I always book my flights online. It's way more convenient than calling the airlines, and a lot less time consuming.

Great story! I recorded every single web site URL for later use.

Currently, I use travelocity.com to email me of flight ticket fluctuations and I've seen drops of $200 in the last 2 weeks.

I would no longer use a travel agent as they would not invest the amount of time or even have the same knowledge as I now do.

I book online if I am traveling alone. If I am traveling on vacation with my family, for instance a trip to las vegas or disneyland or a cruise than I use my travel agent. Sometimes I do both and go with better deal. Oversees tours are better with an agency also.

I was watching Up Front this morning and when the part came on about bidding on hotel rooms the phone rang so I missed this segment. Would you please tell me where I can get this information? Thank you.

Booking online is fine, and usually easy, for domestic travel, but I always use my travel agent if I am travelling internationally, or making any reall big trip. If anything goes wrong with one of my bookings in another country - air or hotels or cars or whatever - its good to have someone who knows what they're doing to help fix the problems.

I always book my own travel plans online. Always. After watching this show this morning, I RACED to my computer to check out the websites mentioned.

I stopped using travel agents when they weren't willing to check out other options to find a better deal for me. I always felt like I had no other options.

Love your show!

Great story. Please post the rest of the websites you mentioned. I know I missed several when I wrote them down

Enjoy your travel info, I buy my flights from Ytb.com. Can you mention the search food/restaurant engine with "spoon" .com on it. Thanks.

As an international travel consultant and former airline sales manager, I was interested to see your report on internet airfare comparison websites. While I am familiar with the sites you mentioned in your report, I was surprised to learn that most of them were Seattle based, although I probably shouldn't have been.

This segment of the internet for fare searching has been around for a few years, but the idea of forecasting is relatively new.

If the historical data comes from the DOT (which is available to the public), then their ability to trend travel pricing will have greater accuracy for domestic travel, since international fare information is posted on the DOT site three months behind and would be less effective as a predictive tool.

In addition, yield and inventory management is almost totally automated. The computer programs are so sophisticated that fares and inventory are manipulated to maximize the fare paid for each seat on each flight. As a result, fares can change from minute to minute (hence the problem of no two searches being alike). In this respect, international and domestic travel are alike.

What makes booking international travel over the internet more challenging are the different cultures that exist in each market. These cultural differences enter into the mix in terms of when and how seats are booked. While programs are fine tuned to adjust for this, only a specialist in a given market and given airline practices could predict when the best time to purchase would be and that is far from an exact science.

The good news, though is that working with a specialist, if the fares go down, you have a chance of to take advantage of those fare changes. If your ticket allows changes and the change fees are not too high, you could still save money. Since travel agents are not paid by the airlines anymore, they can really be your advocate and watch your back when things change or go wrong.

This is why I recommend using an experienced travel agent and not an online travel agency to purchase international air travel. While travel agents have access to these same internet tools, they have others that are not available to the public, as well as the experience to know when fares will drop and when to expect bargains in specific international markets.

Shopping for a travel agent is just as important as shopping for the price of your airline ticket. If you are booking a cruise or a tour in connection with air travel, I would strongly advocate using a travel agent for all of the components, so that if something goes wrong, you've only have to go to one source to get help.

Make certain they are a specialist and don't be afraid to use the internet to shop for a travel agent and interview them. It's really the best way to find the right agent to fit your needs. The fees that the agencies will charge you are commensurate with the services provided, but if you are stuck in an foreign airport somewhere and you can get help when others can't, the fees you pay will be worth every cent.

Of course, if your journey is a simple round trip with no connections and if you are an experienced traveler, you could probably manage just fine on your own using the net, especially on domestic flights.

As for your discussion of seat websites, Seat Guru is the best of the bunch but they don't have every carrier's aircraft seat maps. It still pays to look up the individual airline web site and compare seat map information. Carriers are changing their cabins, especially the premium cabins on international flights and it is critical to know that the aircraft you will fly has the product you want. Even in Economy, the differences can be dramatic.

One admonition: Beware the travel websites that focus on evaluating airlines; those sites tend to be a magnet for gripers. If you see too many negative comments, especially about the better airlines, then the site is probably one you "take with a grain of salt." Here again, a travel agent can be really helpful.

Lastly, the advice about using bidding websites for air travel was absolutely correct. If you bid, there are literally millions of permutations in flight combinations to achieve that bid.

You might get your bid price, but not necessarily the lowest fare. You also could get a flight schedule which requires four flights (not necessarily all on the same airline) and possibly an overnight stay in an airport.

Even worse, you'll be stuck with it. Once you've agreed to bid a price on an airline ticket, you have to take what the airline gives you, no matter how horrific the schedule.

So before you bid on an airline ticket, ask yourself this question: Is the risk worth the reward?

This report was very useful to not only those who use the internet as a tool to book their travel, but for travel industry pros as well. In this regard, you've done all of us a great service.

Whether or not I use a travel agent depends upon the trip I am planning. My travel agent, Kristina Trowbridge, of Win Win Vacations, has a lot of experience and has gone the gamet of travel. She started out with a large travel agency, and about five years ago left them to open her own agency in her house.

We last used her in May, 2007, because we had gotten together about a dozen of our friends for a 21-day vacation to Norway. She was a natural for trip planning because she was a former SAS flight attendant and speaks five languages fluently, including Norwegian. Because we had so many friends along she was able to get group rates for nine nights at hotels in Bergen and Oslo, the Norweigan Costal Voyage, and airport-hotel transfers. She also helped us pick the best ship for the 12-day Norweigan Coastal Voyage.

We wound up with a trip that was better and much less expensive than a typical holiday packager such as Globus or Vantage.

We have also used her for similar types of trips to Mexico's Copper Canyon, Europe and Africa.

We also use her to book cruises as she has gotten us a lot of extras for the same price we would have paid. She also can answer questions and work with the cruise live much more effectively than I can should a problem arise.

For a normal trip such as a week in New Mexico we research the flight on the normal search engines such as Expedia or Orbitz, as well as the airline web sites. Then we go with the less expensive. For hotels and rental cars we use the same search engines as well as hotels.com.

For trips to Las Vegas I use both the serarch engines and Kristina. About half the time she has a better deal than I can find on my own.

Hope this helps.

len

I always book my own trips online. I start at TripAdvisor, then head to sites like Expedia & Orbits, and then I go to the airline websites direct.

I always use my travel agent. I would rather do something else than spend my evenings looking into a vacation. My agent finds better deals, has the same access to internet hotels as I have and often suggests interesting alternatives I never would have thought of. If there is an error made it is his problem, not mine and two brains can plan much better than one. He tells me, remember, I can easily see their deals, they cannot see mine.

I always use my travel agent. I would rather do something else than spend my evenings looking into a vacation. My agent finds better deals, has the same access to internet hotels as I have and often suggests interesting alternatives I never would have thought of. If there is an error made it is his problem, not mine and two brains can plan much better than one. He tells me, remember, I can easily see their deals, they cannot see mine.

I use the internet for hotels, cars, cruises air flights only with direct airlines

I use the internet for hotels, cars, cruises air flights only with direct airlines

I continue to be impressed with innovations in travel booking. I've used both Farecast and Yapta and think they are very useful. But there is so much more happening in online travel beyond simply booking and saving a buck. At TripHub (http://www.triphub.com) we focus on enabling communications and collaboration between parties that are traveling together to a gathering or event. We help eliminate the headaches involved in planning family reunions, weddings, bachelor parties, girlfriend getaways etc. Our free site makes it easy to invite people, centralize all trip-related details, collaborate on decisions, and bring some of the fun of the trip into the planning process.

Demand for such services is high and growing. According to a study published earlier this year by travel market research firm PhoCusWright, U.S. leisure groups are projected to spend $90 billion by 2008. Moreover, by 2008, the online travel market for small leisure groups (representing 9 or fewer hotel rooms), TripHub’s focus, is forecasted to be twice the size of larger leisure groups. (Source: PhoCusWright Inc. Groups and Meetings: Market Opportunity Re-defined. January 2007.) In addition, recent data from Forrester Research indicates that 46% of online U.S. leisure travelers took at least one group trip in the past 12 months and on average 1.7 group trips per year. (Source: Forrester Research Inc.’s North American Consumer Technology Adoption 2007 Online Travel Study.)

Kristine, if you go to king5.com/upfront/ the show can be streamed.

This is an interesting site if you have a minute to check it out. They have what seems to be a better system where they do not get a booking fee...read through their help section it all makes a lot of sense to me. Seems they are still building the site but I like what I see so far. Oh, they are also involved in a lot more things than just flight searches. Check it out here:
http://www.travature.com

I travel approx. 90% domestically and 10% internationally. I've been traveling by air for over 25 years and I used both agencies and internet. By far, I prefer to use a travel agent. For the last 3 years I have had the pleasure of using Executive Travel (Bellevue). They continually demonstrate significant added value either through finding lower fares or just saving me tons of time. It may seem simple to "just book on the internet", and it is, but if you're traveling say every 3 out of 4 weeks, it's extremely time consuming to book on the net. PLUS, God help you if you have to make even the most minor of changes on the internet! Augh, the aggravation!

I watched the repeat of the July show this morning and was very impressed with what was said. I have used Trip Advisor and Seat Guru among other sites for years. They are like my "Travel Bible". We have traveled to China, Greece, Europe, various places in the US and I have booked online and also have used a travel agent for the more involved trips. However, when using my agent, I tend to do all the research beforehand; the reason I do use the agent on certain trips is I feel comfortable if something were to go wrong, I could contact the agent as opposed to some online site. We also do a lot of cruises and I primarily use a travel agent for that; but recently I am thinking because the various cruise sites are so well developed and the agents are so informative that I might start booking online.
One site that I have found helpful in determining what cruise lines to take is Cruisecritic.com. I have also used Costco a couple of times when booking vacations--Hawaii and Europe and Costco has beat the travel agent prices and online prices. However, they only have contracts with certain hotels so in using them you do have to be flexible.

Sort of ironic ... but I find that people in my age bracket (20-29) consider the mentioned online travel technologies a standard to travel websites within the information age. And some within this demographic probably have no idea what a travel agent is/does. Why do we need the middleman (travel agent) to book domestic or international travel? It's just more money saved that can be spent on trendy foods or fruity drinks.

The About.com 'expert' has it all wrong on priceline.com . I've had tremenous success with Priceline in terms of connecting flights. Priceline is ideal if your travel dates are flexible. The only downside is one doesn't get frequent flyer miles on most major airlines.

I serve as my parent's travel agent -- meaning I get online for them and find the best deals for their desired travel.

I work for a national hotel chain as a revenue manager. I tink it's important to remember that most hotels and airlines have a "Best Rate Guarantee" policy. So you can spend a lot of time shopping, if you find better rate on a 3rd-party web site, book it, then submit a best-rate claim with the hotel or airline. You may get a free night or at least a discount on the rate.

The best way to take advantage of a travel agent is to let them bid for your business. The internet has certainly come up with many ways to book your own travel. But what a risk.And if you are more than 6 people you can not use an internet site to book with out making multiple reservations and gambling that there will be enough fares available for each of your reservations. What if you are a sports team or a school trip, a wedding or a church trip. The only way to book a group trip successfully is by using a travel agent, but not all agents are equal. Agents now specialize find an agent that specializes in your needs this is guaratnee you get the best price and the best trip for your group. Dont gamble when with a vacation save the gambling for a trip to Vegas. http://www.travelagent4bid.com allows you to find the best agent to find your the best deal and this service is free!!!!

Again if you are more than 6 people it is almost impossible to utilize the traditional or even any of the new sites as technology is built for 2 adults and 2 kids. In my case with 4 kids in most cases it is impossible to book using any online company. That is why I started Group Travel Plans. Allowing groups to travel together and still take advantage of the power of the internet. I combined two companies Group Travel Plans combined with Travel Agent 4 Bid allowing groups the experitse of a professional travel agent to help them with complexity of group travel and then give them thier own online web page specificially for thier group so that they are able to book directly into thier group rate and stay intouch with each other stay up to date with the agent and suppliers of any changes and have the ability to upload meeting itineraries, or schedules of a school trip, or wedding infor like when is the bachelor or bachelorette party. While I understand that this is a rerun site and probably will not get the same response to do hope that some sees and benefits from the information I have to offer. Always use an agent you can not put a price on peach of mind, and i am not a travel agent only a traveler who got burned one to many times saving a couple of bucks! Find a good one! http://www.travelagent4bid.com a free service nationwide find the best of the best who specialize in your type of travel. All agents are verified and have complete accreditation. Many companies popped up stating anyone can be a travel agent from your home and there are many false agents booking trips. Buyer beware, just like you dont know what you will get online until you have paid make sure your travel agent is accredited just like if you were hiring a licensed contractor you would verify thier license do the same with your travel agent. In the long run your trip will be better, you will have saved peace of mind and you are guaranteed to be getting what you are paying for as they are stickly held to the highest standards of ethics or the rating system in place will let it be known before making a mistake. At least if you have a problem with a travel agent you have someone to contact the same person every time when you book online chances are you are talking to an out of country call center and forget getting any help or information other than what they read from thier own site. Anyone can slap a picture up and make a shed look 4 star. Travel or vacation is one of the biggest things we do why do so many gamble and take what they see on a web site as face value?

Airlines and hotels are constantly looking for ways to deal directly with consumers. Cutting out the intermediaries such as travel agents is a common practice. For travel agents to compete, they need to find alternatives to selling travel commodities like airfare and hotels such as packages, specialized travel, and unique products. Travel agents can ease the booking burden and offer a variety of value add services that can't be purchased online. I dicussed this in more detail in my post "Keeping Travel Agents Relevant". This has been a hot topic amongst tourism technologists for some time, it is refreshing to see it in the mainstream media. Great Job!

I never know whether to trust the best rate promise. Is it always true or are there exceptions?