February 6, 2005

Sometimes, the Best Fares Are on Foreign Sites

RAVELERS planning a trip abroad may want to consider visiting a foreign destination during the booking process, too: A study of 20 American and European travel Web sites found that European sites often turned up lower air fares than their counterparts in the United States.

"Sites that many U.S. and even some European travelers may have never heard of perform better than some of the household names," said Bill McGee, a consultant to Consumer Reports WebWatch, www.consumerwebwatch.org, a project of Consumers Union, which conducted the survey in conjunction with half a dozen consumer groups in Europe.

The researchers searched for fares on 36 itineraries at 20 travel Web sites, including Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz, and found that a Belgian site, Travelprice (www.travelprice.be), turned up the lowest fare 49 percent of the time. For instance, for a round-trip flight from Amsterdam to Rome, Travelprice found a fare of $232, compared to $299 at Travelocity and $311 at Expedia. From Brussels to Barcelona, Travelprice turned up a $162 round-trip flight, versus $215 at Travelocity and $229 at Expedia.

Other sites that ranked in the top five were Flybillet in Denmark (www.flybillet.dk), Opodo in Germany (www.opodo.de), Airstop in Belgium (www.airstop.be) and the German version of Expedia (www.expedia.de).

But not all of the sites sell tickets for every itinerary tested (flights from gateways in the United States to Europe as well as flights between European cities). So Flybillet, for example, ranked second based on a smaller set of searches, and Orbitz ranked sixth, even though it doesn't handle flights that originate outside the United States.

European Web sites also are not necessarily practical for Americans. The sites aren't always available in English (Travelprice offers Dutch and French versions), prices are generally listed in foreign currencies and international itineraries are not always available as e-tickets. Some sites don't ship paper tickets to the United States.

Even so, Mr. McGee said, travelers who are willing to overcome such hurdles may find better deals abroad, especially when booking travel within Europe. Among the English-language sites tested, he said the British site Opodo (www.opodo.co.uk) frequently displayed lower fares than its British or American competitors.

But in some ways, the study offers dispiriting news for Web-weary consumers. Researchers found that no single site presented the lowest fare on the itineraries searched even most of the time. Indeed, in a couple of recent searches for flights within Europe, Expedia and Travelocity found lower fares than either Travelprice or Opodo. Nor do the European sites display fares from all of the discount airlines.

"Just as in the U.S. market," Mr. McGee said. "not all low-fare carriers are available on third-party sites."

So to find real bargains, you need to broaden your search. A few sources are Openjet.com and Applefares.com, both of which compare fares from European low-fare airlines, and www.whichbudget.com, a tool that lets you look up which discounters fly between cities all over the world.

For instance, to fly from Hong Kong to Singapore, WhichBudget.com suggests checking prices on Valuair (valuair.com) or Jetstar Asia (jetstarasia.com), two discount carriers that operate in Asia. In late December for a round-trip flight on that route on the last weekend of January, Valuair's lowest price was $200 and Jetstar Asia's was $160, compared to $381 at Travelocity and $277 at Expedia (for flights on United).

But that savings not only means flying with a discount airline; it also means doing more computer legwork. Jetstar Asia and Valuair both display fares in Hong Kong dollars, so you need to surf over to sites like www.xe.com or www.oanda.com to do the currency conversion. And Jetstar Asia doesn't include taxes and fees in its initial display of air fares - a practice the Consumer Reports researchers found at several international travel sites, which can make comparing prices a frustrating exercise.

In fact, for some international trips, working with a travel agent may be better than the do-it-yourself route. Kathy Sudeikis, president of the American Society of Travel Agents, said most agents charged about $35 a ticket to book a flight, but that it was generally a better value to use a travel agent to book the rest of your trip, not just flights.

These days, most travel agents specialize in certain destinations or types of trips (like cruises), and the travel agents' group offers a tool at www.travelsense.org to help travelers to find an agent based on their specialty or zip code (click on Advanced Aearch ).

Another strategy is to call the tourist board of country you're visiting and ask for agents specializing in that destination, Mr. McGee said, adding that for some international itineraries, an agent may be able to find better deals than travelers could searching dozens of Web sites on their own.

"The irony is, as the technology gets better," he said, "in many ways the shopping process has gotten harder."