LastMinuteFlight.com Press Release

With so many choices in purchasing airline tickets today, you may find it difficult to know where to go or who to buy from. You can either call the airlines directly, buy from the airline's websites, or go to other travel websites. If you go to other travel websites you can purchase from big name sites or you can purchase from smaller lesser known sites. The options seem to be endless. Which is the best way to go?

Buying directly from the airlines has advantages and disadvantages. First off, you know you are buying from the source and that in itself has value. Most also have 24 hour telephone customer support so if there is an emergency, you know you can contact someone at any time. However, often times these advantages come as an extra expense in your ticket price (a significant expense for last minute tickets, Business Class, and First Class). This is where I have discovered the hidden benefits of other travel websites.

Travel websites themselves can be very different. For example, some big name sites like Travelocity and Orbitz were actually created by the airlines. They essentially share the same database of airfares and that is why their prices are not significantly different from each other or from the airlines. So purchasing from these sites is in effect like purchasing from the airlines anyway. However, there is a niche of lesser known travel websites which are not as large as the airlines but whose airfares are significantly lower than the airlines not just for last minute tickets but for Business Class, First Class, Circle Pacific, Around-the-World, and other international tickets. An example of such a website is www.cirpac.com (Cirpac Travel), also known as www.lastminuteflight.com. For example, if you were to leave from San Francisco to Amsterdam say tomorrow, the airlines and big name sites would give you a price of around $3000 whereas Cirpac’s price would be around $750. For a Business Class flight from Los Angeles to London (also leaving tomorrow), the airlines and big name sites would charge as much as $8000 versus Cirpac’s price of $4000 for the same ticket. Here are other examples of the savings:

	Airline Price	Cirpac Travel Price
Los Angeles to Hong Kong (Business Class Round trip)	over $5000	$2800
Los Angeles to Shanghai (Business Class Round trip)	over $5000	$2800
Los Angeles to Beijing (Business Class Round trip)	over $5000	$2800
New York to Frankfurt (Business Class Round trip)	over $7000	$3000

How do they do this? First off, sites like Cirpac Travel do not use the same database of airfares that the airlines and big name sites use. Their fares are “contracted fares” which they get either directly from the airlines or from airline “consolidators” which are wholesalers of airline tickets. To make a long story short, these tickets are purchased in volume to get a better deal.

In the end, you should balance out your needs according to your budget. In my experience as a TV show reporter and news anchor, short notice flights are necessary to cover breaking news stories around the world where travel plans may change very suddenly. A reliable, trustworthy, & economical travel agent is an absolute must. (For full disclosure I will tell you that I have been getting my airline tickets from Cirpac Travel for over 15 years).

David Jackson

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