Unbundled
Each week for eFlyer I look at all the latest fare sales, and I’ve noticed that advertisements for fares seem to have moved back to the bad old days. That is, there’s one “bargain” price in the big print, and then surcharges in small print. It’s one thing when the charges add another 10 or 15 percent to the fare, but another thing entirely when they almost double the fare. Online booking sites are pretty good about showing you the bottom line up front, but I seem to remember a day when you weren’t allowed to run ‘teasers’ when the prices bore so little resemblance to the actual fare. How come they can get away with that again?
Another thing I’m noticing is that the deals on SkyAuction don’t seem to be as good as they used to be. Low opening prices attract more bidders on any auction site. On eBay, to make sure you (as a seller) don’t lose your shirt you either set a reserve price, or start the bid at the minimum price you can afford to get. But on SkyAuction, you notice that there are “service charges” posted to add to the winning bid. Those make the airline surcharges look modest. For example, you’ll see an airfare with a $300 service charge that will be added to whatever you bid, or a hotel ‘won’ for $75 a night that carries a $125 per night surcharge.
I got some good deals on SkyAuction a few years ago, but I haven’t seen any lately that seem to be much of a savings–at least not if you shop around the non-auction travel sites. Also, as with eBay, SkyAuction seems to have been taken over by merchants selling packages that aren’t really much of a deal–just distressed goods or overstock at a small discount. Those wild and wooly days of the early Internet auctions were fun; today, not so much.
–Mary Hunt, editor, eFlyer
