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Web travel unravelled

Rain, rain go away, come again some other day. No? Then would it be okay if I left? Although Whistler’s river guides are ecstatic, for many Whistlerites, two beautiful and uninterrupted weeks of summer sunshine do not a summer make.

Rain, rain go away, come again some other day.

No? Then would it be okay if I left?

Although Whistler’s river guides are ecstatic, for many Whistlerites, two beautiful and uninterrupted weeks of summer sunshine do not a summer make.

It’s time to plan an escape. Somewhere hot, with white beaches and blue water and nothing much to do but soak up the Vitamin D and join the occasional conga line.

Since money is always tight when you live and work in Whistler, you want to make sure you get the best possible deal going. While our local travel agents are generally excellent, it does pay to shop around using the largest base of travel information available to you – the Internet.

Internet Travel is one of the most successful and fastest growing Internet business sectors, generating more than $15 billion in online sales last year, or 62 per cent of all sales. By 2003, it’s expected to grow into a $40 billion industry.

The main reason for this growth is the convenience of buying services online. It’s fast, easy, and often cheaper than the alternatives because you can shop around and look for deals and discounts.

Although there are travel sites literally coming out of the woodwork in an attempt to capitalize on this trend, there are half a dozen tried and true dealers on the Web who are impossible to beat for price or selection.

Right now there are four trips I’d like to make: home to visit family and friends; Hawaii because I’m worried about getting rickets if I stay another month in Whistler; Cancun, for the same reason; and Hong Kong because I have a friend there I’d like to visit. I checked out all of the top sites for the same time periods but wasn’t fussy about flight times.

All of these sites are a little bit different, and while one site may be cheaper than another for one specific flight, it may not be cheaper for another. To make sure you’re always getting the best deal, it’s best to shop around.

www.travelocity.com

Travelocity is one of the Big Kahuna’s in the online travel industry, with easy to navigate information on air fare, hotels, car rentals, cruises, package deals and deals. There’s also a business travel site for all-too frequent fliers.

For Toronto, from Sept. 13 to the 24 (it’s more expensive to fly on the weekend), the best fare they could get me was $509. For Maui, a round trip is $927, for Cancun it was $1,242, and for Hong Kong from Sept. 15 to 30 it was $1,335.

www.expedia.com

This is Microsoft’s own online travel agency, and it offers a similar range of services and deals as Travelocity. It’s slightly harder to use, but if you’re patient and check the same flights over and over for different times, you can often find a better deal than anywhere else.

Comparatively, their best price for Toronto was an affordable $406. For Maui, it was $609. For Cancun, it was significantly cheaper at $836. Hong Kong was slightly more expensive at $1,388.

www.cheaptickets.com

Cheap Tickets is a budget traveller’s friend, checking all the cheapest times and charter airlines for the lowest fares. The only problem is that the fares they quote you are in American dollars.

Cheap Tickets can find you a great deal if you do the more involved Power Search, but I couldn’t find much in the way of real savings using their Express Search feature. A round trip to Toronto was reasonable at approximately $417 (all prices are in American and the lowest quote was US$274) using the Power Search feature. The price for Maui was about $910 Canadian, and the cost of travelling to Cancun was $836 using their Express Search. They did quote the cheapest trip to Hong Kong, however, at about $1,297 using the Express Search.

One of the most valuable features on the site are the hints for finding low fares, which explains how to find the best deals. The basic rules are to book early, to arrange flights to major airport cities, to fly early in the week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday), and to be aware of time and cost differences – specials are generally only available for early mornings and late nights.

These are the big three of online travel, but a few of the smaller starts are starting to make headway.

www.qixo.com

Qixo is a little different in that it searches more than 20 different travel sites on the Web to find you the best fares. Because the price of airline tickets is up and down almost daily, Qixo searches in real time and allows you to book immediately when the price is right.

www.sidestep.com

Sidestep is a software application that you have to download to your computer, a special plug-in that works with Internet Explorer. You also have to be using Windows. Once it’s up and running, Sidestep scans the Internet to find the lowest fares, sending you reports and alerts when a price is within your range.

www.travelbyus.com

Travelbyus works like Travelocity or Expedia, but gives you more options for sorting your results. The problem with the big ticket sellers is that you often have to specify a time or an airport when you may be completely indifferent. Right now it seems kind of expensive, but fares will improve as the site expands to include more airlines and destination – right now, trips are limited to Canada and the U.S.