticket service fee. Travelocity includes a "last minute deals" feature which is a rebranded version of Site59 (http://www.site59.com), which Travelocity owns. Expedia: Expedia (http://www.expedia.com) was Microsoft's flashy entrant into the web travel biz. In July 2001 they sold a controlling interest to USA Networks, owner of Home Shopping Network and other great cultural monuments. In August 2003, the two companies were merged under the extremely trendy name of IAC/InterActive Corp, along with hotels.com, Match.com and LendingTree. It still has that Microsoft feel, although I can hardly wait to see them start cross-selling. The site is garish, but it's reasonably easy to negotiate and to find schedules and fares. Underlying info is from Worldspan, prices now include a $5 per ticket service fee. You have to provide a credit card number to make a reservation, even if you don't want to buy immediately. Early on, when I tried to reserve, it said it the credit card link was down, no reservations possible, call a number in Florida if it's urgent. Yeah, right. (At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1.) It seems to work better now. There's also lots of promos and tie-ins, with Expedia-only special fares. You can sign up for weekly e-mail about best fares on routes you select. Your web browser must accept cookies or Expedia doesn't work. Orbitz: Orbitz (http://www.orbitz.com), was intended to be the "killer" airline ticket web site. Founded by United, Northwest, Continental, Delta, and American, it was sold in October 2004 to Cendant, a large travel company that owns Avis rent-a-car and Ramada Inns and dozens of other familiar chains, and is now in the process of being spun off as a standalone company along with some smaller travel companies that Cendant bought along the way. At least 30 airlines including the founders are Orbitz charter affiliates, which means they give all of their web fares to Orbitz. It has a very nice lowest fare search engine. You can tell it to add alternate airport within 70 miles, and it gives you the possible routings, cheapest first. It now lets you give a range of dates, or say that you want to take a weekend trip in a particular month, and it gives you a grid showing the lowest available fare for each combination of departure and return dates. They promise unbiased fare and schedule listings, and have agreements with affiliate airlines to include all publicly available fares (a term that is harder to define than it looks) such as web specials. Their search engine does a more thorough job than others (it's written in Lisp and runs on PCs, the others are written in assembler on mainframes) so it'll often find fares and connections that are entirely valid but not shown on other systems. For domestic US tickets on the airlines they include, they're hard to beat. (Like other online agencies, they don't include Southwest.) For international tickets, particularly on anything more complex than a round-trip, they can be very hit and miss. Try building your trip one leg at a time and watch the price zoom up and down. They also have some spiffy customer service, e.g., they can call you or send a text message to your mobile phone or PDA a few hours before flight time to tell you your gate and whether there are delays. They charge a service fee of $6 per ticket. Opodo: Opodo (http://www.opodo.co.uk) is owned by nine European airlines and the Amadeus GDS. Its coverage of the European majors is good, but keep in mind that on most intra-European routes you can usually find something cheaper on a low-cost airline that's not in Amadeus. (See Fare Searches below to find services link to the airlines that Opodo doesn't.) Apollo systems: Internet Travel Network (http://www.itn.net) is now part of American Express. It's a WWW-based flight booking system. You make reservations, using Apollo, which are then ticketed by American Express, unless you entered via another agency's web site. Several other sites on the net including several airlines have ``private label'' connections to ITN, but it's the same system, usually just with slightly different screen backgrounds and titles. The base ITN system uses data from Apollo, but apparently some of the private label versions use other CRS. Now that Easy Sabre is gone, this is the only system I know that can display available fare classes, an important feature for some kinds of discounts and special fares. It also displays an approximate number of seats available in each fare class, useful both for guessing whether you need to buy a cheap ticket right away, and for seeing which flights are likely to have seats available for upgrades to first class. Set your display preferences to ``expert.'' Worldspan (http://www.worldspan.com) is another large international CRS. They provide a Web availability and pricing system, which underlies the web sites of participating agents as well as the Delta and Northwest web sites, only available via customer sites, not on their own site. It's the system that underlies Expedia and Orbitz (described above). Trip.com (http://www.trip.com) has been merged into Cheap Tickets. Cheap Tickets (http://www.cheaptickets.com) originally sold mostly cheap tickets to Hawaii, but is now a general purpose online agent. I gather that unlike most other web sites, the live agents at their 800 number have access to fares not on the web site and often not available through other sites. Owned by Cendant, being spun off in the same travel company as Orbitz, although the sites remain separate. * Amadeus AmadeusLink (http://www.amadeus.net/), was started in 1987 by four European airlines and in 1995 absorbed System One which started a long time ago as Eastern Airlines' reservation system. They offer extensive schedule and availability info, along with rental car, hotel, and destination info. For bookings, you need to use a subscribing travel agency, such as Opodo, or a site built on their AmadeusLink system. The AmadeusLink booking systems all link into the same site, so other than some of the graphics, the function they provide is identical. TripWeb (http://www.tripweb.com) is run by a Florida travel agency and offers search and bookings through Amadeus, with free ticket delivery. Underneath it's ITN, but it uses Amadeus for underlying data. * Mobissimo Mobissimo (http://www.mobissimo.com/) is an experimental meta-search that searches lots of other web sites for a pair of cities and dates and shows you what fares it found, with links to the other sites so you can followup. * Kayak Kayak (http://www.kayak.com) is a meta-search that looks at lots of airline and agent web sites and produces a combined listing with links you can click through to the various sites to buy. It works well, but as with all combo sites, there are usually interesting sites they don't search so you still have to look for yourself. AOL has a deal with Kayak so they're featured on AOL. * Sidestep Sidestep (http://www.sidestep.com) also searches multiple airline web sites to find the lowest fares, along with promotions like weekend fares and extra frequent flyer miles. Their original version is an add-in to Internet Explorer that you download and install so it only runs on Windows with Internet Explorer. (Considering the well known security disaster that is IE, this is a significant drawback.) Now you can also visit their web site and use it like any other search system. It's gotten wonderful reviews but when I've tried to use it I haven't been very impressed with what it found, no better than fare searches at Travelocity, often worse than Orbitz. When you install the IE add-in, it splatters your browser, desktop, toolbar, and start menu with icons which is really annoying. * Farechase Yahoo's Farechase (http://farechase.yahoo.com/) is yet another meta-search. It has the slick interface you'd expect from Yahoo, results similar to but perhaps not quite as complete as Kayak. * Other general sites OneTravel (http://www.onetravel.com) offers booking and ticketing. (They recently absorbed FLIFO.) A "fare beater" feature searches negotiated and "white label" fares. Similar data to Travelocity, less flashy, but less buggy, too. Data from Amadeus. In some quick tests, Travelocity found fares that they didn't and vice versa, with Travelocity's lower. Travelweb (http://www.travelweb.com) has a lot of travel info, graphics that look like they were drawn with a crayon (it's an aesthetic effect, I guess), and airline reservations via Expedia. Destina (http://www.destina.ca) was introduced as a one-stop travel service for Canada, although it was owned by Air Canada. They recently integrated it more tightly with Air Canada's own web site, and at this point it appears to sell only AC tickets, making one wonder why they bothered. They say it'll do more later in the year. * Fare searches and comparisons ITA Software (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch) builds the search engine used by Orbitz and an increasing number of airline sites, and you can use a copy of the latest version of their search system. No booking, you have to take what you find and book elsewhere. Qixo (http://www.qixo.com) searches two dozen airline sites and returns a combined list of the lowest fares found for route. If you book through them, there's a $20 booking fee, but of course once you know the airline and times, there's nothing keeping you from booking up the same flights on another site. Cheap Flights USA (http://www.CheapFlights.com) and Cheap Flights UK (http://www.CheapFlights.co.uk) offers a nice search engine for low cost tickets from the US and UK, many of which don't appear in the major search engines. Not a travel agency, they link to other agents and airlines where they presumably collect a referral fee (which is fine, it doesn't affect the price of the ticket.) Sky Scanner (http://www.skyscanner.net) offers an excellent search engine for cheap flights within the UK and Europe. Don't miss their month views with little bar charts of daily fares. Flight Atlas (http://www.flightatlas.com/) offers cute animated maps showing what routes are available among European airports, with links to the airlines serving them. (To me it looks like of like a game of Battleship.) SimplyQuick (http://travel.simplyquick.com/discount-airfares/) is an independent guide to who's cheapest online for discount airfares, based on a large survey of the top 8 online booking services, and providing a search tailored city by city (US only). They also rate online travel agents and travel service web sites. They're in New Zealand, but most of the info is for US travellers. Cheapo (http://www.flycheapo.com) has comprehensive info on European discount airlines including a map that shows where they all go, and frequent blog style news items on new and changed service. Discounted international tickets: Apple Fares (http://www.applefares.com) has an excellent search engine for low-cost European airlines. You can search both for specific dates and destinations and for more general questions like weekend trips from London to Spain two weeks from now. AirTreks (http://www.airtreks.com) has a spiffy web site that helps construct and price multi-stop and round-the-world international travel. They're a travel agency, the site estimates the price, exact prices and tickets come from live agents at the agency. (That's what you want, no computer can navigate the swamp of international routes and fares very well.) Farepoint (http://www.farepoint.co.uk/) provides a large database of fares via UK travel agents. The site links to some of the agents who offer their service. Flights.com (http://www.flights.com) (formerly called TISS) is an online database in Germany with current airfares provided by a group of consolidators. They offer departures from a lot of different countries, now including the U.S. They claim the prices they offer are the best available. For routes within the US they act as a front end to flifo. One reader reports a bad experience with their US agent, rebooking his reservation in a way that lost the discount fare he'd reserved, although he'd had good results with their UK agent. Air Fare (http://www.air-fare.com) tracks lowest fares among major U.S. cities, with daily updates of significantly lower fares. Worldspan-based Res and ticketing also available. Deal Checker (http://www.dealchecker.co.uk) compares fares and hotel prices from major UK web sites. * Real-time flight status and information The extremely cool service from TheTrip (http://www.trip.com/) (scroll down to Flight Tracker on their home page) gives you a real-time position map and ETA for most domestic flights. Choice of plain text or way beyond cool animated Java relief maps, and you can tell it to send e-mail when the plane arrives, or an hour or two before. If you haven't already got your ticket, they offer ITN for info and ticketing. Expedia (http://www.expedia.com/pub/agent.dll?qscr=flin) now has real-time flight ops including times and gates for major US airlines. The Track A Flight (http://www.trackaflight.com/) service (formerly Flyte Trax, same organization as flytecomm.com) also provides real-time position map and ETA for most domestic flights, by flight number, or departing or arriving airports. It's as nice as TheTrip. Flight Arrivals (http://www.flightarrivals.com/) offers impressively complete arrival info for most US airports. (It even has info for the teensy Ithaca NY airport.) No maps, but lots of data. * Itinerary Lookup Each of the GDS has a web site where you can look up the details of the record for a reservation if you have the locator code, generally a sequence of six letters or digits, and the passenger's last name. A single trip can have information on more than one system. For example, if you make a United Airlines reservation on Travelocity, the main Travelocity record is on Sabre, but there's a copy on United's home system Galileo, as well. Each system has a different locator code, and it can be hard to find the codes for other than the original system. Virtually There sometimes shows the locator for other system records as the Confirmation field, although you have to figure out or guess which system it's on. Every travel agent except Orbitz uses one of the GDS to make its reservations so the master record for each trip is available through one of the systems. The online systems usually show the locator code on one of the confirmation screens, and any airline or local travel agent will tell your the locator for your reservation if you ask. Since Orbitz uses its direct connect technology to make reservations directly with many airlines, the master record is on Orbitz itself and as far as I can tell you can't tell the airline's locator until you get your boarding pass. Virtually There (https://www.virtuallythere.com) can show records from Sabre inclding reservations on Travelocity, American Airlines, and US Airways. Check My Trip (https://www.checkmytrip.com) can show records from Amadeus, including reservations on Continental and many European airlines. My Trip and More (http://www.mytripandmore.com/) can show records from Worldspan, including reservations on Delta and Northwest. View Trip (https://www.viewtrip.com/en-us/ViewTrip.asp) can show records from Galileo, including reservations on United. Some of these systems will also show rental car and hotel info if they're included in the same records. * What about the airlines' own web sites?? Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Five good directories of them a http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Ec...tion/Airlines/ http://www.airlineguide.info http://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm http://flyaow.com/ This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline web pages with other info. In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays, gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a credit card. This list is for North American (U.S., Canada, Mexico, and nearby islands) airlines. The next section lists airlines elsewhere in the world. Air Aruba (http://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that they don't fly any more. Air Canada (http://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has schedule info, reservations, ticketing, and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais (http://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). You can also download a 400K PC version of the entire schedule. Air St Pierre (http://209.205.50.254/AspWeb/) flies from St Pierre (which, for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French. Airtran (http://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail specials newsletter. Air Transat (http://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has schedules, reservations, and flight ops. Alaska Airlines (http://www.alaska-air.com/) has a web site with flight info, reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. On-line tickets get 250 bonus miles, more for e-tickets and automated checkin. They give $10 off for web booking when you register on their web site and buy a ticket by May 26. The reservation system finally seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty but not as cute as the old retro design. Downloadable PDF schedule, too. ALM (http://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles. Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials. Aloha (http://www.alohaairlines.com/) flies within Hawaii, also to and along the U.S. west coast. Routes, schedules, tickets, special fares. Frequent flyer program allows family members to pool miles. Recently rounded up new money and came out of bankruptcy. America West (http://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations, and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages. They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating separately with separate web sites. American Airlines (http://www.aa.com/) has a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares, and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (http://www.aatimetable.com) in various online and printable formats. American Trans Air (http://www.ata.com) has a web site with schedules, fares, flight ops. Reservations provided through a system which appears to be a private label version of Travelocity. They currently offer a free companion ticket after three round trips, free ticket after six round trips, for travel booked on their web site. They're morphing into a feeder for Southwest, but other than codeshares the frequent flyer programs are still separate. Amtrak (http://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes. Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can be awfully slow. Bearskin Airlines (http://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little pricey at C$49.95. BWIA (http://www.bwee.com/) flies to, from, and around the Caribbean. They have a separate site (http://www.bwee-ticket.com), if you want to buy tickets rather than just look at their soothing green web site. Canadian Airlines (http://www.cdnair.ca) has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as Mapleflot. Chalk's Ocean Airways (http://www.flychalks.com/) has been flying seaplanes between Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec 19th. Attractive site has reservations, destination info, and a lot of "under construction" pages. Continental (http://www.continental.com) has a spiffy new design with schedule info, on-line booking, and flight status. CO.O.L. system offers a general purpose reservation system with hotels and cars as well as flights, with the same features as Microsoft's Expedia. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line. Weekly specials via mailing list or web site. (CO.O.L. requires cookies.) Cubana (http://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the spare parts for their DC-10 and 727. Delta (http://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought on-line. Firstair (http://www.firstair.ca/), a Canadian regional airline, has schedule info. (Finally, you can get from North America to Greenland without flying through Iceland.) The current incarnation of Frontier (http://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico. Site has reservations, flight ops. Great Plains Airlines (http://www.gpair.com/) is a low-fare carrier with a hub in St Louis. Hawaiian (http://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating. Independence Air (http://www.flyi.com/) is the new name for Atlantic Coast Airlines, ran out of money and stopped operating as of Jan 5. Jet Blue (http://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it does make Internet Exploder crash. Jetsgo (http://www.jetsgo.com) is a low-cost Canadian carrier that was eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March. LIAT (http://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those dates. Maxjet (http://www.maxjet.net) is another entry in the premium low-cost niche, offering one daily all business class roundtrip between New York JFK-London Stansted and Dulles-Stansted. Online reservations and seat selection, list of goodies at each end of the flight (shower and massage, anyone?) Conditions of carriage require that passengers over the age of two must wear shoes. Midwest Airlines (http://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express, has routes, schedules, and fares. Also seat maps and a surprising number of missing pages, like the one that's supoosed to tell you what other airlines are in their frequent flyer program. On the ``signature'' flights, the ones that don't go to vacation places, the chocolate chip cookies are still free. New England Airlines (http://www.block-island.com/flybi/sumsched.html) flies between Block Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail form. Northwest Airlines (http://www.nwa.com) has schedule, fares, reservations, and flight ops, using the Orbitz booking and search engine. Weekly Cybersaver specials offered, book through the web site for the lowest price. On-line store offers a $12.99 plush moose and a $279 1/100 scale 747-400. That's only $10/inch! Pan Am (http://www.flypanam.com) flies 727s has its hub at Portsmouth NH and flies between the northestern US and Canada and Florida and the Caribbean. It's owned by the parent company of the Boston and Maine railroad and has no connection to the old Pan Am other than buying the logo. Online schedules, reservations, and destination info. Song (http://www.flysong.com) is Delta's low-cost airline within an airline. Their web site is all fluffy and beautiful and offers the same stuff as everyone else, schedules, reservations, flight ops, and online checkin. For some unfathomable reason, Delta's regular web site doesn't include Song flights. Southwest Airlines (http://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials. Spirit (http://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! Sun Country (http://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Ted (http://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline. Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck, maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be Milage Plus and a maiing list with special deals. Transmeridian (http://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and is expected to liquidate. Ah, well. TWA has been absorbed into American (http://www.aa.com). Where's Howard Hughes now that we need him? United (http://www.ual.com) has resdesigned their site so that instead of being intriguingly bizarre, now it's just plain ugly. Reservations and booking via ITN. Web site requires cookies, although ITN itself doesn't. Direct link (https://wunited.itn.net/unitedair) to United's reservation sub-site on ITN is a lot faster than navigating through the main pages. US Airways (http://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket. (Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to) USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two airlines are operating separately with separate web sites. USA 3000 (http://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of Javascript but it all seems to work. Via Rail Canada (http://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and translated into English, I know the guy who did it.) Westjet (http://www.westjet.com) is a low-fare Canadian airline. Schedules, reservations, flight ops, weekly web specials. Zoom Airlines (http://www.flyzoom.com/) flies their three planes on a sparse schedule between Canadia and Britain and France. (Don't miss the cute animated route map.) Online reservations, with date or name changes for C$50. The site will be nice when it's done, but for now there's an awful lot of place holder pages. * Airlines in Europe Aegean Air (http://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive alternative to Olympic. Aer Lingus (http://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box) that shows when cheap fares are available. It also explains their plans to cancel their current frequent flyer program, which means that if you don't use your points by October, you lose. Air Berlin (http://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany to holiday spots all over Europe and North Africa and to London. The very thorough web site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA. Air Europa (http://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain, has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish. Alitalia (http://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (http://www.alitaliausa.com) has info and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. Also online specials, e.g., a fairly impressive 25% off what appears to be any coach or business fare through 25 Oct. Aer Arann (http://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to Scotland, England and the Isle of Man. Air Scotland (http://www.air-scotland.com) is a new airline apparently flying between Scottish airports and Mediterranean holiday destinations. It has a nice site full of plaid Scottish motifs, but I was unable to get it to cough up any actual flights I could book. Austrian Airlines (http://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info, and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English. British Airways (http://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and, depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime. British Midland (http://www.flybmi.com/) has a Web-based booking and ticketing system which lets you reserve and buy tickets. bmibaby (http://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of British Midland, with Flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.) SN Brussels Airlines (http://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade us that they're not Sabena. (Legally they're not, but they arose from the ashes of the Sabena bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American. Crossair (http://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss (http://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by Swissair's demise. Easyjet (http://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways. Eastern Airways (http://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules, fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is forbidden." Excel Airways (http://www.xl.com) flies from the UK to vacation destinations in southern Europe and north Africa, primarily package vacations. Dense, functional has all the stuff they offer. Finnair (http://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it. Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell phones, which is kind of cool. flybe (http://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough. GermanWings (http://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts. Globespan (http://www.flyglobespan.com) flies between Scottish airports and mostly Mediterranean destinations. Site offers booking of flights and vacation packages. Hapag-Lloyd Express (http://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany. Schedules, reservations, destination info. Hellas Jet (http://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program, Iberia (http://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label Amadeus site. Iceland Express (http://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20. Icelandair (http://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing prices. Jet2 (http://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages. KLM (http://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the web sites don't seem to have noticed yet. Lufthansa Info Flyway (http://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site (http://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including occasional Web Specials live seat auctions. Luxair (http://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant. Malev (http://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with schedule info. There's supposed to be fare info but it pops up a box saying it's out of order. Manx Airlines (http://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info. Mytravellite (http://www.mytravellite.com/) is a low cost airline flying from Birmingham (UK) to Ireland and Spain. Schedules, reservations, destination info. Small discount offered for online booking. Norwegian Airlines (http://www.norwegian.no) is a low cost airline flying from Oslo to Norway and elsewhere in Europe. Site has reservations and info mostly translated from the Norwegian. Olympic (http://www.olympicairlines.com/), the flag carrier of Greece, has a basic site with online booking. Ryanair (http://www.ryanair.ie) is a rapidly expanding low-fare airline with a hub at London Stansted and minor hubs in London Luton, Dublin, Shannon, Glasgow, Brussels, Stockholm Skavsta, Frankfurt Hahn, and Milan Orio Al Serio. Web site offers routes, fares, and booking. Sabena (http://www.sabena.com/), the notoriously inept Belgian airline, finally went bankrupt in October 2001 and has shut down. Their replacement is SN Brussels Airlines, described above. SAS (http://www.sas.se) has schedule info on-line, and in large downloadable text file. Windows interface program (2MB download) lets you search through the schedule file, but it's far faster to search with a text editor. Also limited reservations for pass holders and frequent flyer redemptions. Swiss (http://www.swiss.com), the successor to Crossair, has schedule info and on-line booking on a somewhat sloppy site, and some web specials. (Click Special Offers on the home page.) They're about to be taken over by Lufthansa, but it's not clear whether it'll continue to operate as a separate airline. Swissair went bankrupt in September 2001 and their schedules have somewhat been taken over by Swiss airlines. Transavia (http://www.transavia.nl/en) is a subsidiary of KLM flying from Amsterdam to holiday destinations in Europe and north Africa. Info and online reservations. Their former low-cost subsidiary Basiqair is now merged into Transavia. Virgin Atlantic (http://www.fly.virgin.com/) has a spiffy looking site with reservations, fares, and ticketing. Also tours and occasional specials. VLM (http://www.vlm-airlines.com/) is a low-cost airline flying small planes mostly between the UK and Benelux. (The V stands for Flemish.) Schedules, reservations, company history. * Airlines elsewhere in the world Air Asia (http://www.airasia.com/) is a startup headquartered in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) offering low-fare single-class point to point service along the lines of JetBlue or Ryanair. They have some amazing intro fares, like round trip from Kuala Lumpur to Johor, across the bridge from Singamore, for RM78, about US$20. Online reservations, info, and a nice three page menu of onboard food offerings. I think I'll try the Asian egg salad sandwich. Air New Zealand (http://www.airnz.co.nz) offers schedules and booking via a private-label version of ITN/Getthere, which assured me that you can't fly from Auckland to New York. Also special fares and frequent flyer info. Ansett Australia (http://www.ansett.com.au) stopped flying in March 2002. But the web site has lots of tedious details of the financial dissection of the carcass. Aerolineas Argentinas (http://www.aerolineas.com.ar) has schedules and reservations (for Argentine residents) through a private label version of Amadeus. In Spanish and English. I think it's flying this week, labor has been battling owner Iberia. Cathay Pacific (http://www.cathay-usa.com), Hong Kong's airline, offers booking through ITN and a variety of special offers such as bonus AA frequent flyer miles or package deals to Asia. El Al (http://www.elal.co.il) has U.S. schedules and some US-oriented package info. Appears to have on-line booking although I couldn't get it to work. Emirates (http://www.emirates.com), the airline of Dubai, has an attractive site with info about schedules, packages and special offers, and requent flyer info. The on-line booking makes it easy to search by schedule, even among multiple days, somewhat possible to search by fare, and due to Javascript bugs I can't tell whether it actually sells tickets. Gol (http://www.voegol.com.br) is a low-fare airline flying in Brazil and a few adjacent countries. Routes, fares, e-tickets, ground connections. Nice flash animation of flying pigs on the home page. Lan Chile (http://www.lanchile.cl) has an attractive multi-lingual site with schedules, fares, and some cheap Internet-only specials. Malaysia Airlines (http://www.malaysiaairlines.com) has route and schedule information, with frequent special deals, but if you want to buy a ticket, you have to call them. Polynesian Airlines (http://www.polynesianairlines.co.nz/) has basic routes and schedules. Qantas (http://www.qantas.com.au) has an attractive site with online booking, schedule info and flight ops and a downloadable off-line Windows itinerary manager. Bookings are oriented toward but not limited to Australian residents. Also a mirror site (http://www.qantas.com) in the U.S which appears to be unreachable due to mistakes at the Internic. Royal Jordanian (http://www.rja.com.jo) has a stylish but slow web site with routes and schedules to and from their Amman hub. Singapore Airlines (http://www.singaporeair.com) has schedule info, best viewed via a proxy server that will filter out anything that's unwholesome. South African Airways (http://www.saa.co.za/saa) has schedules and a little destination info, but they've toned down the eye-straining graphics. Occasional seat auctions. Varig (http://www.varig.com.br), Brazil's major airline, has schedule info and reservations via Amadeus. Virgin Blue (http://www.virginblue.com.au) is a low-fare domestic airline in Australia with its hub in sunny Brisbane. Schedules and on-line booking. Lunch costs extra. Airlines often offer special fares or promotions to Internet users, and there are some other specialist outfits selling tickets on-line. * Special fare newsletters Smarter Travel://www.smartertravel.com/ ( collects) weekly specials from selected major cities and both puts them on their web site and e-mails them to mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals. The Wednesday Airfares webring (http://www.bomis.com/rings/airline) has links to many sites with. on-line specials, although they should really update it to take out the link to TWA. Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue bar. * Ticket auctions and the like Priceline (http://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K. If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you, but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal, say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted, and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make, although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that. I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in subsequent sections of this FAQ. Hotwire (http://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all of which have turned out to be from Budget. SkyAuction (http://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund if there's a problem with the flights. General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay (http://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings...310/index.html) or Travel Tickets:Airline at Yahoo Auctions (http://auctions.yahoo.com/26180-category-leaf.html). Many of the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite a few ancillary items like drink coupons. Site59 (http://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages. They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really Site59.) * Individual airlines Air Canada (http://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special fares. Airtran (http://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for on the site that announces weekly specials. Alaska Airlines (http://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web special fares. American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages. Visit their web page (http://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar at the top. American Trans Air (http://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares available only on their web site. America West (http://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and Quick Trips air/land package specials. Austrian Airlines (http://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with occasional web-only last minute specials. Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials. The currently have web-only fares from, Los Angeles, or San Francisco to Bangkok for $599, from New York for $699. You have to register in their free ``Cybertraveller'' at the web site. Continental (http://www.coticket.com/) has a mailing list and web site for net-only specials. You buy tickets on-line, but you have to subscribe to the mailing list to get access. (Site requires cookies.) Finnair (http://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions. Lufthansa's US site (http://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when they are. Malaysia Airlines (http://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar Cathay Pacific offer.) Northwest (http://www.nwa.com/nwa/flight/promos/index.shtml) has promotions including a few web-only fares which they put on their site on Wednesdays. South African Airways (http://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat auctions. Southwest (http://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly specials. Also there's a package specials list (http://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions. Sun Country (http://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly'' specials. United (http://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but it's free. US Airways (http://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers" mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles. * Are there many on-line agents? There's lots of them, grouped below by location of the agent and type of service. NOTE: All of the descriptions below are edited from info provided by the agencies themselves. There are many resources other than travel agents available on the net, as well, but they're not listed here. Most agencies offer a broad range of services, so the groupings by type of service below are pretty arbitrary. NOTE: If you're a travel agent and would like to be listed, drop me a note and I'll add you. Please make my life easier by e-mailing me a three-line or so description in the style above. Thanks. * Generalist agents located in the U.S. EZTrip.com (http://www.eztrip.com/), an online agency in Missouri, offers tickets, hotels, rental cars, and modest amounts of destination info. Bayless Travel Associates (http://www.baylesstravel.com) Full-service Vacation Travel (Domestic and International) in Oklahoma City. Book your vacation on-line. Isha Tours & Travels (http://www.ishatravels.com) in Edison NJ provide consolidators airfares to anywhere in the world. Enid Cohen affiliated with WorldTravel Partners in Dallas, has over 30 years of experience both arranging travel and travelling herself, specializes in meticulous, old-fashioned service to business and leisure/personal travellers. JetStar Travel Service (http://jetstartravel.vacation.com) is a full service agency Specializing in Cruises, Family Vacations, Honeymoons, European Travel, Las Vegas, and much more. Compass Point Travel is a full service agency that welcomes Internet customers. Specialties include custom planning of major trips, Club Med, discount cruises, adventure travel, and US-originating international travel. Web page (http://www.cptravel.com/). Edward Hasbrouck (http://www.airtreks.com), now at High Adventure Travel, San Francisco, around-the-world specialist; also other discounted international tickets; NOT a general-purpose, corporate, or domestic travel agency. Also see his Airline Ticket Consolidators and Bucket Shops FAQ (http://hasbrouck.org/faq) for info on getting the lowest international air fares. Germantown Travel in Germantown Md is a full service airline ticket agency suppling information and discounted tickets for domestic and international travel. Web site (http://airtravel.com) with special fares and Caribbean tour info. CTM Travel in Coral Springs FL welcomes business from the Internet. Genie Travel Services Inc. specializes in discounted international and domestic airline tickets for Internet customers. For prices, see their web page (http://www.genietravel.com). Endeavour Travel is a travel agency specialising in NZ and Australian travel, staffed in large part by Aussies and Kiwis. Web pages (http://www.anzac.com/endvr/endvr.htm). I got Circle Pacific tickets from them, service was decent. Marla Baer-Peckham of Cornucopia First Class Travel is a full-service travel agency. Web page (http://iquest.com/~marla). Uniglobe GEM Travel or Full service agency, WWW site (http://www.uniglobe-gem.com/) with leisure info and travel request forms. Our goal is not to find the cheapest product, but the best value for money. Park'N Ticket Travel located in Atlanta GA, specializes in Business Travel. We have a 24 hour travel agency as well as a 1,250 car parking facility with a 24 hour shuttle service. Paul Foley , at Passport Executive Travel of Alexandria, VA, a full-service agency, CLIA, and IGTA, specializes in Corporate Travel, personal preference is Gay and Lesbian travel. Web page (http://www.prairienet.org/business/travex/homepage.html). The Travel Experts in Champaign, Illinois is a full service agency with a special emphasis in Caribbean destinations and the UK, and have expertise in Israel and the Middle East. Web page (http://www.prairienet.org/business/travex/homepage.html). Newlywed Susan Mitchell Skinner at Online Travelservices near Atlanta specializes in honeymoons and family vacations -- but also work with consolidators and offer fast turnaround on quotes to international destinations. Priority Travel is a small agency in Waltham, Mass specializing in corporate travel for small companies and start-ups who need to minimize their travel costs. Also have specialist in European business or vacation travel. World Travel located in Stockton, CA, specializes in travel to Southeast Asia. A Traveler's Choice Associate. Super Saver Travel , Aurora, CO, offer personalized service in getting you the lowest available airfares out of Denver and Colorado Springs area. Domestic & International. Adventure Travel Service (http://www.greencis.net/~ats) provides domestic and international consolidator tickets. Book online for domestic tickets using ITN, and Spring Break '97 packages now available. Email . QuinWell Travel Service (http://www.quinwell.com) is a full-service travel agency offering SABRE online reservations & ticketing, discounted cruises & tours, free newsletter, and an extensive web site. Metropolitan Travel (http://www.mettravel.com), specializes in corporate travel, res/tickets through ITN, offers reports online, tracking for companies and employees, tracks trips, FF miles, etc., including pre-trip reports. Also vacation specials through "Club Met". Heather Trofholz , Aliso Veijo CA, corporate/business executive specialist. Knowledgeable, personalized service, delivery, maps, vacation planning to the traveling individual. Available for new So. Orange County clients. Web site (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/3005). Certified Travel Services (http://www.certravel.com) is building a network of independent travel agents who operate from their homes or places of business. Complete training, software, reservations system, manuals and continuing support is offered. Listings of travel specials and on-line air travel booking is provided through their Internet site. RMS InHouse Travel (http://www.rmssys.com) is a full service agency offering on-line reservation system. Travel Service, Inc. has three offices in the Tulsa area, in the business since 1973, are a full service agency, specializing in groups. Rosemarie Hughey at Go Vegas First Class located in Las Vegas NV provides a service to travelers to Las Vegas and surroundings as well as airfares to Europe. German spoken. Lovely Planet Discount Travel Service in Hailey, ID specializes in researching international discounted airfares. Biztravel.com went out of business in September 2001 B. Charles and Co. (www.airreservations.com) has lists of discounted fares and travel agent contacts. No on-line schedules or booking, call their toll-free number. Kayron and Don Lance , independent agents for Carroll Cruises and Tours, specialize in cruises, tours and packages. Especially knowledgable about the Caribbean. Online reservations (http://www.travelopinion.com) and Caribbean hotel information (http://www.caribbeanopinion.com). Terminal One Travel (http://www.terminal-one-travel.com) offers direct bookings via Worldspan. Also packages, custom tours. E-mail mailing list. MtRoyalTravel (http://www.MtRoyalTravel.com), full service "personalized" travel agency for leisure and corporate travel arrangements, many packages, all experienced agents and many price ranges (economy to first class). Over 25 years of experience. * Tours, cruises, and special interest agents located in the U.S. Kalliste Tours (http://www.kallistetours.com) specializes exclusively in Corsica since 1999. Escorted luxury cultural tours in spring and winter for 4 to 8 people. Journeys Off the Tourist Track (http://www.balijourneys.com) is a 11 year expert in groups and unique individual vacations to Bali, Thailand, Fiji, Hawaii plus individual African Safaris and Off the Tourist Track travel with discounted air to most international destinations. Travelagentus.com (http://travelagentus.com) is a consolidator travel agency primarily promoting business class air ticktes to Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Fly Malaysia Air (http://www.flymas.com) offers discount airline tickets on Malaysia Airlines for international flights departing the United States via LAX and Newark to Malaysia and southeast Asia. Trav.com (http://www.trav.com) offers Online Reservations for Budget Accommodation. Book hostels, hotels, apartments, campsites and bed and breakfasts online.* Instant reservations guaranteed.* Online accommodation finder. Airline Consolidator (http://www.airlineconsolidator.com) is a retail consolidator and travel agency specializing in discount international airfares. Offers online booking and live telephone support. Destination Southern Africa (http://www.amasafari.com) is a full service travel company for Southern and Eastern Africa. Tours, safaris, car hire, packages, hotels, transfers for groups or individuals. Since 1980, Eric Fenster has organized affordable study trips to Moscow to examine political and economic change in Russia first-hand. All adults welcome. Air Discounters International (http://www.airdiscounters.com/) offers discounted airline tickets from the US to Europe, Africa, Asia, South Pacific, Central America, and South America. They also have hotel discounts in most major cities worldwide. Bonjour USA tours (http://www.bonjourusa.com) specializes in providing ground services for leisure and business group travel to all major cities, attractions, sights and National Parks of the USA. Travel Tek (http://travtek.net) specializes in discounted business and first class airfares to international destinations. Walter Ward ) at Jacquin Travel in Miami, a full service agency including Gay/Lesbian travel. Air Overseas (http://www.airoverseas.com) in Miami specializes in travel to Europe. Air fares, car rental rates, and European Rail programs. Travel Network (http://www.tvllink.com/travel.network) of Walnut Creek, CA is a full service agency. Cruises, Jamaican All Inclusive Resorts and Hawaiian Vacations are among our specialties. Try our "Rock Bottom Fare Finder" E-mail . Superior Travel Service specializing in Singles Groups, age 45 to 60's. Accredited CLIA member specializing in cruises, Have cruised Europe, Panama Canal,Bermuda, Alaska, etc. Mike Espinosa at Maluku Adventures is a tour operator specializing in SE Asia, and Nepal. We offer kayaking, diving, and treks. Manny Segall at Vacation Partners runs a service that finds compatible travel mates for single travelers, for companionship and to avoid the dreaded single supplement. Web page (http://www.vacationpartners.com). Bill Byrnes author of "Airfare Secrets" specializes in high value Round the World, long haul and missionary travel. Offshore ticketing from Euro and Asian consolidators. Torcaza Trails offer a mountain treking and a tropical forest option in western Venezuela. Web page of Venezuela info (http://venezuela.mit.edu). European Traveler,Inc. specializes in individual vacations to Europe. Full colour brochure "EURO CITY TRIPS" available on request offers 2-3-5 and 7 days packages in up to 40 cities all over Europe. Association of Business Travellers offers the international traveller a hotel reservation service, specials at top class hotels, restaurants, service office facilities, lost lugage tracing, etc. Web page (http://www.abt-travel.com). Stephen P. Aleksza with Travelink on the shores of beautiful Bamber Lake in Whiting NJ specializes in cruises and vacation packages. Web page (http://www.eclipse.net/~vacation/travlk.htm). Cruisin The first exclusively on line cruise only agency. Web page (http://www.crocker.com/cruisin). Island Dreams Tours & Travel specializes in scuba diving, snorkeling, and world-wide adventure travel. Web page (http://www.islandream.com/island/index.htm) with a broad range of information of interest to scuba divers and international travelers. Bill Welk of Vacation Connection operate a lodging reservation service in Oshkosh, Wi. and serve many special events organizers by providing free use of our toll free phone numbers for information and lodging connections. Web page (http://www.atw.fullfeed.com/~dadvanc/). OnlineTravel offers European railpasses, Eurail travel, and the Chunnel channel tunnel, with planning maps, car rental and discount air fares. Web page (http://www.eurorail.com). Travel Agents International (http://www.traveltai.com) specialize in corporate travel and cruises. Located in Florida, offering special insight into Florida vacation destinations. Reservations via ITN, and a custom designed form for cruise quotations. First Class Travel specializes in sports and leisure travel, welcome Internet customers, E-mail for info. Classic Travel , full service agency specializing in cruises, caribbean dream vacations, european discoveries, mexican getaways, las vegas sprees, etc. Travelfax newsletter loaded with specials, send your fax number for our latest copy. Barbara & Earl Seppala (http://www.selective-travel.com/) of Selective Travel, Scottsdale AZ, outside agents, specializing in cruises and international tours. Email . ModTravel (http://www.modtravel.com) are Leisure Travel Consultants specializing in Hawaii and Mexico destinations. Mexico Online (http://www.mexonline.com/travel) is a complete reservation service dedicated to Mexico. We offer vacation packages to 100 of the most popular resort and specialty properties, archeological tours and the Copper Canyon, and can include discounted airfare, car rental, and fishing expeditions. Marvelous Tickets (http://www.marveloustickets.com) specializes in worldwide sports tours & tickets, offering tickets and travel for major events in football, baseball, tennis, boxing, racing, etc. for individuals & groups. Event information is available at web site. Barbara Kwiatek , CTC, MCC, Aussie Specialist, Holland Specialist, Disney Specialist, Unique Travel. Phil Carta's NEW ADVENTURES (http://www.newadventures.com) specialize in vacations to exotic, sunny, tropical destinations and do 75% of our business through the internet. E-mail newsletter. Lighthouse Travel (http://www.lighthousetravel.com) is a travel agent that specializes in cruises, members of the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) and experienced cruise counselor. No fee for our services and discount all cruises. Global Express Travel specializes in discount leisure and discount midweek business travel. * Agents located in Canada African Wings Travel & Tours (http://africanwings.com) in Toronto specializes in travel to Africa and other international destinations. Debby Lampron-Lynch at Voyage Absolue (http://www.voyageabsolue.com) of St-Hyacinthe, Quebec, offers travel service to individuals and groups. Will serve you in Engish as in French. Email . Future Travel/Voyages L'Avenir of Montreal offers complete leisure and corporate travel services, they accept reservation and information requests via e-mail, in business since 1974. Marc-Andre Lalande at Voyages Vacances Tourisme in Montreal specializes in incoming and outgoing tourism, leisure and corporate travel from all over the world. Affiliated with wholesaler Groupe Voyages Quebec. Jimmy Georgiadis , Montreal, Que., has 45 years of experience with travel to the land of the Gods - GREECE. "If it's Greece, we have it". Can arrange, hotels, car rentals, yacht rentals, tours. Web page (http://www.generation.net/~rextrvl). Robert Zuzek at Kompas Express Travel (http://home.istar.ca/~kompex) is a specialist on Spain and Italy has contacts with many local suppliers does "a la carte" itineraries and has best Airfares with 6 European carriers ex Toronto. B & P Travel Services (http://imf.nb.ca/bptravel) operates from Fredericton, N,B.,Canada. Dealing in Quality Travel Products, Insurance and Discounted International Air Fares. Departing from Halifax, Montreal and Ottawa. * Agents located in Europe All Destinations (http://www.all-destinations.com), a UK agent established in 1988, offers flights, packages, and other travel products. Destinations Europe (http://www.destinationseurope.com) is a specialist*company offering a personal service for*UK and Europe including*weddings, honeymoons, tailormade holidays, adventure holidays for couple or small groups. Also garden and military group holidays. Flight Bureau (http://www.flightbureau.com) is based in Edinburgh but serving people worldwide, specialise in flights, particularly odd itineraries or RTW trips. Other services include hotels, car hire and travel insurance. Discounted fares available with many airlines, including inbound fares from Australia and the US to the UK. Sky Tours (http://www.sky-tours.com) is a German agency offering a combined database of published and discounted airfares. They note that European fares are occasionally lower than US fares for the same flights. DriveEurope (http://www.driveeurope.com/) offers the European Driving Tours as well as car and motorhome rentals and more then 5000 hotels. Zak Travel is an on-line British discount flight agency specialising in flights from the UK to Europe and worldwide. We offer the cheapest scheduled and charter flights and offer a no-obligation flight reservation service. Jan Hutchings of Concord World Travel, London, arranges tailor-made travel worldwide at sensible prices: tours, flights, accommodation, car hire, cruises. For departures from Britain. Global Adventures specializes in custom travel for the active and adventurous traveler to Australia, the South Pacific, and Southern Africa. Web page:http://www.globaladventures.com (.) Andean Trails specializes in small group, off beat trekking and mountain biking adventures in the Andes. Web site (http://www.abel.co.uk/~belmont/andean-trails.htm). Shelley at Goel Travel International offers business flights, hotels, conferences, and limousines for discerning individuals who appreciate hassle-free service and privacy. Web site (http://www.ukbusiness.com/goel-travel-international). European Travel Network (http://www.etn.nl/) has an extremely cluttered web site which lets you get discounted fare quotes from a variety of travel agents. Also a link to ITN for regular booking. In March 2001 they sent mail to me which looked to me to be spam, they swear that I'd left the address they spammed with a fare info request on their site a year earlier. I find that very hard to believe, both because I don't recall visiting their site at all in 2000, and because the address they spammed isn't one that I'd have used there. Airline Network (http://www.airnet.co.uk/) has on-line discount fares and booking for flights from the UK. Flightbookers (http://www.flightbookers.co.uk)p offers flight booking and info. They appear to be affiliated with TISS, described earlier. Imp Travel ) of Lincoln UK offer discounted schedule and charter flights ex Uk,plus discounted package holidays. We also arrange incoming ground arrangements within the UK and Germany on an individual basis or groups. * Agents located in other parts of the world Pagan Nomads (http://www.gonomads.com) designs, promotes and market affordable,alternative and eco-adventure tour packages to the Philippines, Asia and the World. Middle East Travels & Tours (P) Ltd. in Kupondole, Lalitpur, Nepal, arranges trekking, mountaineering, and other tours in Nepal. IranGashtTour.com (http://www.irangashttour.com), located in Iran, offers tours and other travel services for visitors to Iran. Traveller Services (HK) Ltd (http://www.traveller.com.hk) is a travel agent and local hotel consolidator in Hong Kong. Online ticketing and consolidator fares, also online hotel booking. Stellenbosch Travel (http://www.stellenbosch-travel.co.za) in South Africa, provide flights, tours and car hire in South Africa at subsidised tourist rates, also all accommodation in Cape Town and our Winelands Area. Shannon Services (http://www.marflam.com) of the Marina Flamingo, Costa Rica provides free personal on-line information on fishing, sailing, and diving charters centered around the Marina Flamingo on the Gold Coast of Costa Rica (northwest Pacific coast). Meet the People provides small-group and private-charter day tours for international visitors to Sydney, Australia. Their web page (http://www.meetoz.com.au/g_day) has links and other visitor info. Bagwis Travel & Tours Inc. in Davao, Philippines. specializes in international travel & local tours of the beautiful white sand beaches in Mindanao. especially Pearl farm, a must for all tourists Cyber Air Broker , Sydney, Australia, offers discounted airfares worldwide. Free internet access for travelers in Sydney. Web page (http://www.airdiscounter.com), also separate web pages for offices in Manila (http://www.airdiscounter.com/ph) and Auckland (http://www.airdiscounter.com/nz). Lucky Travel in Bahrain offers best rates from the Arabian Gulf to all over the world, also arranges tours to US and far east. Re'em Greiver , Patra Travel Agency in Israel, specializes in business travel, as well as groups & FIT to Israel on the upper class standards. Costa Rica Express , the oldest travel agency in Costa Rica, offers tours and packages on their web page (http://www.icr.co.cr/crexpress) with a 20% discount to Internet users. Alex Poplavskiy at Transit Travel and Tours in Cape Town, South Africa, offers domestic and worldwide ticketing with response and confirmation within 24 hours. Also tour operator in Southern Africa. Bob Tierney (http://vader.nw.com.au/~harley), owner of Australian Harley Holidays and Hawg Custom Harley Tours, in Western Australia, offer motorcycle tour packages, a unique holiday experience and cater to individuals through to corporate groups. Cyber Air Broker (http://www.airdiscounter.com) is an Australian based travel agency. Fare discounts offered, higher discounts if you book your own ticket via Travelocity. Gateway Travel (http://www.magna.com.au/~gatrav) is a full service agent with expertise in to travel to Russia and other CIS countries. NELL Tour & Travel Services Ltd. , tour operator in Sulawesi (Celebes) UjungPandang. Indonesia. Specializing in daily Bugis-Toraja package tour, off the beaten track tours, special interest tours ,cruises , etc. * Not recommended A few agents are not recommended, mostly due to spamming, sending out bulk e-mail advertisements to people who haven't asked to get them. "Connie George Travel Associates" claims to arrange Christian travel to the Holy Land, but I can't see anything very holy about spamming (copy on the web site) out ads to people who haven't asked for them. I've gotten spam (copy on the web site) from someone in Canada called itravel2000.com with what look like ads for vacation packages, but if they can't even figure out that people in the US aren't likely to buy travel packages from Canada, I wouldn't suggest doing business from them. They used to call themselves "Virgin Holidays" but they were spamming (copy on the web site) then, too. An outfit calling itself Cruiseawards claims to be a travel agency selling crusises, but since they seem to be chronic spammers (copy on the web site), who knows what the real story is. A company calling itself CheapAirlines has a web site that appears to be selling air tickets and the like. But since they send out spam (copy on the web site) to addresses harvested from spamware CD-ROMs that falsely claim that the spam recipients are "registered users", who can tell whether anything else they say is true. A company called something like AMT Travel purports to be somehow affiliated with American Express. But since they spam (copy on the web site) random usenet addresses, I'm not inclined to give much credence to their claims. A website called go4less.com purports to sell discounted travel of some sort, but since they spam (see web site for a copy) I wouldn't do business with them. A Malaysian company calling itself ATN Interactive or asiatravelnet claims to offer travel booking software, but I wouldn't consider using it since they advertise it by postage-due spam. A Washington DC outfit called bargain-airfares.com claims to offer international travel discounts. But since they advertise by spam (see web site for a copy) I wouldn't count on anything else they do being honest or ethical, either. An outfit calling itself "German Tourist Center of Florida" with an address at naplesinfo.com advertises various packages and tours, but since they spam out their ads, I can't have any confidence that they're for real. Update: In May 1998 they sent me e-mail denying that they spam and threatening to sue me. If anyone cares, a copy of their spam is on my web site at http://airline.iecc.com/germanspam.txt. TravelUSA which has a web site name containing "travusa" claims to be an on-line travel agent, but since they have advertised using junk e-mail, I remain sceptical. The president of the company has confirmed that they used to spam, but says they don't any more. Glad to hear it. WorldWide Family Travel appears to offer cruises from Florida, but since they advertise using junk e-mail, I would recommend not doing business with them. supertour.com has a nice looking web site, but since they're spammers (copy of spam on our web site) I would exercise great caution should you consider doing business with them. NOTE: If you're a travel agent and would like to be listed, drop me a note and I'll add you. Please make my life easier by e-mailing me a three-line or so description in the style above. Thanks. PLEASE NOTE: I am not a travel agent, just an interested traveller. Everything I know about on-line travel info is in this FAQ. Don't write or call me asking for fare quotes, packages, or any other travel agent info, because I don't have it. |
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Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Airline information on-line on the Internet FAQ | John R. Levine | Air travel | 2 | September 27th, 2005 07:49 AM |
Airline information on-line on the Internet FAQ | John R. Levine | Air travel | 0 | August 21st, 2005 11:00 AM |
Airline information on-line on the Internet FAQ | John R. Levine | Air travel | 0 | August 14th, 2005 11:00 AM |
Airline information on-line on the Internet FAQ | John R. Levine | Air travel | 0 | August 7th, 2005 11:00 AM |
Airline information on-line on the Internet FAQ | John R. Levine | Air travel | 0 | July 17th, 2005 11:00 AM |