This department gets a steady flow of letters and calls from people who want to buy those super-cheap airline tickets listed in one-inch advertisements but fear such tickets are illegal, or are dubious about the reputation of a particular company.
It is difficult for consumers to evaluate these consolidators, as they are known, and the companies have no trade association or self-policing body. The American Society of Travel Agents does not even know how many are operating in the United States.Generally, consolidators that have been in operation for a long time are better bets, but companies with big reputations have found themselves without cash and close overnight, leaving travelers and travel agencies in the lurch. New companies may be fine, or they may be old unreliables going by another name.
The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 says that international tickets are not supposed to be sold below the published price, but spokesmen for the Department of Transportation have said repeatedly that they are not interested in prosecuting because consolidators promote competition, and cheap prices benefit the consumer.
Major consolidators have contracts with airlines that allow them to offer, at a discount, seats that the airlines anticipate will not sell. The list of available flights given to me by C.L. Thomson Express, the country's largest consolidator - it deals only through travel agents - was a spreadsheet printout half an inch thick.
But many people in business as consolidators are simply intermediaries who advertise a ticket at a price slightly higher than what they would pay to a regular consolidator. Then, when they receive your money, they simply go out and buy the consolidator ticket for you. The peril arises when such companies run with so thin a cash flow that anything can undo the operation.
The Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan New York, aware that travel has always been on its list of top 10 causes of complaints, made a study of consolidators last month that gives two resounding reasons to do a lot of comparison shopping before reserving a consolidator ticket.
The bureau, a private nonprofit organization supported by businesses, surveyed 20 companies selected from newspaper ads offering tickets from New York to Paris, in one case leaving in May and returning in June and in the other leaving in June and returning in July. With a lead time of 18 to 20 days, no consolidator could supply a ticket at the price in the ad. The cheapest tickets offered ranged from $33 to $272 above the advertised price.
A second discovery by the bureau was that the actual fare offered by the consolidator did not always prove to be a significant value, although the saving was generally larger in the high season than in the low.
In addition to a negligible $1 saving on three offers in high season, the 20 offers for May departure and June return included two where the price was the same as the airline's, one that saved $1, one $10, one $11, one $31 and one $50. One consolidator's price was $90 higher than the airline's own fare.
Probably the most significant finding was that in 30 percent of the cases, the consolidators were apparently preparing to sell unconfirmed or wait-listed seats to consumers. In 12 of the 40 cases, when the Better Business Bureau's researcher called the airlines after making a reservation, they could find no trace of the prospective passenger's name.
Eric A. Wessman of Pelham, N.Y., had this experience a year ago, buying two tickets to London and on to Harare, Zimbabwe, on Air Zimbabwe for $1,575 each through an ad for Sky Lite Travel of New York. He was told to pick up the tickets at 2:30 p.m. on the day he was to check in at 4:15 for a 6:15 p.m. flight. When he got to Sky Lite's office with the certified check, he said, a messenger was dispatched to pick up the Zimbabwe ticket.
Wessman and his sister barely caught the flight, and did not notice that the "status" box for the Harare ticket said "wait listed" instead of "O.K." The Harare flights proved to have been sold out for some time, and Wessman lost six days of his vacation, having to stay three days longer in London than he had planned and having to leave Harare three days early through having to rebook. He complained to the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, which was unable to adjust the problem and, according to Christoper Irving, senior attorney there, he was advised to sue Sky Lite, which he never did.
Kathy Marchand, who answered the phone at Sky Lite, reporting that the employee involved in the Wessman case no longer worked there, said that Sky Lite was acting as an agent for a consolidator, Sky Link, at 265 Madison Avenue, which says it is not connected to Sky Lite.
Here are some safeguards. If you like the price of a consolidator ticket, ask your travel agent to get it for you, because the agent can check if you are confirmed and will presumably have a shrewder sense of how chancy the undertaking is. But do not be surprised if the price in the ad does not check out.
If you want to deal directly with the consolidator, make the reservation and then wait 24 hours or so and call the airline to see if you have a reservation. Do not pay anything until you do, or until the airline tells you that the consolidator you are dealing with is known to the airline and has an arrangement to submit names later.
If you have a confirmed seat, as Barbara Berger Opotosky, president of the Better Business Bureau, said, "You may have paid too much, but at least you will get there." Try to use a consolidator that will accept a credit card because the card company may go to bat for you if you do not get what you bought. Find out the rules on changes and cancellations; many consolidators offer no refunds at all.
The Better Business Bureau's advisory may be obtained by calling (900) 463-6222 at a cost of 95 cents a minute, or by sending $4 to Ticket Consolidator Advisory, Better Business Bureau, 257 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. By calling the 900 number, you can find out how many complaints against a company have been reported to the bureau. An average call on the line costs $3.80.
Advertising departments of newspapers also monitor written complaints against advertisers, not to report to consumers but to know when to stop accepting a company's advertising.
Robert P. Smith, manager of advertising acceptability for The New York Times, said that his department often tried to adjust a dispute, but that if an "unreasonable" number of complaints focused on one company, its ads would be discontinued. When a consolidator cashes customers' checks and decamps, The Times is no better off than the bilked customers: it has printed an ad and cannot collect for it.
Seeking ways to tighten up on bad performers, Smith's department last month started a policy requiring consolidators who advertise occasionally to pay by credit card as they go along rather than run a tab for several months. Smith hopes this will cut off ads for dishonest dealers more quickly.