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Even if it's only for a two city trip, finding reasonably priced flights that depart and arrive at your required times can be very difficult for the "do it yourself" traveler. Don't even consider using Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity or any of the lesser known web sites to arrange multi-segment trips. Although Kayak has excellent slide-bars to filter flight times, it attempts to keep you on one airline, thus does not show your best options or lowest price. Many travelers try to fly on one airline (or their partners) for the purposes of earning frequent flyer miles, simpler administration and upgrade potential. However, doing so almost always means spending more money, taking inconveniently scheduled flights and longer travel times due to going through out-of-the-way hubs. Frequent flyer miles are more difficult to redeem (without paying double miles) and will become even more difficult in the future. The reality is that upgrades are more difficult to find and many flights are on regional jets. There are more flyers competing for fewer upgraded seats. I've seen travelers leave meetings early, arrive late, take needless connecting flights, waste extra hours traveling and arrive too tired to conduct business; because they insisted on taking a specific airline. In my opinion, remaining loyal to an airline is no longer worthwhile unless you are a very top tier elite flyer. On most multi-segment trips, the success of your trip may be at risk if you insist on flying your "preferred" airline. Your best multi-segment trip will probably involve flying different segments on different airlines. Administration & planning a simple or complex trip is now very easy thanks to TripIt. It's a wonderful tool that creates a very complete itinerary. Simply forward copies of your email confirmations for air, hotels, cars & cruises. TripIt even automatically creates maps from the airport to your hotel. You can add events to your itinerary, make additional maps and sync with the latest version of Outlook and your PDA. So, how and where do you make multi-segment trip reservations? This is an area where I offer an on-site educational program and demonstration for your specific trips and travelers. Please contact me if you are interested. Bottom line: Use ITASoftware to research a multi-segment trip. Buy your tickets at the airlines' web site. Send your email confirmations to TripIt to get a complete itinerary. Register your flights with YAPTA to monitor for price drops and use SeatGuru to identify the best seats. Sounds complicated and time consuming? It's really quite simple, fast and easy. It will take longer to read this tutorial than to actually do the work. ITASoftware is a software company who's customers include Kayak, Orbitz, Delta and numerous other airlines and web sites. ITASoftware does not sell tickets but maintains an excellent and very useful web site with current prices for most airlines, the most significant exception is Southwest. Once you have found the flights that fit your schedule, go to the appropriate airlines' web sites to buy your tickets. If Southwest serves any of your segments (route map), you must research, compare and buy tickets at the Southwest web site. You can forward air, hotel & car reservation emails to TripIt at any time. It will correctly place them into your itinerary based upon the chronology of your trip. How to use ITASoftware to configure multi-segment trips: the home page has a link that is labeled "Search Airfares Using QPX." To use it, you may log-in as a guest or create an account. Either method gives you access to the same content. The default search is for specific dates although weekend and month-long searches are also excellent tools for other types of trips. Use the default "Specific Dates" search and select the "Multi-Segment" tab.
Multi-Segment searches begin with three segments. Add or remove segments as necessary. Enter the cities (name or abbreviation) and specific times of day that you can travel. Also note that you can limit the number of stops.
The initial results will appear as below. Select the "Choose flights (graphical)" option.
You now have the ability to select individual flights for each segment based upon price, departure & arrival times, duration, non-stops or connections and warnings. All columns can be sorted.
A detailed itinerary is constructed as you select each segment.
When all segments have been selected, the flights are listed. Select the "Show booking details" button to see the pricing per segment for comparison with Southwest's flights and fares.
The pricing detail is at the bottom of the booking details but you must add the taxes to get the price of the ticket to compare with Southwest.
Once you are happy with your flights, go to each airline's web site to make reservations. Occasionally, fares listed by ITASoftware, Kayak and others are no longer available. That is because these web sites obtain fares a few times per day and the lowest fares may be gone. When that happens, check for the next lowest or most convenient flight. Looking at the pricing details can often uncover additional opportunities to save money. Most of the fares are "one way" and may be more expensive than round trips where you don't use the return flight. Not using a part of a ticket is a violation of most airline's contract of carriage and all subsequent flights (on the same ticket) will be canceled. So make separate tickets if you are using the same airline. There are additional ways to reduce the price of the "throw away" ticket that are part of the on-site presentations & training that I offer. |
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