=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/chronicle/archive/2002/11= /17/TR176496.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, November 17, 2002 (SF Chronicle) Too early not much better than too late for air tickets Ed Perkins Although "buy early" is often good travel advice, it's not always a good idea for air tickets -- especially when you buy very early. Similarly, although "buy late" might be good advice for cruises and some package tours, it's almost always bad advice for air tickets. Fortunately, you can often avoid being gouged at either end of the time spectrum. Two recent e-mails illustrate the problems of early and late buying, and= I hope my responses point out some practical answers. The first question came from a reader who had recently booked a cruise, with airfare, for departure well into next year. The cruise line's airfare (round-trip from New York to San Juan) was $489 plus $40 in taxes, but my reader had seen airfares to San Juan for well below that figure. She wanted to know if the cruise line's air deal was reasonable or a gouge. The airfares she saw advertised were almost surely current "sale" fares, valid for only a limited time. For example, she could buy a nonstop round trip from New York to San Juan for $295.40, for departure through early March, but if she wanted to buy a ticket for departure in August of 2003, the nonstop fare would be $518.40. I randomly checked a few other sale fares and found some that covered travel for only a few weeks and none that covered travel after next March. So the answer seems to be that if you try to buy an air ticket too many months ahead, you might outpace the numerous fare sales and be stuck with a higher list price. And given the current economic climate, I'm pretty sure that, sometime over the next six months, she would be able to buy a ticket to San Juan in August for less than the $518.40 price for that date -- and less than the figure she was quoted by her cruise line. I've found that travelers can often beat the airfare price a cruise line charges. Also, I've heard from a few travelers whose cruise lines put them on inconvenient connecting flights on routes where airlines offered plenty of nonstops. The cruise lines undoubtedly paid less for the connecting flight itineraries, but they didn't pass any of that reduction along to their passengers. Overall, I suggest "buy your own air ticket" is probably a better bet for most travelers. The second e-mail covered the opposite problem. The reader asked, "What's the best way to obtain an affordable airfare for last-minute, unavoidable situations like death of a relative?" Although most of the giant airlines offer "compassionate" fares, they're usually still pretty stiff -- and considerably higher than the prices of tickets the airlines are widely advertising to leisure travelers who can reserve 14 days or more in advance. Before going for an expensive compassionate fare, I suggest travelers who need a short-notice ticket first try three alternatives: -- Walk-up fares on most low-fare airlines are usually well below the compassionate fares offered by the giant carriers. Depending on where you will be traveling, try Southwest, JetBlue, AirTran, American Trans Air, Frontier or one of the smaller low-fare lines. You might have to drive to a more distant airport, but the cost reduction might well be worth the extra time and cost. -- Quite a few consolidators, or airfare discounters, sell tickets that = do not have the onerous restrictions the big airlines impose on their lowest fares. Check the Internet or have your travel agent locate a consolidator ticket that doesn't cost a fortune. -- The "opaque" buying sites, Hotwire and Priceline, typically do not impose an extended advance-purchase limit. With those services, you buy "blind" -- you have to accept whatever airline and schedule the service provides -- but in an emergency those might be small worries compared with the high prices you'd otherwise have to pay. None of these three approaches works for all trips. But at least one of them works, often enough, to give you a good shot at a reasonable last-minute price. E-mail Ed Perkins at eperkins@mind.net.=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2002 SF Chronicle