Feb 26, 2009 7:55 am US/Eastern
Money Saver Report: Online Travel Deals
CBS 2 HD Has What You Need To Know To Save Hundreds, Perhaps Thousands Of Dollars, On Airfare
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Travel specialists say Americans haven't abandoned travel, but they are spending less by booking shorter stays and sticking closer to home.
If you'd like to take a spring vacation, new online tools can help you save big on airfare even after you book your trip.
Andrea Kamins has a secret.
"It saved me probably a little more than $200," Kamins said.
It's something the airlines probably prefer that she didn't know about -- it's help with finding the cheapest fares available.
"It would take a lot of work to do it yourself," Kamins said.
Instead, Kamins registered her flight with yapta.com, one of several sites like kayak.com and cheapflights.com that will not only find the cheapest available airfare for you, but will keep watching for price drops after you buy and then notifying you by email so you can get a refund.
"We've learned that 82 percent of the time, prices go down," said Yapta founder Jeff Pecor.
Pecor also said every traveler has the right to a refund if the price of their airfare drops, but people rarely spend the time to track the changes, which can go in effect for days or sometimes just hours. That's where his service comes in. So far it's saved users more than $158 million.
"It's found money and we've found that people have saved literally hundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars," Pecor said.
"I'm leaving on Sunday for Florida to visit some family so I'm keeping my eye out to see if my flight goes down between now and then," Kamins said.
At least four airlines -- United, Southwest, JetBlue and Alaska -- will send you the difference if the price of the ticket you bought goes down. The money is refunded in travel vouchers that are good for a year.
"I actually have $90 in credit towards a JetBlue flight that I can use," Kamins said.
Some airlines, like American, charge a change fee, which can be as high as $150. Obviously, the ticket price has to drop more than that in order to get money back.
For more information, here are links to
Yapta,
Kayak and
CheapFlights.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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