ELLIOTT: More Than a Low Fare

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More Than a Low Fare
The Travel Tightwad · February 24, 2002

Tab Stone isn't fooled by a low airfare. The Los Angeles pediatrician knows that a cheap ticket may come with an inconvenient schedule, so he often opts for a pricier, but more direct, itinerary.

That's particularly true for long-haul flights. Stone, an avid Scuba diver, sometimes treks thousands of miles to find the best diving spots. "When you're flying to Micronesia, you want to be on a wide-body jet, not on an island-hopper that stops in Honolulu or Guam," he advises.

Conventional wisdom says that price is the most important criteria for selecting an airline ticket. But the conventional wisdom might be wrong. According to a survey by Omega World Travel, a corporate travel agency based in Fairfax, VA, 82 percent of air travelers would pay more for a nonstop flight.

How much more? One quarter said they'd pay $25 extra; one-third said they'd pay $50 more, and 14 percent of the respondents said they'd shell out an additional $100.

It's far more difficult to say when it's appropriate to book a pricier schedule. I recently bought two tickets between Miami and Albuquerque, and the exercise helped me determine a few criteria of my own.

There's any number of ways to get between the two cities, none of them convenient. The cheapest fare is $257 round trip with two weeks notice on American Airlines, but it's an impossibly difficult routing that takes you through Tampa and St. Louis. Total traveling time: nine hours, 14 minutes.

Instead, I picked a Continental Airlines flight that cost $363 but made one stop in Houston, and took only five hours and 47 minutes. Is three hours worth an extra $106? Maybe, maybe not. But as I ran through the possible schedules, I realized that this doesn't just boil down to a "time is money" question.

Here are some of the other factors:

Keep your schedule. The more stops your flight makes, the better your chances that something will go wrong. A mechanical delay, a hold-up at security, or just bad weather can throw a wrench in the proverbial spokes of your trip. I didn't mind flying into Tampa, but saw no good reason to jet up to St. Louis and risk a weather delay.
Keep your luggage. Every time your checked-in baggage is transferred from one plane to another, you risk losing it. Although there are no reliable statistics that specifically address layovers and missing bags (we're lucky to get any kind of numbers on lost luggage from the government), experience tells me that the more direct your flight, the better your chance of seeing it again on the conveyor belt.
Keep your sanity. Before last fall, this was a minor issue. Not any more. Leaving the secured area in an airport terminal is easy, perhaps too easy. You're on a layover, you want to get a bite to eat, and next thing you know you have to pass through security again. That's not only a terrible inconvenience, but with lines sometimes an hour or more long, you could also miss your connecting flight. For me, $106 is a small price to pay for all that. Others would rather spend nine hours and 14 minutes, take a few additional chances, but save the money. It's a decision you have to make.

Either way, you owe it to yourself to examine your flight itinerary very closely. I prefer to check the flight on Expedia, because the site prominently displays flight times and routing along with the fare information.

Then, and only then, can you make an informed decision about which ticket to book.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.