Buying Plane Tickets

Laura and I bought our plane tickets last week, after many hours of exhaustive research. This is our itinerary:

May 31: depart Salt Lake at 2:45 p.m., arrive in Dallas at 6:25 p.m., depart Dallas at 7:55 p.m.
June 1: arrive in Sao Paulo at 7:40 a.m.
June 28: depart Sao Paulo at 4:15 p.m.
June 29: arrive in London at 7:20 a.m.
Aug 4: depart Rome at 11:30 a.m., arrive in Chicago at 3:05 p.m., depart Chicago at 6:45 p.m., arrive in Salt Lake at 9:10 p.m.

Including all taxes, fees, etc., this itinerary is costing us $1864.30 per person.

Even at just a casual glance, this airfare seems pretty good for the number of flights we'll be taking, and the miles we'll be covering. So how did we get it? And could we have done even better?

First, the short answer to the first question is that we used a travel agent. However, it might be useful to explain that a little bit.

When we decided to go on a multi-continent trip, I initially wanted to use a travel agent because our goal was fairly complex. Also, all the travel writers I'd read said it would be easier and more cost efficient. That said, however, I was skeptical because travel agents have always struck me as an outdated relic from the pre-Internet days, when people couldn't figure out their own airfare. What, I wondered, was the point of using travel agents if all the savings they could get me were cancelled out by fees (I figured) I'd have to pay them?

As it turns out, however, travel agents make their money on commission and the price they give you should already include any money they're making. Also, travel agents typically have relationships and contracts with airlines and other travel agencies, which means they often have access to fares that are even lower than can be found online.

Once I learned that, I decided to contact a travel agency to see if they could compete with the fares I could find on my own. As a BYU alum, I discovered that I can continue to use the university's travel service, so I decided contact them. After calling around a bit I was finally connected to a travel agent at BYU who said he'd find some options for me.

The man I talked to got back to me within a few days, but what he gave me was almost an incomprehensible itinerary that was more expensive than the fares I found on my own (his itinerary was just under $2800 per ticket). Somehow, he must have also misunderstood what I wanted to do, because the trip he offered was less than half as long as I wanted (he had us in Brazil and Europe for about two weeks each). To cap it all off he was kind of abrupt on the phone. I'm not going to publicly name him, but if you're planning to use BYU's travel agency I will tell you privately so you can avoid a similar experience.

That was pretty discouraging, so Laura and I decided to take a stab at booking our own plane tickets. Laura spearheaded this effort and probably spent at least 30 hours over a couple of weeks looking at fares. I spent less time looking for fares, but still put in some hours.

The key, we discovered was being extremely flexible. We didn't care where we left from, flew into, or even what days we traveled on. We were willing to leave from Salt Lake, LAX, or anywhere in between. We also knew that we wanted to travel through Europe over the course of a month, but didn't care if we went north or south.

Eventually, Laura found a few options leaving from LAX that were under $2000. It would have also meant that we'd be going from Brazil to Rome, then leaving from London to return to the U.S. However, with taxes and fees, these fares were actually at least $2400, and most of the time they were closer to $2700. Also, most of them included a layover in New York that would have required us to travel from JFK airport to Newark, and that is supposedly a night mere. Still, the fares weren't prohibitively expensive and we were getting ready to buy them.

During this whole process, however, my dad recommended a different BYU travel agent. I was again skeptical, given my previous experience, but decided that since it didn't cost anything to have her look, I'd give her a call.

My experience with this second travel agent was the polar opposite of those I had with the first one. While I was on the phone, she experimented with different dates, airports, and other options. She told me exactly what she was doing and searched all the companies BYU had contracts with to find the lowest fares. She was kind and reassuring (when I bluntly asked her if she could beat the fares I had found online, she told me she could fly us around the world for those prices and began looking for something cheaper with gusto). Eventually she came up with the price I mentioned above (which was actually higher than she had expected it to be, but apparently flying from Brazil to Europe is pretty pricey). Though the prices is only a little cheaper than what online travel sites initially quoted, factoring in taxes we figure we saved at least $600 per ticket, and realistically we probably saved closer to $800 or $900. We will be using American Airlines for the first few legs of the trip, and British Airways for the second.

So that's how we got that fare. But could we have done better?

I doubt it, and if we could have the trip would have been much more stressful. For example, our flight from Brazil to Europe is non-stop. That means that we save at least a day in travel time (more time to sight-see), plus we don't have any stressful New York-to-Newark connections. We also don't have any real red-eye flights, and we won't have to drive down to LA, which should save us at least $200 in gas.

The other amazing thing about using the travel agent was that as long as there were seats available on the flights, we could get that same price. In other words, prices for each leg of the trip didn't change if we adjusted if by a few days. When we tried to book by ourselves, we found that certain days (Aug 11, for example) were cheaper than any other days around them. With the travel agent, on the other hand, we managed to extend our trip in Brazil by a couple of days, and come back at a more convenient time. In short, the travel agent offered flexibility coupled with low prices.