Here’s an Ask Cranky question from a time long ago. Bereavement fares. Everyone knows about them, but are they any good?

I’d love to see you do a post on how bereavement fares have evolved (or not evolved) over the year. Back when I was skinny and had hair, and there were really only four classes of fares: F, FN, Y and YN, the bereavement fares gave a pretty dependable discount on the Y and YN fares. Now, with fares being an absolute alphabet soup, how to the majors and LCCs handle bereavement fares? I know when I did a short stint as an Alaska Airlines res clerk, I could usually beat the heck out of the bereavement fare – but that too, was a long time ago.

Frank V

There’s no question that times have changed. Back in the day, bereavement fares provided a tangible discount over the prevailing rate. The reason for this was simply compassion. People didn’t ever want to take those trips, but they had to and the airlines did what they could to make it a little easier.

As the industry’s fare structure changed and low cost carriers brought lower last minute fares, bereavement fares started to become irrelevant. Oh, they still gave a discount off the full fare. It’s just that nobody paid the full fare anymore.

For low cost carriers, bereavement fares don’t exist for the most part. Southwest, for example, doesn’t offer bereavement fares. Other airlines have varying policies.

American – The website offers a very terse suggestion that bereavement fares may be offered and you need to call them for info. They tend to use an older school approach with flat rates that are very flexible. It tends not to be very helpful.

Continental – They realized that the old model wasn’t helping anyone, so they switched to something new. Now, tickets up to $500 get a 5% discount, tickets between $500 and $1000 get a 10% discount, and tickets over $1000 get a 20% discount.

Delta – They offer a lot more information on bereavement fares on their website but it’s the same end result as American.

United – Like Continental, United has gone with a discount structure, but they’ve opted for simplicity. You can get 10% off any ticket.

As you can see, some of these are good and some bad, but they’re all a pain in the butt. You’re only allowed to take advantage of this for close family members, and each airline has a list of what that includes. You need to provide documentation as well. If someone is sick, you need to give medical contact information so the airline can confirm that this is real. In case of death, you’ll often be asked for the death certificate. It’s not a fun experience. In fact, it’s unpleasant enough to have been a subject of a Seinfeld episode.

But the fares are still out there. They’re just not easy to take advantage of.

I’ve got a nice big backlog of Ask Cranky posts, and I thought this would be a good time to starting clearing that out. Today, we’re talking consolidators.

Can you do a piece on consolidators/consolidator fares? It’s probably the largest aspect of the industry that I’m in the dark about. I’d like to see something with a bit of depth. How do they work? Why do they even exist? At the basic level, I understand that they buy blocks of tickets at a discount. But why can’t the airline just sell them through their own systems with whatever restrictions they want? Are all online agencies consolidators? If not, how can you tell? When are they just fronts for the same thing you can buy directly from the airline? Are there any real differences between Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Cheaptickets, Cheapoair, and others that I’ve forgotten?

Dan L

Ah yes, consolidators. It’s sort of the mystery of the travel world for many people. They have this reputation as being amazing sources of cheap fares, but how can you find them? Are they reliable? What’s the catch? Let’s get started.

For you as a traveler, when you hear about consolidators, bucket shops, and wholesalers, it means the same thing. Discounted airfare. You’ll have the best luck finding these on international routes, in particular in premium cabins, and you can save a lot of money.

For example, we had a Cranky Concierge client who recently needed to fly from Chicago to Hong Kong in business class. American was showing an option on its website for $9,000 roundtrip. We found those same flights on Webjet.com for a mere $3,500 roundtrip. Yeah, big difference.

There are a couple things to keep in mind about these fares. Yes, you can save a ton but there are nearly always additional restrictions. The change fee on this, for example, is $400 plus a $50 Webjet fee, so it’s not entirely flexible. Any changes are required to go through the agency and not the airline, so that can cause issues while you’re traveling. Often you won’t be able to earn miles on cheap seats like these either.

In this particular case, the deal appears to be that Webjet isn’t even allowed to show the airline name. It simply says “Major Airline.” Of course, it’s easy to figure out since it shows flight numbers and flight times. Not hard to put two and two together.

Often the biggest question about something like this is . . . why? The idea is that airlines can find non-traditional outlets to help sell seats that they wouldn’t have sold otherwise. Go to your nearest Chinatown and you’ll find great deals on flights to China at bucket shops around the area. That’s the best way to reach a large audience that can help fill your airplanes. In many places, this is the way they book travel every time.

With the web, things have become more complicated. Cheap fares are offered to the world as soon as they go online, so you would think that this practice would disappear. But it still continues, likely as a legacy of the past. There are good deals to be found, for sure.

But how do you know if these guys are reputable? It’s a lot easier now in the world of e-tickets. Pay with a credit card and as soon as it’s booked, go directly to the airline to check on your reservation. If all looks good, then you’re set. If not, then you can immediately dispute it with your card.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you aren’t necessarily dealing with a consolidator directly. Consolidators will often sell to travel agents, so you can buy fares through retail agents who get the fares through consolidators and you’ll never know the name.

Some places only sell consolidator fares. If you go to Airfare.com, for example, you’ll see that there are very few options given. That’s because published fares aren’t shown. Others just mingle the fares shown, as you’ll see on a site like Travelocity or Expedia. You wouldn’t know if it was a consolidator fare or not at first blush.

I’ve had good luck with Airfare.com, Webjet.com, Cheapoair, and others in the past. You can also go to a travel agent to do the legwork for you, or to Cranky Concierge, of course. In the end, it’s worth checking out because it can save you a lot.

A distraught reader sent me a note yesterday about a bonus mile offer he received from United, and I thought it was worth sharing with everyone. Take note – always do a search on United.com with and without the code to make sure you’re getting the lowest fare.

This particular deal gives you an increasing number of bonus miles for each roundtrip you fly this Spring up to three total. It looks like it’s targeted at Colorado residents as part of the big brawl between Southwest, Frontier, and United but it can be used by anyone (just enter promo code MPD330). Sounds pretty good, right? Might as well get bonus miles if you’re flying, but be careful. This deal is only good on fares in Q class or higher. So let’s say you want to go from LA to Dulles on some random dates in May. With the promo code, I see this:

You’ll notice that it tells me that “To qualify for the promotion, all selected flights must be promotion-eligble,” but they don’t bother telling you that they are only showing fares that are promotion eligible. If I take away that promo code, guess what I see?

Holy shnikes! That’s over $400 less. Now, if I’m a savvy traveler, I might see at the bottom of the terms and conditions that it’s limited to fares that are in Q or higher, but that doesn’t mean I expect to not be shown lower fares. Many people are likely to miss that restriction anyway. There should be something here that shows the lowest fare without a promotion code so people can evaluate if this is good offer or not.

I don’t know anyone in their right mind who would pay a $400 premium for some bonus miles. For that price, I could just flat-out buy over 10,000 miles directly from United.

So be careful if you’re using a United promo code on their website. Make sure you always do one search with the code and one without so you can ensure that you aren’t missing out on a much better deal.

I’ve run across plenty of problems when it comes to helping our Cranky Concierge clients, but a recent run in with CheapOair.com has me absolutely steaming. It also provides a very valuable lesson: always double check with your airline if you book via an online travel agent.

One of our clients had signed up looking for First or Business class tickets from LA to San Jose, Costa Rica. The lowest rates I had found on most sites were for about $950 roundtrip, a good deal in its own right. But when I went to CheapOair.com, one of the consolidators that I check relatively frequently, I found one that was just over $600 roundtrip on TACA. Was it much lower than elsewhere? Sure. But it wasn’t so insanely low that it seemed completely impossible, like a $10 fare. Besides, CheapOair is a consolidator and can often get lower deals, especially from international carriers.

So, our client booked the trip and the confirmation email confirmed that it was in First. I knew TACA only had Business, but those terms can be used interchangeably by online travel agents for two class airplanes like this. For most people, they would have booked this and been thrilled with the deal. They would have shown up at the airport and been on their way, right? Not so fast.

I always make it a point to double check every reservation made with on online travel agent with the airline directly. Usually it’s just to confirm or request seats, but I always make sure everything got booked properly in the first place. I’ve sent other clients through CheapOair before and never had a problem, but when I checked with TACA, it showed the booking in coach.

Huh? How did that happen? So I called CheapOair and their Indian call center agent assured me that it was booked in First Class. I said that was all well and good but the airline said it was in coach and that meant that they needed to help resolve this problem. They put me on hold.

Sure enough, they came back and said that this flight doesn’t have First or Business so that’s why it was in coach. I told them that wasn’t the case and there absolutely was a premium cabin on this airplane, but the agent refused to believe me. I hung up and figured I’d try again. But first, just to be clear, I called TACA to confirm that there was a premium cabin. There was, and the agent there said that it had been booked with a coach fare.

Round 2 – I called CheapOair back and after going back and forth for several minutes, I was told that I could absolutely get First Class . . . for $1,500 per person. Are you kidding me? I said that our client paid for First Class and expected to get it, but not if it meant nearly tripling the price. This agent went back again and finally came back saying it was a technical glitch and there was nothing she could do. I asked to speak to a supervisor. She came back and said that there was no supervisor to speak with. Great.

We regrouped. I had one person who emailed me awhile ago about blog advertising from CheapOair, so I sent him a note. I didn’t hear back.

I tried to call one more time the next morning and got another agent. This time, he told me that it was the airline’s fault. The airline had failed to file the fare with taxes and fuel surcharges, so it was their fault. Tired of hearing the third different excuse in as many calls, I finally simply gave up and asked for a refund. That was granted. And we just moved on.

The moral of the story? Well, there are two.

1. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is (but not always – there are great deals out there).
2. Always double check with your airline after booking through an online travel agent to make sure everything is in order.

[Update 4/16 @ 1118: Just got a note from CheapOair. They have now offered our client two vouchers for travel on AirTran in consideration for the problems. Now, I have no idea what AirTran has to do with anything here, but hey, it's something. This points back to previous questions about whether a regular traveler would be able to get the same treatment as a blogger. Apparently they can, if they're Cranky Concierge clients!]

ALERT: If you used to follow Cranky at BoardingArea.com, you’ll notice that the blog is no longer there. It was taken down as of Thursday, so you’ll need to make sure you come to CrankyFlier.com to get your fix from now on.

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