Airline information on-line on the Internet FAQ

Archive-name: travel/air/online-info
Last-modified: 2024/08/04
No changes from last week.

Please look through this entire document, particularly the PLEASE NOTE at the
end, before e-mailing me a question or comment, since most of the questions I
get are already answered in it.

* What's in this document?

There's an enormous amount of information available on the Web about airlines
and aviation. This FAQ concentrates on two things: schedules, fares,
reservations, and tickets for commercial airlines, and on-line travel agents.
We list both airline-sponsored and independent information.

The first parts of this FAQ discuss on-line sources of airline schedules and
fares, of which there are several general-purpose services.

After that it lists airlines that have any of online schedules, fares,
reservations, ticket sales, and flight status.

Next comes a listing of on-line specials, sources of special fares and other
deals available over the net. Many airlines have short-notice specials which
are worth checking out.

The rest of the FAQ lists travel agents that offer service over the net and
have indicated that they'd like to be listed. I am not a travel agent (I
consult and write computer books which you can find out about in my web site
at https://www.johnlevine.com, and the agent listings are provided free to any
agent that asks and sends in a short description of what he or she offers.

* Where is this FAQ available?

It's on the Web at https://airinfo.travel or https://airinfo.aero. There are,
unfortunately, a certain number of out of date copies of this site floating
around the net; the only one that's up to date is the one at
https://airinfo.travel or https://airinfo.aero.

* How do on-line reservations work?

Four giant airline computer systems in the United States handle nearly all the
airline reservations in the country. (They're known as CRSs, for computer
reservations systems, or more often now GDS for global distribution systems.)
Although each airline has a ``home'' CRS, the systems are all interlinked so
that you can, with few exceptions, buy tickets for any airline from any CRS.
The dominant systems in the U.S. are Sabre (home to American and US Airways),
Galileo (home to United), Worldspan (home to Delta, Northwest), and Amadeus
(many European lines.) The company that owned Galileo and Orbitz recently
bought Worldspan, so the two GDS will presumably be merged. Many of the
low-price start-up airlines don't participate in any of these systems but have
their own Web sites where you can check flights and buy tickets. Southwest,
the largest and oldest of the low-price airlines, doesn't participate, either.
Southwest's web site gets car and hotel info from Galileo, but the info seems
not to flow the other way. Orbitz, one of the big three online travel
agencies, runs its own system which is "direct connect" linked directly to
many of the airlines.

In theory, all the systems show the same data; in practice, however, they get
a little out of sync with each other. If you're looking for seats on a
sold-out flight, an airline's home system is most likely to have that last,
elusive seat. If you're looking for the lowest fare to somewhere, check all
four systems because a fare that's marked as sold out on one system often
mysteriously reappears on another system. Some airlines have rules about
flight segments that are not supposed to be sold together even though they're
all available, and at least once I got a cheap US Airways ticket on Expedia,
which didn't know about all the US Airways rules even though I couldn't get it
on their own site or Travelocity which did know about them. On the other hand,
many airlines have available some special deals that are only on their own Web
sites and maybe a few of the online agencies. Confused? You should be. We are.

The confusion is even worse if you want to fly internationally. Official fares
to most countries are set via a treaty organization called the IATA, so most
computer systems list only IATA fares for international flights. It's easy to
find entirely legal ``consolidator'' tickets sold for considerably less than
the official price, however, so an online or offline agent is extremely useful
for getting the best price. The airlines also can have some impressive online
offers on their web sites.

Here's our distilled wisdom about buying tickets online:

* Check the online systems to see what flights are available and for an idea
of the price ranges. Check more than one CRS. For tickets within the U.S. and
Canada, the prices in the CRS are for the most part the real prices that
people are paying. See the Big Online Agencies later in this FAQ for some good
places to start.
* After you have found a likely airline, check that airline's site to see
whether it has any special Web-only deals. If a low-fare airline has the
route, be sure to check that one too, since most low-fare airlines don't
appear in CRS listings.
* If your schedule is flexible, check ticket bidding sites including Hotwire
(https://www.hotwire.com) and Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) and ticket
auctions such as SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/).
* You can also talk to travel agents, particularly if it's a route where you
aren't eligible for the lowest CRS fares, but remember that agents get no
commission on fares visible on the CRS, so you can expect an agent to charge
you for ticking them.
* For international tickets, do all the steps above in this list, and then
check both online and with your agent for consolidator tickets. This is
particularly important if you don't qualify for the lowest published fare. See
Edward Hasbrouck's Consolidators and Bucket Shops FAQ
(https://hasbrouck.org/faq) for much more detailed information on consolidator
tickets.

The U.S. airline industry is chronically in dreadful shape, with Aloha, ATA,
Skybus, Eos, Silverjet, Maxjet, and now Zoom having shut down. Midwest merged
into Frontier. American went bankrupt and the corpse merged into US Airways,
although the surviving company is still called American. Sun Country went
bankrupt but is still flying, Frontier went bankrupt but seems to be surviving
as part of regional carrier Republic, and most of the remaining airlines are
hanging on with a combination of somewhat higher fares (much higer for
trans-Atlantic) and very full planes. The weak economy has kept them from
raising fares as much as they want, but they're not passing on the recent
lower fuel prices. Southwest and Airtran, two relatively healthy low-fare
carriers have merged, with the surviving airline Southwest with more east
coast and international routes.

Lufthansa has bought and probably will absorb bmi, which will give them a
substantial Heathrow hub, and French all-business carrier l'Avion was absorbed
into British Airways' Openskies subsidiary, which is looking kind of iffy
itself.

Airlines cut back schedules as the recession hits their customers, so there
are fewer seats on more crowded planes. In some cases small several regional
jet flights have been replaced by one larger jet, but the overall trend is
down.

Airlines are scrambling for revenue anywhere they can find it. Fuel surcharges
are now common across the industry, and can be several hundred dollars on
overseas flights. Most US lines other than Southwest charge for all checked
bags on domestic flights. Many now charge for picking your own seat, and
charge more if you pick a decent seat by an exit row or bulkhead. (The kindest
way to think of it is that the prices have increased, but you get a discount
if you're willing to fly with no checked bag, sit in a lousy seat, and bring
your own lunch.) Nobody includes meals on domestic flights any more, although
I have to say that the $7 salads and sandwiches are often a lot better than
the former free gray-green glop.

The airlines that aren't bankrupt have shrunk themselves and tried to raise
fares but and are sporadically profitable, largely depending on fuel prices.
Beyond the ones that have shut down, Sun Country's options to emerge from
bankruptcy are not promising.

A major effect of all of the bankruptcies and downsizing is that airlines are
much more thinly staffed than they used to be. That means that problems tend
to have worse effects and last longer than they used to be.

Low-cost Canadian airline JetsGo turned out to be so low cost that it ran out
of cash and died, Canjet retreated back to charters, and surviving low cost
competitor Westjet and Air Canada aren't competing very hard, so Canadian
airfare prices are not low other than on Air Transat's vacation routes.

Passengers are subject to much more extensive screening than in the past,
including screening of checked baggage at check-in time, and, according to
news reports pat downs that approach groping. Airlines recommend arriving at
least an hour earlier than before. In my experience the extra delay is rarely
more than 15 minutes, even with the extra baggage screening, although I
usually fly out of smaller airports, not big hubs where you can get the killer
two hour lines. The TSA has handed back screening at a surprising number of
airports to private contractors, all of whom wear outfits intended to look
like TSA uniforms. There is remarkable inconsistency in procedures from one
airport to another, particularly with respect to your shoes, is worse than
ever. Don't put your shoes in a bin, do put your shoes in a bin, and they all
insist very loudly that whatever their rule is has always been the rule
everywhere. A variety of extra cost "trusted traveller" plans may allow people
to get through the screening faster, or may just involve waiting in a
different line. The TSA makes no promises. If you don't want to go through the
X-ray machines, whose safety is nowhere near as clear as the TSA would like
you to believe, you can get a light body massage instead. They have a web site
with estimated wait times (https://waittime.tsa.dhs.gov) based on averages in
previous months, not real time numbers.

Anyone who flies very often should join TSA Pre-Check
(https://www.tsa.gov/tsa-precheck), which returns the security process to what
it was before 9/11, fast and relatively painless. It's included with the
various international low-risk traveler programs such as Global Entry and
NEXUS, or you can apply directly on the TSA web site.

Other changes include: some airports have stopped curb-side baggage check,
anything vaguely resembling a knife or lighter may or may not be confiscated
(although lighters suddenly stopped being dangerous a year ago), you're
sometimes only allowed one carry-on plus a purse, briefcase, diaper bag or the
like, non-passengers aren't allowed past security, all passengers must have a
document that looks like a boarding pass at most airports to get past
security, you may have to put your toothpaste and shampoo in a baggie that may
have to be a one quart size, some parking areas close to terminals are closed.
But check-in clerks no longer ask you whether you packed your own suitcase.


* Wow, there's a lot of places to look for plane tickets

The original version of this FAQ described only one online source of plane
reservations (the late, lamented Easy Sabre) because that's all there was. Now
there are approximately fifteen gazillion web sites selling plane tickets. But
setting up a system to sell tickets is a lot of work, so in reality most of
those web sites funnel into a much smaller number of underlying systems. This
means that you aren't likely to find a lot more from visiting a hundred sites
than from visiting four or five. Good sites to start at are ITA Software
(https://www.itasoftware.com), which uses its own search engine but doesn't
sell tickets, and a couple of the comparison sites such as Kayak
(https://www.kayak.com). For more detailed suggestions, see How do on-line
reservations workearlier in this FAQ.

Airlines' own web sites are a notable exception. Even though they are all
backed by one of the standard search systems (increasingly a customized
version of Orbitz), they each provide access to their own flights without any
booking fee. No matter where you find a ticket, it's worth checking the
airline's own site to see if it's a few dollars less there. Buying on the
airline's own site frequently also makes it easier to pick seats or change
tickets later.

Most sites are intended for relatively casual travellers, not road warriors
who need to know the exact fare class of a ticket, so they can optimize
frequent flyer miles and upgrades. For access to detailed fare and class
availability information, see Expert Flyer, described later. It costs money,
but if you care about that kind of stuff, it's well worth it.

* The big online agencies

For domestic US tickets and simple international tickets (e.g., a round trip
from the US to somewhere else, bought at least a month ahead) the big three
are as good a place to start as any.

Note: Some airline play chicken with the agencies in a dispute about who
displays what and how much they pay. As a result, some airlines don't show up
on Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz at all. If you're going somewhere where
you'd expect to see flights on an airline and see nothing, you might want to
check their site or a neutral search site like ITA Software
(https://matrix.itasoftware.com/) to see if there's something worth going to
their site to buy.

Travelocity: Travelocity (https://www.travelocity.com) is an online agent
owned until recently by Sabre. In 2014 they contracted their back end
operations to Expedia, and in early 2015 Sabre sold the site to Expedia.

Tickets can be issued as e-tickets or, at extra cost, by mail. There is also a
great deal of travel destination information of variable usefulness. Unlike
most other web-based systems, it sometimes lets you hold a reservation without
buying it. Also handles hotels and rental cars. A nice fare watcher feature
lets you list a few routes you're interested in, and it sends you e-mail when
an interesting fare becomes available. They have a Vacation Deals page that
often has private fares, two-for-one deals, and the like. Their flexible
search option provides a fare calendar, table of what fares are available on
what dates, that's better than any other site I know. Unfortunately, just
because a fare is available on a date doesn't mean that any actual seats are
available at that fare, so a certain number of the fares are cruel jokes,
great bargains if only the airline would sell you a seat at that fare which
they won't.

Some fares are marked "good buy" which means that they're only available on
Travelocity. But that doesn't mean that they're any cheaper than other fares.
They're waiving the booking fee indefinitely, so their prices should be the
same as you'll find on airline sites.

Travelocity includes a "last minute deals" feature which is a rebranded
version of Site59 (https://www.site59.com), which Travelocity owns.

Expedia: Expedia (https://www.expedia.com) was Microsoft's flashy entrant into
the web travel biz. In July 2001 they sold a controlling interest to USA
Networks, owner of Home Shopping Network and other great cultural monuments.
In August 2003, the two companies were merged under the extremely trendy name
of IAC/InterActive Corp, along with hotels.com, Match.com and LendingTree. In
2005 they admitted that synergy is just a buzzword and spun it off as a
separate company. It still has that Microsoft feel. The site is a bit noisy,
but it's reasonably easy to negotiate and to find schedules and fares. You
have to provide a credit card number to make a reservation, even if you don't
want to buy immediately. Early on, when I tried to reserve, it said it the
credit card link was down, no reservations possible, call a number in Florida
if it's urgent. Yeah, right. (At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1.) It seems to
work better now. There's also lots of promos and tie-ins, with Expedia-only
special fares. You can sign up for weekly e-mail about best fares on routes
you select. They're waiving the booking fee indefinitely, so their prices
should be the same as you'll find on airline sites.

Orbitz: Orbitz (https://www.orbitz.com), was intended to be the "killer"
airline ticket web site. Founded by United, Northwest, Continental, Delta, and
American, it was sold in October 2004 to Cendant, a large travel company that
owns Avis rent-a-car and Ramada Inns and dozens of other familiar chains, then
in July 2007 was spun off as a standalone company along with some smaller
travel companies that Cendant bought along the way. At least 30 airlines
including the founders are Orbitz charter affiliates, which means they give
all of their web fares to Orbitz. It has a very nice lowest fare search
engine. You can tell it to add alternate airport within 70 miles, and it gives
you the possible routings, cheapest first. It now lets you give a range of
dates, or say that you want to take a weekend trip in a particular month, and
it gives you a grid showing the lowest available fare for each combination of
departure and return dates. They promise unbiased fare and schedule listings,
and have agreements with affiliate airlines to include all publicly available
fares (a term that is harder to define than it looks) such as web specials.
Their search engine does a more thorough job than others (it runs on racks of
cheap PCs rather than on expensive mainframe computers) so it'll often find
fares and connections that are entirely valid but not shown on other systems.
For domestic US tickets on the airlines they include, they're hard to beat,
although like other online agencies, they don't include Southwest. For
international tickets, particularly on anything more complex than a
round-trip, they can be very hit and miss. Try building your trip one leg at a
time and watch the price zoom up and down. They also have some spiffy customer
service, e.g., they can call you or send a text message to your mobile phone
or PDA a few hours before flight time to tell you your gate and whether there
are delays. They're waiving the booking fee indefinitely on tickets where all
legs are on the same airline, so their prices should be the same as you'll
find on airline sites.

Opodo: var uri =
'https://impgb.tradedoubler.com/imp?type(js)g(27442)a(1518026)' + new String
(Math.random()).substring (2, 11); document.write(''); Opodo
(https://www.opodo.co.uk) is owned by nine European airlines and the Amadeus
GDS. Its coverage of the European majors is good, but keep in mind that on
many European routes you can find something cheaper on a low-cost airline that
doesn't participate with Amadeus. (See Fare Searches below to find services
link to the airlines that Opodo doesn't.) It's intended for European audiences
although anyone can use it, so tickets are priced in pounds or euros.

Opodo's user registration is, ah, challenging; no matter what I do, it insists
I have entered an unknown user or password or the e-mail address for password
recovery doesn't match the user name, even though I copied them from
confirmation messages that Opodo just sent. So buy tickets without
registering.

Apollo systems:

Internet Travel Network (https://www.itn.net) is now part of American Express.
It's a WWW-based flight booking system. You make reservations, using Apollo,
which are then ticketed by American Express, unless you entered via another
agency's web site. Several other sites on the net including several airlines
have ``private label'' connections to ITN, but it's the same system, usually
just with slightly different screen backgrounds and titles. The base ITN
system uses data from Apollo, but apparently some of the private label
versions use other CRS.

Worldspan (https://www.worldspan.com) is another large international CRS. They
provide a Web availability and pricing system, which underlies the web sites
of participating agents as well as the Delta and Northwest web sites, only
available via customer sites, not on their own site. It's the system that
underlies Expedia and Orbitz (described above). Galileo's owner Travelport is
in the process of buying Worldspan and will presumably merge the two.

Cheap Tickets (https://www.cheaptickets.com) originally sold mostly cheap
tickets to Hawaii, but is now a general purpose online agent. I gather that
unlike most other web sites, the live agents at their 800 number have access
to fares not on the web site and often not available through other sites.
Owned by Cendant, being spun off in the same travel company as Orbitz,
although the sites remain separate.

Amadeus:

AmadeusLink (https://www.amadeus.net/), was started in 1987 by four European
airlines and in 1995 absorbed System One which started a long time ago as
Eastern Airlines' reservation system. They offer extensive schedule and
availability info, along with rental car, hotel, and destination info. For
bookings, you need to use a subscribing travel agency, such as Opodo, or a
site built on their AmadeusLink system. The AmadeusLink booking systems all
link into the same site, so other than some of the graphics, the function they
provide is identical.

* Meta-searches

A meta-search looks at lots of other sites and gives you a combined result
that is supposed to have the lowest fare. All of these work, but in each case
it appears that they only search sites that will pay them a commission. The
commission doesn't affect your fare, but it does mean that there are other
sites that might have lower fares that they don't search. In particular,
you'll never find low-price airlines like Southwest and Ryanair.

Hipmunk (https://www.hipmunk.com/) is ain interesting approach to flight
search using what they call an "agony index" that trades off price, length of
flight time of day and other factors. The display is time bars similar to
ITA's, but sorted differently and with slightly different options like no
red-eyes. They don't sell tickets, but link to Orbitz or the airlines once
you've selected your flights. It's an interesting idea, although my agony
index (I hate red-eyes and tight seating but don't mind a connection so long
as there's an airline club I can use) appears rather different from theirs.

Mobissimo (https://www.mobissimo.com/) is a meta-search that searches lots of
other web sites for a pair of cities and dates and shows you what fares it
found.

Kayak (https://www.kayak.com) and Sidestep are meta-searches, systems that
search multiple airline web sites to make a combined listing with links you
can click through to the various sites to buy. They work well, but as with all
combo sites, there are usually interesting sites they don't search so you
still have to look for yourself. They were originally separate competing sites
but the companies merged.

Pricegrabber (https://www.pricegrabber.com/home_travel.php) offers price
comparisons of everything from computer parts to hotels, now including plane
tickets. It's pretty slick, but the list of places they search seems limited.

Fare compare (https://www.farecompare.com) isn't really a meta-search; it
takes fare information directly from the airlines to let you find the cheapest
dates on routes of interest.

Yapta (https://www.yapta.com) checks airline web sites to see if the fare for
trips of interest has dropped since the last time you checked. Much of the
functionality is bundled into a very intrusive browser plugin that I haven't
tried.

* Other general sites

OneTravel (https://www.onetravel.com) offers booking and ticketing. They used
to have a "fare beater" feature with negotiated and "white label" fares, but
it's gone. Too bad. It's a competent but ordinary online agent now. Cheapseats
(https://www.cheapseats.com) is another portal into the same system.

Travelweb (https://www.travelweb.com), also known as Lowestfare
(https://www.lowestfare.com), is a subsidiary of Priceline. It offers the
usual array of tickets, with lots of links to Priceline.

* Fare searches and comparisons

ITA Software (https://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch) builds the search
engine used by Orbitz and an increasing number of airline sites, and you can
use a copy of the latest version of their search system. No booking, you have
to take what you find and book elsewhere. It's by far my favorite tool to
explore what's available when, keeping in mind that it can't see low fare
airlines not in the GDS that provide its data. Google has bought ITA, but they
don't seem likely to make big changes to what ITA provides.

Qixo (https://www.qixo.com) searches two dozen airline sites and returns a
combined list of the lowest fares found for route. If you book through them,
there's a $20 booking fee, but of course once you know the airline and times,
there's nothing keeping you from booking up the same flights on another site.

Yahoo Travel (https://travel.yahoo.com) offers fare calendar searches using
Travelocity's engine; you give it two cities and it helps you find the lowest
fares and the dates on which they're available. It says US and Canada only,
but it will actually do searches anywhere.

Air Ninja (https://www.airninja.com/) offers a good directory of low-fare
airlines that don't sell through the usual online agencies. You tell it where
you want to go, it offers links to the airlines that go there. Coverage
appears good of both US and foreign airlines.

Cheap Flights USA (https://www.CheapFlights.com) and Cheap Flights UK
(https://www.CheapFlights.co.uk) offers a nice search engine for low cost
tickets from the US and UK, many of which don't appear in the major search
engines. Not a travel agency, they link to other agents and airlines where
they presumably collect a referral fee (which is fine, it doesn't affect the
price of the ticket.)

Foundem (https://www.foundem.com/search/flightsUK.jsp) searches multiple sites
in the UK. Supposed to include both regular agent sites and low-fare airlines,
but it missed a lot of the low-fare ones when I looked.

Sky Scanner (https://www.skyscanner.net) offers an excellent search engine for
cheap flights within the UK and Europe. Don't miss their month views with
little bar charts of daily fares.

Flight Atlas (https://www.flightatlas.com/) offers cute animated maps showing
what routes are available among European airports, with links to the airlines
serving them. (To me it looks like of like a game of Battleship.)

Cheapo (https://www.flycheapo.com) has comprehensive info on European discount
airlines including a map that shows where they all go, and frequent blog style
news items on new and changed service.

* Discounted international tickets

AirTreks (https://www.airtreks.com) has a spiffy web site that helps construct
and price multi-stop and round-the-world international travel. They're a
travel agency, the site estimates the price, exact prices and tickets come
from live agents at the agency. (That's what you want, no computer can
navigate the swamp of international routes and fares very well.)

Farepoint (https://www.farepoint.co.uk/) provides a large database of fares
via UK travel agents. The site links to some of the agents who offer their
service.

Flights.com (https://www.flights.com) (formerly called TISS) is an online
database in Germany with current airfares provided by a group of
consolidators. They offer departures from a lot of different countries, now
including the U.S. They claim the prices they offer are the best available.
For routes within the US they act as a front end to flifo. One reader reports
a bad experience with their US agent, rebooking his reservation in a way that
lost the discount fare he'd reserved, although he'd had good results with
their UK agent.

Air Fare (https://www.air-fare.com) tracks lowest fares among major U.S.
cities, with daily updates of significantly lower fares. Worldspan-based Res
and ticketing also available.

Deal Checker (https://www.dealchecker.co.uk) compares fares and hotel prices
from major UK web sites.

* Prognostication

Farecast (https://www.farecast.com/) attempts to predict future airfares so
you can pick the best time to buy your tickets. Their list of cities,
originally only Boston and Seattle, has expanded to a modest list of domestic
airports, so if they happen to cover your favorite route, it's an interesting
idea.

* Detailed fares and availability

Expert Flyer (https://www.expertflyer.com) provides detailed seat and fare
availability information, similar to what a travel agent sees. Five day free
trial, then limited access for $5/mo, full access for $10/mo. If you fly a
lot, it's invaluable for finding which flights have seat upgrades available,
which ones have seats at particular fares, and other detailed info for finding
the exact flights one wants.

* Real-time flight status and information

Flightcaster (https://www.flightcaster.com/) uses historical data and secret
patent pending algorithms to predict how late your plane will be. Start
checking about six hours ahead so you know when to get to the airport. Also
available as an iPod app and on Blackberries.

Flightstats (https://www.flightstats.com) provides realtime flight departure
and arrival information along with related goodies like airport delays,
historical lateness stats and more. With free registration, get alerts by
email or SMS.

Expedia (https://www.expedia.com/pub/agent.dll?qscr=flin) now has real-time
flight ops including times and gates for major US airlines.

The Track A Flight (https://www.trackaflight.com/) service (formerly Flyte
Trax, same organization as flytecomm.com) also provides real-time position map
and ETA for most domestic flights, by flight number, or departing or arriving
airports. It's as nice as TheTrip.

Flight Arrivals (https://www.flightarrivals.com/) offers impressively complete
arrival info for most US airports. (It even has info for the teensy Ithaca NY
airport.) No maps, but lots of data.

* Itinerary Lookup

Each of the GDS has a web site where you can look up the details of the record
for a reservation if you have the locator code, generally a sequence of six
letters or digits, and the passenger's last name. A single trip can have
information on more than one system. For example, if you make a United
Airlines reservation on Travelocity, the main Travelocity record is on Sabre,
but there's a copy on United's home system Galileo, as well. Each system has a
different locator code, and it can be hard to find the codes for other than
the original system. Virtually There sometimes shows the locator for other
system records as the Confirmation field, although you have to figure out or
guess which system it's on.

Every travel agent except Orbitz uses one of the GDS to make its reservations
so the master record for each trip is available through one of the systems.
The online systems usually show the locator code on one of the confirmation
screens, and any airline or local travel agent will tell your the locator for
your reservation if you ask. Since Orbitz uses its direct connect technology
to make reservations directly with many airlines, the master record is on
Orbitz itself and as far as I can tell you can't tell the airline's locator
until you get your boarding pass.

Virtually There (https://www.virtuallythere.com) can show records from Sabre
inclding reservations on Travelocity.

Check My Trip (https://www.checkmytrip.com) can show records from Amadeus,
including reservations on many European airlines.

View Trip (https://www.viewtrip.com/en-us/ViewTrip.asp) can show records from
Galileo, including reservations on United.

Some of these systems will also show rental car and hotel info if they're
included in the same records.

Airlines often offer special fares or promotions to Internet users, and there
are some other specialist outfits selling tickets on-line.

* Special fare newsletters and sites

Smarter Travel (https://www.smartertravel.com/) collects weekly specials from
selected major cities and both puts them on their web site and e-mails them to
mailing lists. You can sign up for the cities you're interested in flying
from, as well as general newsletters about travel deals.

Also see their companion site Airfare Watchdog
(https://www.airfarewatchdog.com) which has a fine compendium of low fares by
city, with useful suggestions for nearby cities that might have lower fares.

Travelzoo (https://www.travelzoo.com/) offers a gazillion different services
including a weekly Top 20 Deals newsletter and a meta-meta-search in which you
tell it the cities and dates, and they offer links to sites you might want to
search. (Selection surely not affected by how much commission they pay.)

Travelocity has a Travel Deals page that often has private fares, two-for-one
deals, and the like. Click Flights on the home page, then Deals on the blue
bar.

Bootsnall (https://deals.bootsnall.com/) has lists of cheap flights that
include some interesting deals.

Tripbuzz (https://www.tripbuzz.com/) finds activities near any given location.
Check it out the next time you're trapped in a motel room on an unexpectedly
rainy day.

* Ticket auctions and the like

Priceline (https://www.priceline.com) sells tickets over the web using a
peculiar system sort of like an auction. You tell them where and when you want
to go and how much you're willing to pay. You have to be prepared to go at any
time of day, on any major domestic airline or one of a list of international
ones, and to accept a stop or change of plane. You tell them what you're
willing to pay, along with credit card info. If they find a ticket at that
price, you've bought it and can't change or refund it (like most any low-price
ticket.) Flights must originate in the U.S., or via an affiliate, in the U.K.

If they have a ticket available at or below your bid, they'll sell it to you,
but you don't know if you're getting the best price. They'll charge what you
offered even if the carrier would have accepted less, and they make it
difficult to offer increasing bids. They now offer seats on many the major US
airlines and international airlines. except A lot of reports, including
articles in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and the Wall Street Journal,
say that in practice bids for lower than published prices are rarely accepted,
and they admit that they accept less than 10% of the bids people make,
although they do sell 15,000 tickets a day. They now also offer normal tickets
where you know the price and the flights ahead of time. I don't see any reason
to buy from them rather than anyone else, but this does at least tell you what
the list price is so you don't bid any higher than that.

I haven't ever bought a ticket through Priceline, but would welcome more
reports from people who have. (I tried to get a NYC hotel room one time, they
turned down all my offers, but I've heard from at least one person who got a
room at a nice Boston hotel for about half the normal price.) The idea of
auctioning left-over tickets is a good one, and it's a shame if it can't be
put into practice. If you're planning to travel on a route well-served by one
of the airlines listed above, and can fly at any time of day, try bidding
slightly less than the best fare you can find on one of the regular
reservation sites or Hotwire and see if they take it. Otherwise, you're better
off with a agent who knows about unpublished fares, many of whom are listed in
subsequent sections of this FAQ.

Hotwire (https://www.hotwire.com) is a sort of competitor to Priceline now
owned by InterActive Corp which owns Expedia and Hotels.com. You tell them
where you want to go, what dates, and a few conditions such as no red-eye, and
they offer you a price. Unlike Priceline they tell you what price you'll pay
and have an hour to decide before you buy it. Like Priceline, you don't get to
know the times and airline until you buy the tickets. Hotwire is another good
place to check for last minute tickets. It hasn't yet ever offered me a ticket
I wanted to buy, but considering that I fly from Ithaca NY, not exactly a
hotbed of airline competition, I can't say I'm surprised. Flights must
originate in the U.S., but you can fly internationally. They also sell hotels
and rental cars on the same basis; I've gotten some good rental car deals all
of which have turned out to be from Budget.

SkyAuction (https://www.skyauction.com/), in contrast to Priceline and
Hotwire, auctions off tickets and travel packages using a "second bid" scheme
similar to what eBay and other online auctioneers use. (The best strategy is
to bid the maximum you're willing to pay, since if you win you'll pay just
enough to beat the runner up regardless of what your maximum was.) The
descriptions of what they're selling are quite concrete, and you can see what
the competing bids are. Tickets are offered in small lots, you can end up with
fewer tickets than you asked for unless you make a bid "all or nothing". Be
sure to add in the often large service charge for each ticket, and be sure you
know what normal fares are since tickets are often bid up above published
fares. I've bought tickets to London through them, their service was prompt
and efficient, but I've seen reports that it is very difficult to get a refund
if there's a problem with the flights.

General auction sites often have airline tickets available. You can find them
in "Miscellaneous:Travel" at eBay
(https://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/category1310/index.html). Many of
the tickets offered appear either to be frequent flyer tickets, which the
airline will confiscate if they can tell that you bought them, or dubious
deals where the air tickets are "free" if you buy an expensive vacation
package. There do seem to be a few transferrable bump certificates, and quite
a few ancillary items like drink coupons.

Site 59 (https://www.site59.com/) offers last minute weekend travel packages.
They all include air and hotel, but the price is often lower than what you'd
otherwise pay for air only (Travelocity's "last minute deals" are really
Site59.)

* Individual airlines

Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.ca/schedules/) has weekly Websaver special
fares.

Airtran (https://www.airtran.com) has weekend specials. Double frequent flyer
credit for specials purchased on-line. (Actually worth something, since six
round trips earn a free ticket.) Also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for
on the site that announces weekly specials.

Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaskaair.com/Webspecials/start.asp) has web
special fares.

American Airlines has weekly mailing lists for ``Net SAAver fares'', otherwise
unadvertised specials from Chicago or Dallas, as well as some hotel packages.
Visit their web page (https://www.aa.com) and click on specials on the toolbar
at the top.

American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) has ``net fares'', special fares
available only on their web site.

America West (https://www.americawest.com) has Surf'n'Go weekly specials and
Quick Trips air/land package specials.

Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) has weekly lists of specials, with
occasional web-only last minute specials.

Cathay Pacific Airlines (www.cathay-usa.com/dotm) has regular web specials.
Currently there's a $759 special from Newark to Hong Kong for flights in March
and April, buy by 23 September. Book online
(https://us.cathaypacific.com/EWRFareSale)

Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has occasional seat auctions.

Jetblue (https://jetblue.com/cheeps) has Cheeps published every Tuesday on
their web site and by Twitter.

Lufthansa's US site (https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) has occasional Web
specials and live seat auctions. Sign up for mailing list to find out when
they are.

Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) offers RT from the USA
west coast to Kuala Lumpur and 30 days of travel within Asia for $747 plus
tax, a very attractive deal. (East coast residents should look at the similar
Cathay Pacific offer.)

South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa has) occasional seat
auctions.

Southwest (https://www.iflyswa.com/email has a mailing list) with weekly
specials. Also there's a package specials list
(https://www.swavacations.com/guest/guest.htm) with special deals if you sign
their guest book and answer a bunch of nosy questions.

Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/) has weekly on-line ``Cy-Fly''
specials.

United (https://www.ual.com) has E-Fares specials for members of their Milage
Plus program posted every Wednesday, also by e-mail. (Signup info on their web
site.) Choose E-Fares from the menu on the home page. You have to sign in but
it's free.

US Airways (https://www.usair.com/travel/fares/esavers.htm) has an "e-savers"
mailing list with weekly special fares from (and occasionally to) their hub
cities. Web site also has Internet-only special fares to and from Baltimore
and Washington, with extra frequent flyer miles.

* What about the airlines' own web sites??

Many airlines are on the World Wide Web. Three good directories of them are:

https://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Travel_and_Transportation/Airlines/
https://smilinjack.com/airlines.htm
https://besttraveldeals.net/Travel-Anywhere-World-Airlines/

This list contains only airlines sites that have schedule or booking
information available; see the pages mentioned above for lots of other airline
web pages with other info.

In the discussions below, flight ops means flight operations, that is, delays,
gates, cancellations, and the like. Ticketless ticketing means that rather
than issuing a real ticket, the airline sends you a receipt with a ticket
number. You cite that number and show ID when you check in. They send the
receipt via e-mail, fax, or (if there's time) snail mail. You pay with a
credit card.

This list is for airlines in the United States, Mexico and Caribbean airlines.
The next section lists Canadian airlines, the section after that airlines
elsewhere in the world.

Air Aruba (https://www.interknowledge.com/air-aruba/) has a rather dusty page
with limited route and contact info, on which the most useful item is that
they don't fly any more.

Airtran (https://www.airtran.com), a low-fare airline in the eastern U.S., has
schedules, reservations, ticketless ticketing, special offers, and an e-mail
specials newsletter. Southwest has agreed to buy them; at this point it's
unclear how long they'll be operating as separate airlines.

Alaska Airlines (https://www.alaska-air.com) has a web site with flight info,
reservations, ticketless ticketing, and special offers. Get 500 bonus miles
just for signing up for the weekly newsletter. The reservation system finally
seems to be working reliably, new design is pretty, fare grid is quite usable
but not as cute as the old retro design.

Allegiant Air (https://www.allegiantair.com) is a low-fare carrier that flies
MD80s from cities around the country to Las Vegas and vacation destinations in
Florida, as well as Gulfport MI and Phoenix. Reservations, lots of packages,
free tee-shirts with most packages. Assigned seats cost $10 extra. Elvis
glasses available for purchase on many flights. Unlike pretty much every other
airline in the country, they're profitable so book with confidence.

ALM (https://www.airalm.com/) flies to and from the Netherlands Antilles.
Routes, schedules, destination info, and occasional specials.

Aloha (https://www.alohaairlines.com/) ended its passenger service as of the
end of March. With luck, passengers will be reticketed on United or Hawaiian.

America West (https://www.americawest.com) has schedule info, reservations,
and ticketless ticketing in a site that is quite attractive now that the
images hold still. Weekly web specials for both air and air/land packages.
They've merged with US Airways, but for now the two airlines are operating
sort of separately.

American Airlines (https://www.aa.com/) is bankrupt but is likely to keep
flying. They have a newly redesigned very blue web site with schedules, fares,
and flight ops. Reservations and ticketing available, using the Orbitz booking
and search engine. (So much for the company that built Sabre in the first
place, 40 years ago.) They also offer timetables (https://www.aatimetable.com)
in various online and printable formats.

American Trans Air (https://www.ata.com) shut down unexpectedly on April 2.
They're bankrupt, no reaccomodation, no refunds other than via credit cards,
no nothing.

Amtrak (https://www.amtrak.com) isn't an airline, but they're competitive on
many routes in urban parts of the U.S., and have scenic long distance routes.
Schedule info and reservations available, although the reservation system can
be awfully slow.

BWIA (https://www.bwee.com/) used to fly to, from, and around the Caribbean.
They shut down but have been somewhat reincarnated as Caribbean Airlines.

Chalk's Ocean Airways (https://www.flychalks.com/) flew seaplanes between
Florida and the Bahamas since 1919, making it the world's oldest operating
airline, with only one accident, when a plane fell apart in the air on Dec
19th, 2005. Site is still there, but the airline was shut down in late 2007
and shows no sign of coming back. Too bad.

Click Mexicana (https://www.click.com.mx/) was a low-fare subsidiary of
Mexicana, but it shut down when Mexicana did.

Cubana (https://www.cubana.cu/) flies from Havana to points in Europe and the
Americas. Schedules, destinations, and fleet info. I wonder where they get the
spare parts for their DC-10 and 727.

Delta (https://www.delta.com) has fares, schedules, on-line ticketing, and
flight ops. Currently offering up to 1000 extra FF miles for tickets bought
on-line.

Eos (https://www.eosairlines.com) flew all-business 757s between New York JFK
and London Stansted for fares starting around $1000 each way. They shut down
in late April.

The current incarnation of Frontier (https://www.frontierairlines.com/) is a
low-fare line with a hub at Denver flying to points in the US and Mexico.
They're bankrupt but still flying, with a plan to emerge as part of regional
carrier Republic. Site has reservations, flight ops.

Go! Mokulele (https://www.iflygo.com) flies small jets and smaller prop plames
among the Hawaiian islands (They more or less took over bankrupt Mesa's go!
operation.) Fares are reasonable but the $35 fare war specials are gone. They
claim that starting in April they'll have one weekly public charter from
London to Hawaii, via Rockford IL.

Hawaiian (https://www.hawaiianair.com/) flies within Hawaii, to the South
Pacific, and to the U.S. west coast. Bankrupt but still operating.

Interjet (https://www.interjet.com.mx/) is a new Mexican low-fare airline with
a hub at Toluca. Site has flights and hotel packages. It's all in Spanish
except for the Hacker Safe logo at the bottom of the pages.

Jet Blue (https://www.jetblue.com), an airline that may yet bring sane
airfares to upstate New York, has an elegant web site with routes, fares, and
on-line ticket sales, Don't miss the rotating 3-D Airbus A320, even though it
does make Internet Exploder crash.

LIAT (https://www.liatairline.com), who island-hop in the Caribbean, has a web
site with reservations and frequent flyer info, except no matter what airports
and dates I put into their res form, it says there's no flights on those
dates.

Maxjet (https://www.maxjet.net) was another entry in the premium low-cost
niche, offering one daily all business class 767s roundtrip between New York
JFK, Dulles, and Las Vegas to London Stansted. They're bankrupt, and seem
unlikely to resume flying. They bought tickets on Eos for their remaining
passengers.

Mexicana (https://www.mexican.com/) is reorganizing in bankruptcy, and appears
unlikely to resume flying.

Midwest Airlines (https://www.midwestairlines.com/), formerly Midwest Express,
was had great service but went bust and merged into Frontier.

New England Airlines (https://www.ids.net/flybi/nea/) flies between Block
Island RI and Westerly RI. Schedule and fare info, reservations via an e-mail
form.

Northwest Airlines is now part of Delta.

Pan Am (https://www.flypanam.com), the airline that won't stay dead, is dead
again at the moment, although their web site offers a fine array of stuff with
the famous logo.

Southwest Airlines (https://www.iflyswa.com) has schedules and fares, and now
reservations and ticketless ticketing. The graphics are still too big, but the
site loads faster than it used to. Mailing list for weekly specials,
presumably to include Airtran routes as the merger progresses.

Spirit (https://www.spiritair.com) is a low-cost airline that flies between
Florida and the northeast and midwest, and also from Detroit and Chicago to
California. Has schedules, reservations, and weekly "syber" specials. You can
change the name on any ticket for $25. Wow! If you are more than four feet
tall, you will want to pay extra for one of their Big Front Seats since the
alternative is to break your kneecaps trying to squeeze into their impossibly
tight seating.

Sun Country (https://www.suncountry.com/), a regional airline headquartered in
Minneapolis, is once again running scheduled service on new 737s from MSP to
places all over the US and nearby warm-weather vacation spots. Their parent
company is bankrupt, with charges of financial fraud, so I wouldn't plan any
trips that it would be a big problem to change.

Ted (https://www.flyted.com) is United's low-cost airline within an airline.
Their previous attempt, Shuttle by United, failed dismally, but what the heck,
maybe the laws of economics are different this year. The web site is United's
with minor cosmetic changes. Either the United version or the Ted version
shows you the same flights and fares. Join the Ted Club which appears to be
Milage Plus and a mailing list with special deals.

Transmeridian (https://www.tmair.com) ran out of money and liquidated. Ah,
well.

TWA has been absorbed into American (https://www.aa.com). Where's Howard
Hughes now that we need him?

United (https://www.united.com) has resdesigned their site so at last it is
reasonably functional. Reservations and booking via ITN. When you do online
check-in, they will try to upsell you to first class (not worth it), and
economy plus (worth it for long trips.) Sometimes they goof and give you first
class when you've only paid for E+.

US Airways (https://www.usair.com) has schedules and reservations via a site
that looks to have the same underlying engine as Travelocity. Booking is nice
when it works, but half the time I get an error message rather than a ticket.
(Deleting all your cookies often helps.) 1000 frequent flyer miles for tix
bought online. Also weekly weekend travel specials from (and occasionally to)
USAair hub cities. They've merged with America West, but for now the two
airlines are operating somewhat separately.

US Helicopter (https://www.flyush.com/) flies spiffy blue helicopters from
Wall Street to JFK and back every hour, with a daily side trip to Bridgeport
for suburbanites. If you're connecting at JFK to American, it saves a lot of
time (which for $165 for a 10 minute flight, it better.) If you're on any
other airline, it doesn't. Flash-heavy site has reservations and the usual
stuff. Charters available, if sharing a helicopter with 7 other people is just
too common.

USA 3000 (https://www.usa3000airlines.com/) flies a sparse schedule of A320s
between the northeastern US, and Florida and the Caribbean with pretty low
fares. Onboard services include food, movies, and "first flight" certificates
for small children. (Nice, but not as cool as the Jr Pilot wings TWA gave me
in about 1959.) Schedules, reservations, flight ops. The site uses a lot of
Javascript but it all seems to work.

Virgin America (https://www.virginamerica.com/) plans to start up in August
flying among San Francisco, LAX, New York, Washington, Las Vegas. Spiffy Web
site (what else would you expect from Virgin?) has tickets, flight info,
online checkin, frequent flyer program, and a lot of Flash videos that don't
work in my ancient 2006 vintage Flash 7 player. Flights are fairly cheap, e.g.
$200 one-way transcon, everything costs extra starting with an exit row seat
at $25. Warning: Acceptable use policy for the in-flight entertainment system
specifically forbids sending spam.

* Airlines in Canada

Air Canada (https://www.aircanada.com/) has schedule info, reservations,
ticketing, online checkin, seat maps, airport info (including a two-page
downloadable PDF explaining the immensely complex new Toronto connection
options) and weekly Websaver special fares. Aussi disponible en francais
(https://www.aircanada.ca/francais/horaires/). Site uses a lot of Javascript
which usually works except when you're in a hurry.

Air St Pierre (https://www.airsaintpierre.com/) flies from St Pierre (which,
for those who slept through geography class, is a French island near
Newfoundland) to nearby points. Schedule and fares, in French, now some info
in English.

Air Transat (https://www.airtransat.com) is a Canadian scheduled charter line
that flies to the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. Well-organized web site has
schedules, reservations, and flight ops.

Bearskin Airlines (https://www.bearskinairlines.com/) flies small planes
around northern Ontario and Manitoba with hubs in bustling Thunder Bay and
Sioux Lookout. Sounds like fun. Info and reservations via a private label
version of Amadeus. The logo sweatshirts are attractive but seem a little
pricey at C$49.95.

Kenn Borek Air (https://www.borekair.com) offers scheduled service around the
Canadian arctic and charter service in the area between the North and South
poles.

Canadian Airlines has been absorbed into Air Canada, familiarly known as
Mapleflot.

Canjet (https://www.canjet.com) shut down its scheduled service. They still
run vacation charters to the Caribbean.

Firstair (https://www.firstair.ca/) flies around the Canadian arctic with
connections to the south, Site has has schedule, reservations, travel info,
and stuff you don't worry about farther south like which planes can land on
ice. (But you can no longer get from North America to Greenland without flying
through Iceland.)

Harmony Airways (https://www.harmonyairways.com/) flew from Canada to vacation
places, but their scheduled service stopped on April 9.

Jetsgo (https://www.jetsgo.com) was a low-cost Canadian carrier that was
eating Air Canada's lunch until they suddently stopped operating in March
2006.

Porter Airlines (https://www.flyporter.com/) flies small planes with leather
seats and free beer between Ottawa and the downtown Toronto Island airport.
(Finally!) Stylish site tells you how elegant and state of the art they are,
and also sells tickets and the usual stuff.

Via Rail Canada (https://www.viarail.ca) isn't an airline but is competitive
in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. Schedule and fare info, on-line
reservations. Aussi disponible en francais. (Was developed in French and
translated into English, I know the guy who did it.)

Westjet (https://www.westjet.com) is a relatively low-fare Canadian airline,
currently the only remaining significant competitor to Air Canada. Schedules,
reservations, flight ops. Weekly web specials can occasionally be pretty
cheap.

Zoom Airlines (https://www.flyzoom.com/) used to fly their three planes on a
sparse schedule between Canada and Britain and France, but shut down in late
August.

* Airlines in Europe

Aegean Air (https://www.aegeanair.com/aegeanen/home/index.asp) is a new full
service with moderate fares, airline flying around Greece and elsewhere in
Europe with nice new RJ-100s and tired old 737s. They're an attractive
alternative to Olympic.

Aer Lingus (https://www.aerlingus.com/) has on-line booking with a useful fare
calendar (click the Lowest Fares Availability link below the reservation box)
that shows when cheap fares are available. Use up those frequent flyer points
now, they've left the Oneworld alliance.

Aerosvit (https://www.aerosvit.ua/eng) flies to points in Europe, Asia, and
New York from their home base in Kiev, Ukraine. Fares are often quite cheap,
but customer reviews suggest that you (don't) get what you (don't) pay for.

African Safari Airways (https://www.africansafariclub.com/html/flights.php)
has been in operation since 1967 and fly from UK, Germany, Switzerland,
France, Italy and Austria to Kenya. Flights and tour packages.

Air Berlin (https://www.airberlin.com) flies from about twenty hubs in Germany
to holiday spots all over Europe, as well as Africa, south and southeast Asia,
North America, and the Caribbean. The very thorough albeit flash-heavy web
site has schedules, reservations, specials, and lots of other info, including
the fact that the airline was originally headquartered in Oregon, USA.

Air Europa (https://www.air-europa.com), a low-cost airline based in Spain,
has routes and schedules in an intriguing mix of English and Spanish.

Air France (https://www.airfrance.us) has an elegant and stylish site (would
you expect any less?) with the usual info, reservations, and frequent flyer
services. Weekly email newsletter has occasional deals to Europe and the
mid-East, also occasional biz class tickets for prices not much over full
coach.

Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.it) is the Italian flag carrier with a web site
in, not surprisingly, Italian. USA site (https://www.alitaliausa.com) has info
and reservations via a lightly customized version of ITN/Getthere. They also
have online specials, some of which are pretty good. The Italian government is
trying to sell off Alitalia which will probably cause strikes, since there is
no way they can compete with other European airlines without cutting their
huge labor costs.

Aer Arann (https://www.aerarann.ie) flies ATR turboprops within Ireland and to
Scotland, England and the Isle of Man.

Air Scotland seems to have disappeared without a trace.

Austrian Airlines (https://www.aua.com) offers schedule and availability info,
and a downloadable Excel spreadsheet schedule. Also special offers in a
sometimes inscrutable mix of German and English.

L'Avion (https://www.lavion.com/us/) flies between Newark and Paris, now as
part of BA's Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com). They recently added
service between Washington Dulles and Paris.

British Airways (https://www.british-airways.com/) has schedules and
reservations on an improved site with ticket-by-mail. Also flight ops, and,
depending on what part of the site you believe, there may be some special
offers for some flights departing from some countries, sometime.

bmi (https://www.flybmi.com/) (formerly British Midland) has a very blue web
site with the usual stuff. Join their diamond club frequent flyer program if
you plan to book, even if you use a different FF number, since that makes it
easier to trace reservations. They've been sold to Lufthansa, but in the short
term that's not likely to make much difference since they already codeshare
and have somewhat coordinated schedules.

bmibaby (https://www.bmibaby.com/) is a low-fare subsidiary of bmi, with
flights from regional airports in England and Wales to business and vacation
destinations in Ireland and Europe. Before you book, check that there isn't a
cheaper fare from a nearby airport on bmi (above.)

SN Brussels Airlines (https://www.flysn.com) is trying very hard to persuade
us that they're not Sabena. (They arose from the ashes of the Sabena
bankruptcy and seem to have the same cheerfully inept attitude.) They fly
around Europe and to a few places in Africa, but not to North America. Flights
to the US on their web site are in fact code-shares on American.

Cityjet (https://www.cityjet.com/) flies small jets from London City airport
to Ireland, Scotland, and France. It's headquartered in Dublin but is owned by
Air France. Site has the usual stuff, includes flights from VLM which is now
under the same ownership.

Crossair (https://www.crossair.ch/), has morphed into the new Swiss
(https://www.swiss.com) Swiss airline that's filling the hole left by
Swissair's demise.

Easyjet (https://www.easyjet.com) is a low fare airline with a hub at London
Luton. Site offers routes, reservations, and other info, with garish but easy
to read orange and blue graphics. Don't miss the stuffed pilot bear with
goggles and faux leather jacket, for only L 5.95. They acquired and absorbed
Go, formerly the low fare branch of British Airways.

Eastern Airways (https://www.easternairways.com) flies small planes to cities
around the UK with fares ranging from cheap to rather high. Routes, schedules,
fares, reservations. Baggage rules say "On board use of the ghetto-blaster
type or radio or tape player is an irritant to other passengers and is
forbidden."

Finnair (https://www.us.finnair.com/) has schedule info and occasional have
seat auctions. They have a reservation system hosted by Amadeus, but for some
reason they only let you buy expensive business class tickets through it.
Travellers in Finland can apparently access the web site through their cell
phones, which is kind of cool.

flybe (https://www.flybe.com) is a low-fare airline with hubs at Bristol,
Exeter, Southampton and Birmingham, flying mostly within the UK and from the
UK to Europe. Schedules and reservations. It used to be called British
European, but that name evidently wasn't contrived enough.

GermanWings (https://www.germanwings.com) is a cost airline flying from its
base at Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart all over Europe. E-Specials (see tab near
top of home page) include ticket sales and hotel discounts.

Globespan (https://www.flyglobespan.com) flew between Scottish airports and
mostly Mediterranean destinations, but went bust in December 2009.

Hapag-Lloyd Express (https://www.hlx.com/en/) is a cost airline, flyingfrom
Cologne/Bonn and Hannover to airports in Spain, Italy, England and Germany.
Schedules, reservations, destination info.

Hellas Jet (https://www.hellas-jet.com/) flies from Greece to major cities
Europe. It's a subsidiary of Cyprus Airways. Online booking via a
private-label version of ITN, frequent flyer program,

Iberia (https://www.iberia.es/) has schedules and fares in Spanish, English,
Danish, Swedish, Japanese, and Russian. Reservations through a private label
Amadeus site.

Iceland Express (https://www.icelandexpress.com) is an Icelandic low cost
airline linking Reykjavik with London and Copenhagen. Nice icebergs on the web
site, and you can change the name on a ticket for only L 20.

Icelandair (https://www.icelandair.com) flies between the US and Europe, via
their hub in Iceland. Reservations, flight info, specials. Lucky Fares mailing
list offers trans-Atlantic specials most weeks, occasionally at amazing
prices.

Jet2 (https://www.jet2.com) fliees from Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, and
Belfast in the UK to Spanish and French holiday spots, Amsterdam, Prague and
Milan. Schedules, reservations, links to places to buy holiday cottages.

KLM (https://www.klm.com) has a gateway site to national sites all over the
world, most of which offer schedules and some offer reservations. The US and
Canada sites are actually Northwest's. They're owned by Air France, but the
web sites don't seem to have noticed yet.

Lufthansa Info Flyway (https://www.lufthansa.com) offers schedule info (for
most airlines, not just LH) and also reservations. Also has a US site
(https://www.lufthansa-usa.com/) with info tailored to US customers, including
occasional Web Specials live seat auctions.

Luxair (https://www.luxair.lu) flies from Luxembourg to the places that
Luxemburgers (or is it the Luxembourgeois) want to go, business and vacation
destinations around Europe. Schedules, reservations, destination info
including the daily menu specials at the airport restaurant.

Malev (https://www.malev.hu) Hungarian airlines has an attractive site with
schedule info. But they stopped operating in early February 2012.

Manx Airlines (https://www.manx-airlines.com) has schedule info.

Mytravellite (https://www.mytravellite.com/) is a low cost airline flying from
Birmingham (UK) to Ireland and Spain. Schedules, reservations, destination
info. Small discount offered for online booking.

Norwegian Airlines (https://www.norwegian.no) is a low cost airline flying
from Oslo to Norway and elsewhere in Europe. Site has reservations and info
mostly translated from the Norwegian.

Olympic (https://www.olympicairlines.com/), the flag carrier of Greece, has a
basic site with online booking.

Openskies (https://www.flyopenskies.com/) is a new subsidiary of British
Airways that currently flies between Paris and New York, and Paris and
Washington DC. They plan to add flights from other European cities. (It's
named after the treaty that lets them do that.) Spiffy site has the usual
stuff; their premium economy gets rave reviews, close to biz class at much
lower fares.

Ryanair (https://www.ryanair.ie) is a rapidly expanding low-fare airline with
a hub at London Stansted and minor hubs in London Luton, Dublin, Shannon,
Glasgow, Brussels, Stockholm Skavsta, Frankfurt Hahn, and Milan Orio Al Serio.
Web site offers routes, fares, and booking. Fares start at one cent but rarely
stop there. Even with all the nuisance charges they're often quite cheap, and
once you battle your way onto the plane, they generally run on time and rarely
lose the bag you've paid them to check.

SAS (https://www.sas.se) has schedule info on-line, and in large downloadable
text file. Windows interface program (2MB download) lets you search through
the schedule file, but it's far faster to search with a text editor. Also
limited reservations for pass holders and frequent flyer redemptions.

Spanair (https://www.spanair.com/) is a Spanish regional airline that ran out
of money and suddenly collapsed. Not currently recommended.

Swiss (https://www.swiss.com), the successor to Crossair, has schedule info
and on-line booking on a somewhat sloppy site, and some web specials. (Click
Special Offers on the home page.) They're about to be taken over by Lufthansa,
but it's not clear whether it'll continue to operate as a separate airline.

Swissair went bankrupt in September 2001 and their schedules have somewhat
been taken over by Swiss airlines.

Thomsonfly (https://flights.thomson.co.uk/en/index.html) is a low fare airline
based in the UK offering flights to vacation destinations in central and
southern Europe, north Africa, and the Americas. Site offers flights and
package vacations.

Transavia (https://www.transavia.nl/en) is a subsidiary of KLM flying from
Amsterdam to holiday destinations in Europe and north Africa. Info and online
reservations. Their former low-cost subsidiary Basiqair is now merged into
Transavia.

Virgin Atlantic (https://www.fly.virgin.com/) has a spiffy looking site with
reservations, fares, and ticketing. Also tours and occasional specials.

VLM (https://www.vlm-airlines.com/) is a low-cost airline flying small planes
mostly between the UK and Benelux. (The V stands for Flemish.) Schedules,
reservations, company history. It's more or less the same airline as Citijet
now, owned by Air France/KLM.

XL Airways (https://www.xl.com) flies from France and Germany to vacation
destinations in southern Europe and north Africa, primarily package vacations.
Dense, functional has all the stuff they offer. Their former parent, Excel
Airways in the UK, is bankrupt, but spun off the continental parts which are
still in business. For now, at least.

* Airlines elsewhere in the world

Afriqiyah (https://www.afriqiyah.aero/) flies a modern fleet from its home
base in Tripoli to Africa, Europe, and Asia. Snappy looking site offered the
usual stuff, with online booking provided by Sabre but doesn't currently work.

Air Asia (https://www.airasia.com/) is a startup headquartered in Kuala Lumpur
(Malaysia) offering low-fare single-class point to point service along the
lines of JetBlue or Ryanair. They have some amazing intro fares, like round
trip from Kuala Lumpur to Johor, across the bridge from Singamore, for RM78,
about US$20. Online reservations, info, and a nice three page menu of onboard
food offerings. I think I'll try the Asian egg salad sandwich. In September
2007, a new affiliate called (for the moment) AirAsia X
(https://www.airasia.com/site/en/page.jsp?reference=aax_pr1) will start
low-fare long haul service between Malaysia and points as far away as Europe.

Air India (https://home.airindia.in/) has a home page chock full of dancing,
blinking flash animations that looks like an Asian bazaar (which, I suppose,
it is.) Site is oddly organized but has the usual stuff, online ticketing,
ops, destination info, and so forth. To buy tickets you have to register as a
YATRIK (Your Airline Travel Reservation Internet Kit.) It's different in
India.

Air New Zealand (https://www.airnz.co.nz) offers schedules and booking via a
private-label version of ITN/Getthere, which one time assured me that you
can't fly from Auckland to New York. It's better now, although it doesn't seem
to find the best fares. Also special fares and frequent flyer info. Once
you're on the plane, though, the service is great, particularly those flat bed
business class seats.

ANA (https://www.ana.co.jp/eng/int/) is Japan's #2 airline, flying both
domestic and international routes. Site is not fancy but very functional with
much better fare info than most airlines offer. Once you buy a ticket, don't
miss the cute animated seat selector.

Ansett Australia (https://www.ansett.com.au) stopped flying in March 2002. But
the web site has lots of tedious details of the financial dissection of the
carcass.

Aerolineas Argentinas (https://www.aerolineas.com.ar) has schedules and
reservations (for Argentine residents) through a private label version of
Amadeus. In Spanish and English. I think it's flying this week, labor has been
battling owner Iberia.

Cathay Pacific (https://www.cathay-usa.com), Hong Kong's airline, offers
booking through ITN and a variety of special offers such as bonus AA frequent
flyer miles or package deals to Asia.

El Al (https://www.elal.co.il) has U.S. schedules and some US-oriented package
info. Appears to have on-line booking although I couldn't get it to work.

Emirates (https://www.emirates.com), the airline of Dubai, has an attractive
site with info about schedules, packages and special offers, and requent flyer
info. The on-line booking makes it easy to search by schedule, even among
multiple days, somewhat possible to search by fare, and due to Javascript bugs
I can't tell whether it actually sells tickets.

Gol (https://www.voegol.com.br) is a low-fare airline flying in Brazil and a
few adjacent countries. Routes, fares, e-tickets, ground connections. Nice
flash animation of flying pigs on the home page.

Kingfisher (https://www.flykingfisher.com/) flies throughout India and to
London and a few cities in Asia. Service is supposed to be quite good,
although they're reported to be running out of money. Bright red web site has
all the usual stuff.

Lan Chile (https://www.lanchile.cl) has an attractive multi-lingual site with
schedules, fares, and some cheap Internet-only specials.

Malaysia Airlines (https://www.malaysiaairlines.com) has route and schedule
information, with frequent special deals, but if you want to buy a ticket, you
have to call them.

Pacific Blue (https://www.flypacificblue.com/) is a new bit of the Virgin
empire that flying from New Zealand to Australia and other South Pacific
points and, later this year, domestically in New Zealand. The web site is
basically the same as its ozzie parent Virgin Blue, with some really cheap
introductory fares on their new routes.

Polynesian Airlines (https://www.polynesianairlines.co.nz/) has basic routes
and schedules.

Qantas (https://www.qantas.com.au) has an attractive site with online booking,
schedule info and flight ops and a downloadable off-line Windows itinerary
manager. Bookings are oriented toward but not limited to Australian residents.

Royal Air Maroc (https://www.royalairmaroc.com/) has an attractive site with a
fragile connection to Amadeus that will occasionally sell you a ticket. Site
has a grab bag of other goodies such as detailed information on many airports
they fly to (but none of the ones in Morocco), and the results of the 4th
World Executive Challenge golf tournament.

Royal Jordanian (https://www.rja.com.jo) has a stylish but slow web site with
routes and schedules to and from their Amman hub.

Singapore Airlines (https://www.singaporeair.com) has schedule info,
reservations, frequent flyer, and info on their new A380s. It's best viewed
via a server that will filter out anything that's unwholesome.

South African Airways (https://www.saa.co.za/saa) has schedules and a little
destination info, but they've toned down the eye-straining graphics.
Occasional seat auctions.

Varig (https://www.varig.com.br), is now a subsidiary of low cost carrier Gol,
the old Varig having run out of money and died a while ago. Web site entirely
in Portugese has schedule info and reservations.

Virgin Blue (https://www.virginblue.com.au) is a low-fare domestic airline in
Australia with its hub in sunny Brisbane. Schedules and on-line booking. Lunch
costs extra.


* Are there many on-line agents?

There's lots of them, grouped below by location of the agent and type of
service.

NOTE: All of the descriptions below are edited from info provided by the
agencies themselves. There are many resources other than travel agents
available on the net, as well, but they're not listed here. Most agencies
offer a broad range of services, so the groupings by type of service below are
pretty arbitrary.

NOTE: If you're a travel agent and would like to be listed, drop me a note and
I'll add you. Please make my life easier by e-mailing me a three-line or so
description in the style above. Thanks.

* Generalist agents mostly located in the U.S.

My America Holiday (https://www.myamericaholiday.co.uk/) is a UK based agency
is a UK based travel company that specializes in organizing tours and
vacations to a large number of destinations in the USA.

Select Travel, in business for over 30 years, at Last Minute Flights Genie
(https://www.lastminuteflightsgenie.com) is an airline ticket consolidator
that specializes in providing discounted tickets to travel agencies, corporate
travel departments and individuals for last minute, short notice and next day
flights on most major airlines from anywhere to anywhere worldwide. Business
class, first class and coach.

Alexys (https:www.alexys.us) offers air tickets and tours. They have online
booking /online search for international and domestic flights within USA.
India a specialty.

VGO World Inc. <vgoworld@att.net> is a full service travel agency offering low
fares to international and domestic destinations backed with professional and
courteous service. Competitive prices to complicated international trips that
online sites cannot figure.

Montrose Travel (https://www.MontroseTravel.com), one of the 50 largest Travel
Agencies in the United States combines online deals and discounts with
unmatched offline service.

EZTrip.com (https://www.eztrip.com/), an online agency in Missouri, offers
tickets, hotels, rental cars, and modest amounts of destination info.


Bayless Travel Associates (https://www.baylesstravel.com) Full-service
Vacation Travel (Domestic and International) in Oklahoma City. Book your
vacation on-line.

Isha Tours & Travels (https://www.ishatravels.com) in Edison NJ provide
consolidators airfares to anywhere in the world.

Enid Cohen <enid.cohen@worldtravel.com> affiliated with WorldTravel Partners
in Dallas, has over 30 years of experience both arranging travel and
travelling herself, specializes in meticulous, old-fashioned service to
business and leisure/personal travellers.

Compass Point Travel <travel@cptravel.com> is a full service agency that
welcomes Internet customers. Specialties include custom planning of major
trips, Club Med, discount cruises, adventure travel, and US-originating
international travel. Web page (https://www.cptravel.com/).

Germantown Travel <airtkts@airtravel.com> in Germantown Md is a full service
airline ticket agency suppling information and discounted tickets for domestic
and international travel. Web site (https://airtravel.com) with special fares
and Caribbean tour info.

CTM Travel <ctm-trav@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us> in Coral Springs FL welcomes
business from the Internet.

Genie Travel Services Inc. <info@genietravel.com> specializes in discounted
international and domestic airline tickets for Internet customers. For prices,
see their web page (https://www.genietravel.com).

Endeavour Travel <Endeavour@Anzac.com> is a travel agency specialising in NZ
and Australian travel, staffed in large part by Aussies and Kiwis. Web pages
(https://www.anzac.com/endvr/endvr.htm). I got Circle Pacific tickets from
them, service was decent.

Marla Baer-Peckham <marla@iquest.com> of Cornucopia First Class Travel is a
full-service travel agency. Web page (https://iquest.com/~marla).

Uniglobe GEM Travel <gary@uniglobe-gem.com> or Full service agency, WWW site
(https://www.uniglobe-gem.com/) with leisure info and travel request forms.
Our goal is not to find the cheapest product, but the best value for money.

Park'N Ticket Travel <sonny@photobooks.atdc.gatech.edu> located in Atlanta GA,
specializes in Business Travel. We have a 24 hour travel agency as well as a
1,250 car parking facility with a 24 hour shuttle service.

Paul Foley <pfoley@his.com>, at Passport Executive Travel of Alexandria, VA, a
full-service agency, CLIA, and IGTA, specializes in Corporate Travel, personal
preference is Gay and Lesbian travel. Web page
(https://www.prairienet.org/business/travex/homepage.html).

The Travel Experts <travex@prairienet.org> in Champaign, Illinois is a full
service agency with a special emphasis in Caribbean destinations and the UK,
and have expertise in Israel and the Middle East. Web page
(https://www.prairienet.org/business/travex/homepage.html).

Newlywed Susan Mitchell Skinner <YourTrvlAg@aol.com> at Online Travelservices
near Atlanta specializes in honeymoons and family vacations -- but also work
with consolidators and offer fast turnaround on quotes to international
destinations.

Priority Travel <ffraim@tiac.net> is a small agency in Waltham, Mass
specializing in corporate travel for small companies and start-ups who need to
minimize their travel costs. Also have specialist in European business or
vacation travel.

World Travel <worldtra@sprynet.com> located in Stockton, CA, specializes in
travel to Southeast Asia. A Traveler's Choice Associate.

Super Saver Travel <amdenver@usa.pipeline.com>, Aurora, CO, offer personalized
service in getting you the lowest available airfares out of Denver and
Colorado Springs area. Domestic & International.

Adventure Travel Service (https://www.greencis.net/~ats) provides domestic and
international consolidator tickets. Book online for domestic tickets using
ITN, and Spring Break '97 packages now available. Email <ats@greencis.net>.

QuinWell Travel Service (https://www.quinwell.com) is a full-service travel
agency offering SABRE online reservations & ticketing, discounted cruises &
tours, free newsletter, and an extensive web site.

Metropolitan Travel (https://www.mettravel.com), specializes in corporate
travel, res/tickets through ITN, offers reports online, tracking for companies
and employees, tracks trips, FF miles, etc., including pre-trip reports. Also
vacation specials through "Club Met".

Heather Trofholz <jt@prtcl.com>, Aliso Veijo CA, corporate/business executive
specialist. Knowledgeable, personalized service, delivery, maps, vacation
planning to the traveling individual. Available for new So. Orange County
clients. Web site (https://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/3005).

Certified Travel Services (https://www.certravel.com) is building a network of
independent travel agents who operate from their homes or places of business.
Complete training, software, reservations system, manuals and continuing
support is offered. Listings of travel specials and on-line air travel booking
is provided through their Internet site.

RMS InHouse Travel (https://www.rmssys.com) is a full service agency offering
on-line reservation system.

Travel Service, Inc. <kimlogan@usa.net> has three offices in the Tulsa area,
in the business since 1973, are a full service agency, specializing in groups.

Rosemarie Hughey at Go Vegas First Class <govegas@aol.com> located in Las
Vegas NV provides a service to travelers to Las Vegas and surroundings as well
as airfares to Europe. German spoken.

Lovely Planet Discount Travel Service <premrup@micron.net> in Hailey, ID
specializes in researching international discounted airfares.

Biztravel.com went out of business in September 2001

B. Charles and Co. (www.airreservations.com) has lists of discounted fares and
travel agent contacts. No on-line schedules or booking, call their toll-free
number.

Kayron and Don Lance <jlance@sprynet.com>, independent agents for Carroll
Cruises and Tours, specialize in cruises, tours and packages. Especially
knowledgable about the Caribbean. Online reservations
(https://www.travelopinion.com) and Caribbean hotel information
(<https://www.caribbeanopinion.com).

Terminal One Travel (https://www.terminal-one-travel.com) offers direct
bookings via Worldspan. Also packages, custom tours. E-mail mailing list.

MtRoyalTravel (https://www.MtRoyalTravel.com), full service "personalized"
travel agency for leisure and corporate travel arrangements, many packages,
all experienced agents and many price ranges (economy to first class). Over 25
years of experience.


* Tours, cruises, and special interest agents located in the U.S.

Port compass (https://www.portcompass.com) is a shore excursion megastore
specializing in discounted port tours for cruise passengers worldwide. Regions
include South America, Europe, Alaska, Caribbean, Hawaii, etc.

Air Savings (https://www.air-savings.com) specializes in cheap flights to
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Srilanka. We also offer cheap airline tickets
to Dubai, and the rest of the middle east.

Kalliste Tours (https://www.kallistetours.com) specializes exclusively in
Corsica since 1999. Escorted luxury cultural tours in spring and winter for 4
to 8 people.

Journeys Off the Tourist Track (https://www.balijourneys.com) is a 11 year
expert in groups and unique individual vacations to Bali, Thailand, Fiji,
Hawaii plus individual African Safaris and Off the Tourist Track travel with
discounted air to most international destinations.

Travelagentus.com (https://travelagentus.com) is a consolidator travel agency
primarily promoting business class air ticktes to Europe, Africa, Asia, and
Australia.

Fly Malaysia Air (https://www.flymas.com) offers discount airline tickets on
Malaysia Airlines for international flights departing the United States via
LAX and Newark to Malaysia and southeast Asia.

Trav.com (https://www.trav.com) offers Online Reservations for Budget
Accommodation. Book hostels, hotels, apartments, campsites and bed and
breakfasts online.� Instant reservations guaranteed.� Online accommodation
finder.

Airline Consolidator (https://www.airlineconsolidator.com) is a retail
consolidator and travel agency specializing in discount international
airfares. Offers online booking and live telephone support.

Destination Southern Africa (https://www.amasafari.com) is a full service
travel company for Southern and Eastern Africa. Tours, safaris, car hire,
packages, hotels, transfers for groups or individuals.

Since 1980, Eric Fenster <moscowtrip2004@yahoo.com> has organized affordable
study trips to Moscow to examine political and economic change in Russia
first-hand. All adults welcome.


Air Discounters International (https://www.airdiscounters.com/) offers
discounted airline tickets from the US to Europe, Africa, Asia, South Pacific,
Central America, and South America. They also have hotel discounts in most
major cities worldwide.

Bonjour USA tours (https://www.bonjourusa.com) specializes in providing ground
services for leisure and business group travel to all major cities,
attractions, sights and National Parks of the USA.

Travel Tek (https://travtek.net) specializes in discounted business and first
class airfares to international destinations.

Walter Ward (wward14@bellsouth.net) at Jacquin Travel in Miami, a full service
agency including Gay/Lesbian travel.

Air Overseas (https://www.airoverseas.com) in Miami specializes in travel to
Europe. Air fares, car rental rates, and European Rail programs.

Travel Network (https://www.tvllink.com/travel.network) of Walnut Creek, CA is
a full service agency. Cruises, Jamaican All Inclusive Resorts and Hawaiian
Vacations are among our specialties. Try our "Rock Bottom Fare Finder" E-mail
<travelen@ix.netcom.com.>

Superior Travel Service <akilby@aol.com> specializing in Singles Groups, age
45 to 60's. Accredited CLIA member specializing in cruises, Have cruised
Europe, Panama Canal,Bermuda, Alaska, etc.

Mike Espinosa <maluku@malkilu.com> at Maluku Adventures is a tour operator
specializing in SE Asia, and Nepal. We offer kayaking, diving, and treks.

Manny Segall at Vacation Partners <manny@vacationpartners.com> runs a service
that finds compatible travel mates for single travelers, for companionship and
to avoid the dreaded single supplement. Web page
(https://www.vacationpartners.com).

Bill Byrnes <William144@aol.com> author of "Airfare Secrets" specializes in
high value Round the World, long haul and missionary travel. Offshore
ticketing from Euro and Asian consolidators.

Torcaza Trails <rdrake@ing.ula.ve> offer a mountain treking and a tropical
forest option in western Venezuela. Web page of Venezuela info
(https://venezuela.mit.edu).

European Traveler,Inc. <usdirect@wizard.com> specializes in individual
vacations to Europe. Full colour brochure "EURO CITY TRIPS" available on
request offers 2-3-5 and 7 days packages in up to 40 cities all over Europe.

Association of Business Travellers <abt1@attmail.com> offers the international
traveller a hotel reservation service, specials at top class hotels,
restaurants, service office facilities, lost lugage tracing, etc. Web page
(https://www.abt-travel.com).

Cruisin <longleyr@tiac.net> The first exclusively on line cruise only agency.
Web page (https://www.crocker.com/cruisin).

Island Dreams Tours & Travel <info@islandream.com> specializes in scuba
diving, snorkeling, and world-wide adventure travel. Web page
(https://www.islandream.com/island/index.htm) with a broad range of
information of interest to scuba divers and international travelers.

Bill Welk <Bill@Lodging1.com> of Vacation Connection operate a lodging
reservation service in Oshkosh, Wi. and serve many special events organizers
by providing free use of our toll free phone numbers for information and
lodging connections. Web page (https://www.atw.fullfeed.com/~dadvanc/).

OnlineTravel <online@eurorail.com> offers European railpasses, Eurail travel,
and the Chunnel channel tunnel, with planning maps, car rental and discount
air fares. Web page (https://www.eurorail.com).

Travel Agents International (https://www.traveltai.com) specialize in
corporate travel and cruises. Located in Florida, offering special insight
into Florida vacation destinations. Reservations via ITN, and a custom
designed form for cruise quotations.

First Class Travel <travel11@ix.netcom.com> specializes in sports and leisure
travel, welcome Internet customers, E-mail for info.

Classic Travel <dbj@internetmci.com>, full service agency specializing in
cruises, caribbean dream vacations, european discoveries, mexican getaways,
las vegas sprees, etc. Travelfax newsletter loaded with specials, send your
fax number for our latest copy.

Barbara & Earl Seppala (https://www.selective-travel.com/) of Selective
Travel, Scottsdale AZ, outside agents, specializing in cruises and
international tours. Email <select@selective-travel.com>.

ModTravel (https://www.modtravel.com) are Leisure Travel Consultants
specializing in Hawaii and Mexico destinations.

Mexico Online (https://www.mexonline.com/travel) is a complete reservation
service dedicated to Mexico. We offer vacation packages to 100 of the most
popular resort and specialty properties, archeological tours and the Copper
Canyon, and can include discounted airfare, car rental, and fishing
expeditions.

Marvelous Tickets (https://www.marveloustickets.com) specializes in worldwide
sports tours & tickets, offering tickets and travel for major events in
football, baseball, tennis, boxing, racing, etc. for individuals & groups.
Event information is available at web site.

Barbara Kwiatek <Bkwia@aol.com>, CTC, MCC, Aussie Specialist, Holland
Specialist, Disney Specialist, Unique Travel.

Phil Carta's NEW ADVENTURES (https://www.newadventures.com) specialize in
vacations to exotic, sunny, tropical destinations and do 75% of our business
through the internet. E-mail newsletter.

Lighthouse Travel (https://www.lighthousetravel.com) is a travel agent that
specializes in cruises, members of the Cruise Lines International Association
(CLIA) and experienced cruise counselor. No fee for our services and discount
all cruises.

Global Express Travel <Globalex@ultranet.com> specializes in discount leisure
and discount midweek business travel.


* Agents located in Canada

Nathalie Laroche at Uniglobe Voyage Supreme (https://www.uniglobesupreme.ca)
in Kirkland, Quebec, offers travel services to individuals and groups.
Nathalie also specializes in cruises, members of the Cruise Lines
International Association (CLIA) and experienced cruise counselor. Will serve
you in English as in French. Email nathalie@uniglobesupreme.ca.

Cruise Vacation World (https://www.cruisevacationworld.com) located in Toronto
specializes in discount cruises and cruise vacation packages. Member of Cruise
Lines International Association and government registered.

African Wings Travel & Tours (https://africanwings.com) in Toronto specializes
in travel to Africa and other international destinations.

Debby Lampron-Lynch at Voyage Absolue (https://www.voyageabsolue.com) of
St-Hyacinthe, Quebec, offers travel service to individuals and groups. Will
serve you in Engish as in French. Email <absolue@ntic.qc.ca>.

Future Travel/Voyages L'Avenir <ttifutur@total.net> of Montreal offers
complete leisure and corporate travel services, they accept reservation and
information requests via e-mail, in business since 1974.

Marc-Andre Lalande <lalandem@nash.pubnix.net> at Voyages Vacances Tourisme in
Montreal specializes in incoming and outgoing tourism, leisure and corporate
travel from all over the world. Affiliated with wholesaler Groupe Voyages
Quebec.

Jimmy Georgiadis <rextrvl@generation.net>, Montreal, Que., has 45 years of
experience with travel to the land of the Gods - GREECE. "If it's Greece, we
have it". Can arrange, hotels, car rentals, yacht rentals, tours. Web page
(https://www.generation.net/~rextrvl).

Robert Zuzek at Kompas Express Travel (https://home.istar.ca/~kompex) is a
specialist on Spain and Italy has contacts with many local suppliers does "a
la carte" itineraries and has best Airfares with 6 European carriers ex
Toronto.

B & P Travel Services (https://imf.nb.ca/bptravel) operates from Fredericton,
N,B.,Canada. Dealing in Quality Travel Products, Insurance and Discounted
International Air Fares. Departing from Halifax, Montreal and Ottawa.


* Agents located in Europe

Loveholidays (https://www.loveholidays.com/flights) is a UK based agent
specializing in vacation travel from UK airports.

Skyjet Air Travles (https://www.skyjetairtravel.co.uk) is a UK based company
offering cheap flight ticket bookings from all major UK airports.

All Destinations (https://www.all-destinations.com), a UK agent established in
1988, offers flights, packages, and other travel products.

Destinations Europe (https://www.destinationseurope.com) is a
specialist�company offering a personal service for�UK and Europe
including�weddings, honeymoons, tailormade holidays, adventure holidays for
couple or small groups. Also garden and military group holidays.

Flight Bureau (https://www.flightbureau.com) is based in Edinburgh but serving
people worldwide, specialise in flights, particularly odd itineraries or RTW
trips. Other services include hotels, car hire and travel insurance.
Discounted fares available with many airlines, including inbound fares from
Australia and the US to the UK.

Sky Tours (https://www.sky-tours.com) is a German agency offering a combined
database of published and discounted airfares. They note that European fares
are occasionally lower than US fares for the same flights.

DriveEurope (https://www.driveeurope.com/) offers the European Driving Tours
as well as car and motorhome rentals and more then 5000 hotels.

Zak Travel <zak@dircon.co.uk> is an on-line British discount flight agency
specialising in flights from the UK to Europe and worldwide. We offer the
cheapest scheduled and charter flights and offer a no-obligation flight
reservation service.

Jan Hutchings <jan@caribean.its.net> of Concord World Travel, London, arranges
tailor-made travel worldwide at sensible prices: tours, flights,
accommodation, car hire, cruises. For departures from Britain.

Global Adventures <mikem@globaladventures.com> specializes in custom travel
for the active and adventurous traveler to Australia, the South Pacific, and
Southern Africa. Web page:https://www.globaladventures.com (.)

Andean Trails <andeantrails@belmont.abel.co.uk> specializes in small group,
off beat trekking and mountain biking adventures in the Andes. Web site
(https://www.abel.co.uk/~belmont/andean-trails.htm).

Shelley at Goel Travel International
<goel-travel-international@ukbusiness.com> offers business flights, hotels,
conferences, and limousines for discerning individuals who appreciate
hassle-free service and privacy. Web site
(https://www.ukbusiness.com/goel-travel-international).

European Travel Network (https://www.etn.nl/) has an extremely cluttered web
site which lets you get discounted fare quotes from a variety of travel
agents. Also a link to ITN for regular booking. In March 2001 they sent mail
to me which looked to me to be spam, they swear that I'd left the address they
spammed with a fare info request on their site a year earlier. I find that
very hard to believe, both because I don't recall visiting their site at all
in 2000, and because the address they spammed isn't one that I'd have used
there.

Airline Network (https://www.airnet.co.uk/) has on-line discount fares and
booking for flights from the UK.

Flightbookers (https://www.flightbookers.co.uk)p offers flight booking and
info. They appear to be affiliated with TISS, described earlier.

Imp Travel (user@imptravel.itsnet.co.uk) of Lincoln UK offer discounted
schedule and charter flights ex Uk,plus discounted package holidays. We also
arrange incoming ground arrangements within the UK and Germany on an
individual basis or groups.


* Agents located in other parts of the world

Pagan Nomads (https://www.gonomads.com) designs, promotes and market
affordable,alternative and eco-adventure tour packages to the Philippines,
Asia and the World.

Middle East Travels & Tours (P) Ltd. <mett@wlink.com.np> in Kupondole,
Lalitpur, Nepal, arranges trekking, mountaineering, and other tours in Nepal.

IranGashtTour.com (https://www.irangashttour.com), located in Iran, offers
tours and other travel services for visitors to Iran.

Traveller Services (HK) Ltd (https://www.traveller.com.hk) is a travel agent
and local hotel consolidator in Hong Kong. Online ticketing and consolidator
fares, also online hotel booking.

Stellenbosch Travel (https://www.stellenbosch-travel.co.za) in South Africa,
provide flights, tours and car hire in South Africa at subsidised tourist
rates, also all accommodation in Cape Town and our Winelands Area.

Meet the People provides small-group and private-charter day tours for
international visitors to Sydney, Australia. Their web page
(https://www.meetoz.com.au/g_day) has links and other visitor info.

Bagwis Travel & Tours Inc. <bagwistt@dv.weblinq.com> in Davao, Philippines.
specializes in international travel & local tours of the beautiful white sand
beaches in Mindanao. especially Pearl farm, a must for all tourists

Cyber Air Broker <philt@world.net>, Sydney, Australia, offers discounted
airfares worldwide. Free internet access for travelers in Sydney. Web page
(https://www.airdiscounter.com), also separate web pages for offices in Manila
(https://www.airdiscounter.com/ph) and Auckland
(https://www.airdiscounter.com/nz).

Lucky Travel <lucky@batelco.com.bh> in Bahrain offers best rates from the
Arabian Gulf to all over the world, also arranges tours to US and far east.

Re'em Greiver <patra@netvision.net.il>, Patra Travel Agency in Israel,
specializes in business travel, as well as groups & FIT to Israel on the upper
class standards.

Costa Rica Express <cricaexp@sol.racsa.co.cr>, the oldest travel agency in
Costa Rica, offers tours and packages on their web page
(https://www.icr.co.cr/crexpress) with a 20% discount to Internet users.

Alex Poplavskiy at Transit Travel and Tours <transit@gem.co.za> in Cape Town,
South Africa, offers domestic and worldwide ticketing with response and
confirmation within 24 hours. Also tour operator in Southern Africa.

Bob Tierney (https://vader.nw.com.au/~harley), owner of Australian Harley
Holidays and Hawg Custom Harley Tours, in Western Australia, offer motorcycle
tour packages, a unique holiday experience and cater to individuals through to
corporate groups.

Cyber Air Broker (https://www.airdiscounter.com) is an Australian based travel
agency. Fare discounts offered, higher discounts if you book your own ticket
via Travelocity.

Gateway Travel (https://www.magna.com.au/~gatrav) is a full service agent with
expertise in to travel to Russia and other CIS countries.

NELL Tour & Travel Services Ltd. <nelltour@upg.mega.net.id>, tour operator in
Sulawesi (Celebes) UjungPandang. Indonesia. Specializing in daily Bugis-Toraja
package tour, off the beaten track tours, special interest tours ,cruises ,
etc.

NOTE: If you're a travel agent and would like to be listed, drop me a note and
I'll add you. Please make my life easier by e-mailing me a three-line or so
description in the style above. Thanks. PLEASE NOTE: I am not a travel agent,
just an interested traveller. Everything I know about on-line travel info is
in this FAQ. Don't write or call me asking for fare quotes, packages, or any
other travel agent info, because I don't have it.