Online Travel Tips

Online travel is the most successful e-commerce product on the Internet and Computer Chronicles shows you how to find the best deals when purchasing this hot travel commodity. [Episode #1927, First broadcast: 3/19/2002] A leader in the online travel marketplace, Expedia.com contains large amounts of travel information and Mitch Robinson shows us how to sort through it using various criteria. You can use Expedia to sort options by shorter flights or departure times and you can also find a hotel based on the specific neighborhood for your travels. Robinson also explains how you can put together a customized travel package in real-time as you choose the accommodations and travel arrangements. He says that the large number of people using Expedia allows them to negotiate easier with airlines to get better deals for their users. Independent online travel expert, Ed Hasbrouk, gives us tips from his recently published book "The Practical Nomad Guide to the Online Travel Marketplace". Hasbrouk explains the difference between fares and prices and helps us understand how consolidators negotiate with airlines to set their own prices. One of his biggest tips is to research many sites to get the best airfares because no single place can promise the best prices. He discusses sites Orbitz.com, jetBlue.com, AirTreks.com, SideStep.com, Qixo.com, FareChase.com, and Farebeater.com on OneTravel.com. The site that claims to have more total bookings than anyone else online is Travelocity.com and CEO Terrell Jones discusses the benefits of using this online travel-booking giant. Jones explains how e-tickets work, how you can obtain updated flight information better online than over the phone and how to compare various vacation packages side by side on the site. To find out the secrets to getting your bid on travel auction websites, we go to Mike Dougan, the Sensible Traveler columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle. Dougan explains how Priceline is not really a place to bid