Travelers who value cheap airplane tickets and/or cheap vacation packages should be wary of the claim by American Airlines that its customers are best served by purchasing American Airline tickets directly from its website.
The following are services offered by online travel companies that airline sites do not offer:
Fast and simple comparison of prices and schedules of many different airlines on a single webpage.
Multi-airline itineraries sometimes offer cheaper fares than flying only on a single airline.
Last-minute trip packages that include hotel plus air often sell for significantly less than air alone.
At times, two identical flight itineraries are offered by two airlines at significantly different prices. That happens because of code share arrangements. For example, American might buy seats on Alitalia and may sell them at whatever fare it chooses. On a website that shows all available airline fares, customers are able to see the cheapest price option.
If American ultimately sells its tickets the same way as Southwest does, meaning only on its own website, then major U.S. airlines, including Delta, United and US Airways are likely to follow. The end result is that travelers will have to spend a lot more time online visiting multiple airline sites looking for the cheapest deal. Even then, they will often end up spending more on airfare.
www.cheapfares.com