06/01/19 TRAVEL: MAKE A CYBER BID, BUT DON'T PACK YOUR BAGS

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TRAVEL: MAKE A CYBER BID, BUT DON'T PACK YOUR BAGS

Priceline.com is less than two months old--and is already one of the hottest consumer sites on the Internet. It invites travelers to offer what they're willing to pay for an airline seat and then searches its database to see if it can meet the bids. Someday, such online auctions may change the way people travel. But despite priceline's claim that it's ''designed for everyone,'' so far, it doesn't live up to the hype.
Although it's billed as the new way to find low airfares, priceline allows you to pick only the dates you want to travel, not the time you want to leave. If your bid is rejected, you can't make a higher offer for the same ticket. If it's accepted, your credit card is charged before you know what you bought--meaning you could be stuck with a 6:30 a.m. departure and a 90-minute stopover taking you hundreds of miles out of your way.
The conditions mean those most likely to benefit from priceline's auction process are students, senior citizens, or other travelers who can be flexible on timing and don't put a premium on convenience. Priceline does guarantee you'll fly on one of the nine largest U.S. carriers or a major international airline. But while Chairman Jay Walker says ''there is no airline in America that is not talking to us,'' American, Delta, United, and others have refused to work with priceline. Industry executives say that only America West and Trans World Airlines, among domestic carriers, give priceline unpublished low fares. So on many routes, priceline has no better access to cheap seats than a conventional travel agency.
Still, priceline represents an important step forward in the development of buying tickets online. The site attracted more than 1 million visitors in the week after its Apr. 6 launch and has sold more than 10,000 tickets. One went to Bob Auffenberg, a resident of St. Louis who needed to travel to Atlanta on business. Even though he was willing to stay over on a Saturday night to get a cheap fare, the best he could find was $600. He bid $165 on priceline and the offer was accepted. ''It was a great deal,'' says Auffenberg.
Before you sign onto priceline, call a few airlines and get their best offers, or search the Net. Travelocity (www.travelocity.com) and other online travel sites allow you to obtain schedules and fares for more than one airline. One helpful site is www.1travel.com, which can tell you whether you can save by shifting your flight by a few hours or a day. Also check the part of Expedia's site (expedia.msn.com) listing the lowest published fare on a given route, though this list has so many restrictions it's likely to be useful only for purposes of comparison.
I tried out priceline for a friend, who is looking to travel between Washington and Houston this summer. The lowest published round-trip fare is $178, according to Expedia. But the best I could obtain was $296 on US Airways via Pittsburgh. So I went to priceline and bid $230 before taxes (up to another $20). Priceline proved easy to navigate despite a number of bugs that left me looking at occasional error messages and hitting the ''back'' button on my browser.
Some users have submitted bids that were never answered or had their credit cards rejected for unknown reasons. But an hour after I submitted my bid, I got an E-mail back. The verdict: rejection--the same answer I got on offers I submitted for three other trips. If you're rejected, you can submit a higher bid only if you change one of your travel dates. My experience wasn't unusual. Best Fares magazine, which offers tips on finding cheap airline seats, invited readers to relate their priceline experiences. None reported their bids were accepted.
The bottom line: If you're more flexible than most travelers, give priceline a try. Making a bid takes only about 15 minutes. If it's turned down, you lose no money. Just don't go to the site with high expectations.
David Leonhardt

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