Agents To The Rescue
ASTA members are working to protect clients from negative impacts after a number of U.S.-based carriers – including American, Delta and United – made changes to their domestic pricing structure that have resulted in changes to the cost of some airfares and which have particularly impacted on business travellers
Zane Kerby, president and CEO of ASTA, said that: “The simple way to explain what is happening is that certain multi-segment itineraries now cost a significantly higher amount when they are presented as a single ticket rather than multiple one-way tickets.”
Kerby noted that: “The negative impact is on the time it takes agents to issue multiple tickets for one trip, but consumers who book multi city or circle trips through their trusted travel agent can experience significant savings.”
The changes were made to what the airlines call “combinable fare rules,” which prohibit certain one-way fares from being combined into the same passenger name record. For example, if a traveler needs to fly from New York to Los Angeles one day, from Los Angeles to Phoenix the next, and from Phoenix back home to New York, the price to ticket that all at once can be more than double the price of purchasing three separate one-way tickets.
To quantify, an ASTA agency owner told ASTA recently: “A test itinerary I did this morning on an AA circle trip showed the same ridiculously high fare display in the GDS, AA.com and Expedia. It cost roughly $1,800 for one ticket; only $450 for three tickets.”
ASTA chairman Roger Block, who is president of Travel Leaders Franchise Group, said: “The good news is travel agents immediately spotted what was happening, and figured out a way to work around it.”
ASTA’s Government and Industry Affairs teams met with senior officials at the Department of Transportation on this and other issues last week to raise the concern, and continue to discuss the issue with the airlines, Global Distribution Systems, ASTA members and other stakeholders.
Said Kerby: “This is yet another example of why it just makes sense to use a travel agent.”
Go to http://www.asta.org .
