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#PRICEWATCHER FLIGHTS HOW TO#

'There’s too much information available to everyone, so nobody knows how to make the best decision about this.'Ĭharting the Tech Sector’s Obsession With Charts 'It’s gotten to a point where it’s a paradox of choice,' he says. Scott Keyes, the creator of the Scott’s Cheap Flights newsletter, sees himself (and the niche flight-finder market) as a consumer advocate service - like a sort of personal airline concierge. They come in various forms: email newsletters, apps, subscription sites. That’s where a new class of services enter.

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Now, you have this mobile-enabled, multiple-filter, very comprehensive set of options.' Mann says that flight searching and booking has 'gone the full evolution.' Now, all that remains is perfecting the usability factor - and, of course, finding better deals. It used to be you had to know what you wanted and know who to contact to get it, and be given a take-it-or-leave-it price. 'Individuals now have more characteristics and filters through which to look at the universe of possibilities. 'We’ve really given the individual the power that the operator once had in essentially conducting the most exhaustive and comprehensive search possible,' says Bob Mann, an airline industry analyst and consultant. Suddenly, the unknown world of finding and booking flights was made clear to the consumer. You could stay inside your home and personally harness - via a user-friendly website - the mysterious information that travel agents once plunked away at their keyboards to find. Godspeed.) But travel agencies were swiftly and deftly swept away by the common enemy of The Way We Used To Do Things: the internet.Įventually, online travel agents - or OTAs - took over the jobs of their human predecessors. (If you drive about 40 minutes southeast of Portland along the 26, you will eventually hit a Blockbuster in Sandy, Oregon. Other services that time has tried to leave behind - post offices, libraries, copy-and-printing shops, Blockbuster Video - I can still muster a vague affection for and even direct you toward. Remember travel agencies? Now, I couldn’t even tell you where one is. We were going to Arizona, to visit family, and had stopped at a local travel agency to confirm the trip and pick up tickets it was the first and last time I ever visited such a place. There were posters on the walls of islands and families holding suitcases a nice woman typed some things into a computer and eventually handed my mom some thick, envelope-sized pieces of paper sprinkled with codes.

It was all drab carpeting, cheap-looking desks, and fluorescent lighting.

I was about 6 years old, and it must have been the early afternoon because my parents had taken off work early to scoop me up and take me to a nondescript office in a semi-depressing mini-mall near our home.

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