Tom Parsons: The best airline deals

Tom Parsons is the CEO of bestfares.com, and the editor of a magazine also called Bestfares.com. Parsons joined the CNN.com Chat room to talk about the "airfare wars" between many prominant airlines.

CNN: Thank you for joining us today, Tom Parsons, and welcome.

PARSONS: Good afternoon in the east, and good morning around the rest of the country. We'll have some fun, and I'll take some questions about how you can save money if you wish!

CNN: What are the latest developments between American Airlines and United Airlines? Between others?

PARSONS: This week, I guess the big story was in Chicago, where United elected to match the no-Saturday-night stay requirements of American Trans Air (ATA). United's rules read that you can fly beginning Sept. 5th, and you must book your tickets at least seven days in advance. In this case, no minimum stay is required, and a maximum stay of 30 days. But to the business traveler in Chicago, who wishes not to stay over Saturday night, the savings can be substantial. Last week, with seven days or less advance notice, no Saturday night stay, on United, the cost was $2,314. Starting September 5th, with a seven-day advance purchase, the round trip airfare drops to $334.

But I would use caution, and don't believe that American and United still maintain the lowest fares. Two major airlines, Southwest and America West, have now reduced Chicago to Los Angeles, again with a seven-day advance purchase, and have added a one-night minimum stay, but the fare has dropped to $198.round trip, and you can start traveling seven days from today, versus September 7th. Also, America West has added not just Los Angeles and San Francisco and Seattle out of Chicago, but also included San Diego, San Jose, CA, Portland, OR, Sacramento, Reno, and many other west coast cities, which neither United or American did. Also, because American had matched their nonstops with United over the weekend, United did not take that very favorably. On Sunday, to send a message to American, United cut the airfares out of Dallas/Fort Worth, which is American's number one hub, with a seven day advance purchase-- again September 5th being the first travel day-- to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Because American doesn't appreciate this raid of their hub, about 11:16 a.m. today, East Coast time, American cut the fares out of Denver to the same destinations that United did from Dallas, Denver being a major hub for United. So, I guess what I'm trying to say, folks, is that there's a war out there, and John Q. Business Traveler is the winner.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: How will the recent decision by the airlines to cut flights affect the added traffic due to airfare wars?

PARSONS: Actually, I myself believe it's good for us to see some flights cut, especially to major airports such as Chicago, New York La Guardia, Washington D.C., Boston. All these airports are notorious for flight delays, and in the past three or four years, the major airlines have been adding each year as much as 1000 daily flights a day. With the air traffic control system strained at this current time, hopefully a reduction of 10 or 15 or 20 percent of flights--which I don't believe will be that dramatic-- may mean the next time I fly to New York, I'll get there on time, or maybe only an hour late, versus two hours late. Again, I think some routes, for example Dallas to NYC, it's hard to comprehend 40 nonstop flights a day. If they'd reduce that by five flights a day, or ten flights a day, I'm probably not going to see much difference.

As far as air fares go, as long as we support the friendly airlines to both business and leisure travelers, such as America West, Southwest, Air Tran, and ATA, or American Trans Air, then the major airlines will have to remain competitive with low fares. In markets where there are no low cost carriers, or competition, such as Syracuse, Cheyanne, WY, Bozeman, MT... you'll still need to refinance your home to travel.

CNN: How soon should people buy their tickets before their trip? Is it worthwhile to hold off and take a chance you'll get a last-minute deal?

PARSONS: One of the things that we publish at bestfares.com is something called "you snooze, you lose." These are considered retaliation fares, and I consider them some of the cheapest and better fares in America. In the last 30 days, we saw temporary fare reductions across the USA, for example, Atlanta to Los Angeles on Midwest Airlines, which I consider one of the airlines' best kept secrets, $99 round trip, good for travel through April 15, 2002. We saw Cincinnati to Salt Lake City, travel even valid for the upcoming Winter Olympics... $58 dollars. Dallas to Orlando, we saw $78, non stop on Delta. These are the best fares in America. Depending on the market you're traveling to, today is a good day to consider airline tickets, especially if you're traveling before December 12, and in many markets, on sale for travel through January 11, 2002. So, if you're thinking Labor Day, Columbus Day weekend, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and New Years, you should be considering buying now. For example, the airfares in markets served by America West, coast to coast, even from major markets such as Boston, New York, Washington D.C. and Atlanta, are only $278 round trip coast to coast through December 12. But those tickets need to be purchased today, last day. However, from Seattle to Orlando, San Diego to Baltimore, San Jose to New Orleans, over 58 U.S. cities, coast to coast, you can buy tickets on America West or Southwest for travel through January 12, 2002, with nine blackout dates. But if you can fly in and around those dates, you'll find coast to coast travel on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, $198 round trip, or less. When someone can show me that I can fly coast to coast for less than four cents a mile, I think now is the time to buy, especially if you're flying before January 11. If you're flying January 12 or later, relax and have a cup of coffee.... those deals are around the corner.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: Tom with all this low cost travel, does anyone stop to think if they are sacrificing safety?

PARSONS: The king or the queen (depending on how you want to look at this) of low cost travel is Southwest Airlines. This year they're celebrating 30 years of cheap travel, but they're also celebrating 30 years of not ever losing a passenger. If this was the movie Rainman, then we know who Dustin Hoffman would be flying coast to coast. Again, we have probably hundreds of millions of people traveling coast to coast every year, and again, as long as we can somehow maintain a good air traffic control system, keep the airline employees well trained from mechanics to flight attendents, and especially the pilots, then I think there's no concern at this time over safety, because again, those folks have a wish of going from point A to point B, and returning to point A, themselves.

Even though I've had problems with planes in the past, I still have great faith in our system. We did see Emery shut down, and luckily passengers weren't flying that airline. I still believe, yes, we have to be concerned about safety, and that's why we pay the U.S. government billions and billions of dollars a year, to be our watchdogs. So hopefully, the U.S. government is doing their job properly.

CNN: Do you have any final thoughts to share with us?

PARSONS: I guess right now, there are so many airfare deals. I really believe for travel for now, and even Christmas, you should strongly consider buying now while we have the airlines running. They'll be entering a very slow period of travel, September and October. The only big holidays then will be Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and New Years, but it's a soft market out there, soft to the point where they'll do anything they can to get us on those planes. I also believe the hotel industry will be hurting. A business traveler now doesn't need to stay over the weekend, and that means more empty rooms, maybe better deals for us. The car rental industry may also be hurting. They still have to keep the planes running, those hotel rooms full, and they sometimes know they need to give us an incentive to either stay, drive or fly.

We already are seeing the wholesalers and consolidaters offering cheap fares to Europe starting in September, from Atlanta, Washington DC, New York, Boston, to a choice of over 39 European cities, for $369 round trip. That's cheaper than Syracuse to Dallas. We've got airlines like America West and Southwest offering coast to coast for $198, only four cents a mile. We've got the major airlines fighting with each other giving business travelers breaks they haven't seen in years. The big point today is that airlines run on seasons, and they give us deals three or four or five months to think about.

If you're traveling after January, now isn't the time to buy, unless you find a snooze and lose fare. But I suggest you plan far in advance, but I'm not telling you to buy far in advance. Start understanding what the fares are, so when you see a fare from Washington DC to San Diego for $685 for the month of February, but today you can buy for $278 on America West. You can either buy for 685 today, or you can hope it drops, or you can look at alternate airports such as Baltimore, only 39 miles away, and the fare drops to only $179 round trip. You can go ahead and pay the full price because it's not on sale, and if you do so, you may get a Christmas card from the major airlines. Or you can sit back, and wait for it to drop at least 50%, or check the alternate airports like Baltimore, where we'll see low airfares in another 30 to 60 days that will cover February and March... that's the time to buy. The trick is to think far out, but more importantly, be patient. Some of you want to lock in that fare, but if you lock it in too soon, you'll be over paying.

CNN: Thank you for joining us today.

PARSONS: Thanks for allowing me to give my two cents on how I see the travel industry!

Tom Parsons joined the chat via telephone from Texas. CNN provided a typist for Tom Parsons. The above is an edited transcript of the interview on Monday, August 13, 2001 at 12 p.m. EDT