Online Ticketing:
No Bargain!

As Airlines and Mega-Sites Work to Turn Off Online Clients, Agents Start Making Sense Again

by Patrick Totty

Ron Pipes doesn’t argue with people who know they can get a plane ticket or cruise package cheaper on the Internet than they can get through him.

“'Go ahead,’ I tell them, ‘see what you come up with.’ In every case, when they come back to me, in five minutes I can match or beat what it took them two hours to find on the Internet.”

Pipes is owner of Rosewood Travel, an 11-year-old Santa Rosa, CA-based travel agency. He’s watched the rise of Internet mega-travel sites, like Orbitz and Travelocity, and isn’t losing any sleep over them.

“At first, people believe that the Internet must have the lowest prices, and many of them won’t consider looking anywhere else,” says Pipes. But after a few two and three-hour stints roaming the Web doing price comparisons, many people begin to.

“That’s when they’ll call a travel agent and find out that we can do the same amount of research in 1/20^th the time. And we can match or beat any price they find on the Net.”

Even worse, says Pipes, is the realization among people who do manage to complete their travel plans online that the big Internet travel sites hide information. “They’ll give you an itinerary, such as a flight to New York via Detroit, at such-and-such times. But they won’t tell you if there are more convenient times or direct routes. Your convenience often is not in their interest.”

He says airlines, which would love to see all independent travel agents swept from the scene, often will fool online customers by combining several airports under the name of one. “For instance, you’ll see Hartford, Providence and Boston all called ‘Boston.’ Then the airlines will pretend to give you a discount fare to ‘Boston.’ But how they’ll afford it is by having you either arrive at or leave from a lower-cost airport, like Hartford or Providence, even though you thought you were booking a flight to Boston.”

The inconvenience of being stranded by the airline many miles from Boston more than eliminates any advantage from the “discount.” “Businesses are very aware of the tricks online sites can play,” notes Pipes. “That’s why most companies will not let employees book their own flights. They hire travel managers who know good agents to go through.”

Hidden Agendas

Business insights are beginning to catch on with the public as it realizes that the Internet, for all its range and speed, has a lot of hidden corners – and agendas. Agents like Pipes are watching as more experienced travelers come to realize just how much agents can offer.

“We know the ropes and we know where to look. Even more important, we know the rules.” Pipes says he’s lost count of people who arranged their travel on an Internet mega-site, thinking they were getting a bargain, only to find out that the fine print socked them for extra fees.

Still, there’s a bit of sour that accompanies the sweetness of being recognized by the public as classic middlemen with middlemen’s insights and savvy. “People have myths about us," says Pipes,  "such as us buying up piles of airline tickets beforehand that we can – or should – sell at discount prices. We don’t have any edge of that kind with the airlines."

That myth leads some people to do the one thing that makes Pipes and his peers the angriest: shop around for ticket prices.  “I’ll get a call, ‘What’s your best price to LA?’ My answer is always the same: ‘You can call one agent or a dozen, it won’t matter, there’s no secret bargain out there. Each agent will quote the same price, and that price will be the lowest one available.'"

In the end, says Pipes, people realize that nothing on the Web can match travel agents’ combination of hard-won knowledge, speed and personal service. “We run personal interference for people because we can often make changes or alter tickets and itineraries. If you buy travel on the Internet, it’s your baby. There’s nobody to appeal to, and all sales are final.”

Ron Pipes can be reached at Rosewood Travel