When Adam Vinatieri kicked the 48-yard field goal that brought a triumphant end to the Super Bowl — and to the Patriots’ season of destiny — most New Englanders celebrated in their living rooms, jumping out of their armchairs to high-five their neighbors. But Al Reilly and his girlfriend, Christa Raimondo, leapt from their seats inside the Louisiana Superdome to embrace other Pats fans as Vinatieri ran into the end zone 40 feet in front of them.
How did Reilly get to watch the game of a lifetime from the goal line? He’s not a season-ticket holder, and his last name isn’t Kraft, but in addition to being a die-hard Patriots fan, Reilly is a devotee of Priceline.com (www.priceline.com).
Four days before the Super Bowl, Reilly and Raimondo started looking online to see if they could find reasonably priced plane tickets that would get them anywhere in the vicinity of the Big Easy. After searching more than 20 sites, they settled on a $150 round-trip fare to Atlanta that they found on Priceline — the only site, says Reilly, that offered them fares within their price range.
" It really was a good deal. It’s what made the trip possible, " explains Reilly. If he’d spent any more money on his plane ticket, he wouldn’t have been able to afford the $200 tickets he ended up scoring just 30 minutes before the kickoff.
With Pats fans scrambling to get to the Super Bowl any way possible, Reilly surely wasn’t the only one to turn to the Internet to make his plans. But with travel Web sites becoming more and more inclusive, many travelers are heading to the Net for all their travel needs. From comparing airfares and booking hotel rooms to finding a maple festival in New Hampshire, you can do it all online.
Of course, the greatest advantage of using a travel Web site to book your trips is that you have an opportunity to save big. Reilly says the airline tickets he bought to Atlanta were half the price of tickets offered on other sites — not an uncommon savings for Priceline. The discount-travel-and-service site has been around for almost four years, operating under the mantra " name your own price. " Customers enter a bid for how much they’re willing to pay for airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and other services, and Priceline searches its fares and rates to see if it has an airline, hotel, or car-rental company willing to release products at that price. If the site finds a match for your bid, you’ll be notified by e-mail within 15 minutes.
Of course, the service has a few catches — and unless you’re prepared to be flexible, they’re big ones. Before Priceline even considers your bid, you must give the site your credit-card information, and if your bid is accepted, your card is automatically billed. Once that happens, tickets can’t be transferred or cancelled.
The other drawback is that only after your bid has been accepted (and paid for) do you learn the details of your purchase — details such as the airline, arrival and departure times, hotel name and location, and how many beds are in the room. If you need to know the specific details of your itinerary before you buy, Priceline isn’t for you. For Reilly, getting to the Super Bowl was what really mattered, so he was willing to compromise on the details in exchange for a big discount.
A similar site is Hotwire (www.hotwire.com), a year-old discount-travel site that also offers airline tickets, hotel rooms, and rental-car reservations at savings of up to 40 percent. Like Priceline, though, travel and other details aren’t released until you complete your purchase. " People realize that a cheap ticket, a discounted flight, comes with restrictions, " says Hotwire’s Amy Bohatinsky.
Unlike Priceline, Hotwire doesn’t require customers to bid on their flights or hotel rooms. Instead, Hotwire — which was founded in part by six major airlines — searches its specially negotiated rates and fares for the cheapest option matching your criteria. Once Hotwire finds the lowest price, you’re given one hour to accept or reject the offer. Accepting it requires entering your credit-card information, and only then will you receive your travel details. Bohatinsky says the typical Hotwire traveler is someone who’s most concerned with price and can be flexible with details such as time and location.
Even if you’re willing to be completely flexible, sites like Priceline and Hotwire have other drawbacks. Nicole Adragna used Hotwire to book a flight from Boston to Chicago last fall. She got a great deal, and the flight times were very convenient, with only one layover in Detroit. However, when her flight out of Boston was delayed, she missed her connecting flight to Chicago — the airline’s final flight of the night. Because Hotwire flights are nonrefundable and nontransferable, Adragna wasn’t able to take another airline’s flight on to Chicago. The airline did pay for her to spend the night in Detroit, but she lost almost a full day of her trip.
If you’re not the type of traveler who can fly by the seat of your pants, there are many other, more-traditional travel sites where you can get a bargain but still retain control over your itinerary. Mega-site Travelocity (www.travelocity.com) offers deals on airfare, hotels, rental cars, cruises, vacation packages, and more. The site has more than 50,000 hotels, 700 airlines, and 50 car-rental companies in its database. Plus, you can research destinations, check last-minute deals, read travel alerts, and sign up for e-newsletters. Similar sites include Expedia (www.expedia.com), Orbitz (www.orbitz.com), and OneTravel.com (www.onetravel.com).
If you want to save time and energy, try a fare-comparison site such as SideStep (www.sidestep.com). To use it, you first have to download a free application that runs on your Web browser. Then, any time you visit a travel Web site and start searching for fares or rates, SideStep automatically opens in a new window and does its own, side-by-side search. SideStep searches more than 120 Web sites to find the lowest fare; it’s also the only site to include Southwest Airlines in its search.
" The deals are out there, and we can help you find them, " says SideStep’s Phil Carpenter. " We give consumers a really fair view of what’s out there. "
Carpenter says that when looking at travel options, consumers are typically not shown the full range of available fares. SideStep tracks down not only the published fares but also Web-only, negotiated, white-labeled, and other special fares. You can’t book a reservation directly through SideStep, but with one click you’ll be taken directly to the specific page of the vendor’s site to buy your ticket.
Other comparison travel sites include Qixo (www.qixo.com) and FareChase (www.farechase.com). Each site essentially does the same thing, but operates slightly differently. Qixo, for example, charges an additional $10 booking fee.
Some sites deal specifically with hotel reservations, including Quikbook (www.quikbook.com), a service that’s been in operation since 1988. Quikbook guarantees the lowest rates on hotels in major cities, backing up the claim with the promise that they’ll refund you the difference if you find a cheaper rate within 24 hours of booking a reservation. Quikbook rates the hotels on a quality scale and doesn’t include poorly rated hotels in its service. Sarah McCarthy used Quikbook to reserve a hotel for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival last year. She says when she started looking for hotels online, most of those located in the city were either completely booked or outrageously expensive. The hotel she booked through Quikbook, located just two blocks from the French Quarter, cost about $220 per night for a four-person room.
More extensive hotel Web sites include All-Hotels (www.all-hotels.com), which searches 60,000 hotels around the world, and HotelDiscounts.com (www.hoteldiscounts.com), which promises discounts of up to 65 percent.
For more-specialized travel needs, there are sites that deal with specific regions or certain types of travel. Founded in 1994, BedandBreakfast.com (www.bedandbreakfast.com) offers information on more than 27,000 inns and B&Bs around the world. Browse through pictures, e-mail an innkeeper, read reviews, and book a reservation online. You can also purchase gift certificates valid at any of the participating properties.
If you’re planning a weekend getaway or a day trip to Maine or Vermont, check out NewEngland.com (www.newengland.com) — " the voice of Yankee magazine, translated to the Web, " according to the Web site’s Lisa Traffie. Yankee has been covering New England’s flea markets, county fairs, and train excursions for more than 60 years. Click on the site’s " Well Worth the Drive " button for a three-month calendar of regional events; weekly picks appear as well. Yankee has also put together New England and regional vacation packages, which you can book directly through the site.
For additional New England–specific information, head to Citysearch.com (www.citysearch.com). From the city guide’s homepage, you can access sites for Boston, Worcester, Providence, Portland, Hartford, and Augusta. Although the Boston site is by far the most comprehensive, each city site is updated daily and contains searchable information on events, hotels, restaurants, and bars.
If you’re just looking to read up on potential far-flung destinations, the Web sites of traditional travel-guide publishers like Fodor’s (www.fodors.com), Lonely Planet (www.lonelyplanet.com), and Arthur Frommer’s (www.frommers.com) are good places to start.
The Web can be a great tool for planning a fantastic trip, but make sure you get offline and actually visit the places you explore on your computer screen. When Al Reilly tells his grandchildren about Super Bowl XXXVI, he may not remember Priceline, but he’ll be able to recount every play in Tom Brady’s final drive. So use the Web to save time and money, then go make real memories.
Kim Weidman can be reached at kweidman@hotmail.com
