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| Save money on airfare on your trip to this vacation rental in Little Cayman. |
In an effort to trim fees paid to online
booking sites such as Expedia, Travelocity and others, airlines are getting
aggressive in offering money-saving deals to travelers for booking on the
airlines websites.
While the airlines can't offer lower fares on
their sites, they are getting creative with offers such as discount coupon
codes to frequent fliers delivered via email, Facebook or Twitter. Others are
penalizing travelers who don't book directly with the airline by placing limits
on seat assignments, increasing fees or cutting the number of frequent flier
miles a traveler can earn on a trip.
Airlines are also offering a variety of perks
for booking on their websites, such as the latest seat maps, more details about
in-flight entertainment options, and easier air travel booking. This gives the
airlines some advantages during a traveler’s research process. Since online
booking sites focus almost exclusively on price, the airline has few ways to
communicate some of the other benefits their flights have to offer. For
example, a booking site won't tell you that an airline offers Wi-Fi or extra
legroom. Travelers will often pay more for these kinds of benefits.
What do travelers lose? First, booking on the
airlines website makes comparison-shopping more difficult. Travelers also lose
the "one stop shopping" advantage that online booking sites have--you
won't be able to book your hotel and rental car at the airlines website.
While that's a major issue for many travelers,
it may not be such an impediment to many others. Today's online customer is
much more savvy when compared to even just 5 years ago. Many more users fully
understand tabbed browsing and how to conduct multiple searches on their own.
As long as too many airlines don't follow the
lead of Southwest Airlines and remove their flights from online booking sites
entirely, this is all good news for travelers since it will give them more ways
to find more bargains for airline travel.
