I've got a trip in two weeks that takes me through Atlanta (fly in and leave the same day), D.C., and eventually a conference in upstate New York (60 miles north of Albany). I normally prefer to fly Continental, as I'm busily accumulating miles there on my path to global domination.

Anyway, when I asked Continental.com to find me a fare for that whole itinerary, it blew as gasket. It offered to sell me a one-way flight to Altanta for almost $500 without any other legs. Wonderful.

I decided to give American Express (itn.net) a try. I've never used them before, and anything in the world must be better than Orbitz. I was almost impressed. None of the pre-baked low-cost itineraries were sensible. I'd be doing two stops on most flights, and I wouldn't have enough time to be in Atlanta for that afternoon that I can't miss. When I did the piece-it-together-yourself, I was able to get a silly itinerary for just under $1000 that has two legs on Continental, one on United, and the last on Southwest Airlines. I'd pay pretty much that same $1000 for any permutation I tried. The only way I could do better was to drop the Atlanta leg and go with a pure Southwest fare. That would come to just under $500 round trip.

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is here, except to say that airlines and airline web sites suck.

No doubt. I booked a trip (simple, one stop in Chicago) a few weeks ago and got the exact same flights for about $150 less through Air Canada than on United (who actually runs the flights).

-Zeke

ps: coference 60mi N of Albany: Saratoga or the Sagamore on Lake George?

Word.

Someone please post the obligatory link to the "if airlines sold paint" essay...

have you checked 'jet blue'?
I think they have hubs in both places.

anyone ever fly with them?

JetBlue doesn't go from Atlanta to DC. They don't even fly to Albany which is surprising.

What day do you have to be in Albany? One or two weekends a month I drive up to Saratoga County (about 2:30 hours). Maybe you can hitch a ride with me if the times match-up.

I fly JetBlue reasonably often. They are a very good airline.

and anything in the world must be better than Orbitz.

what do you hate about orbitz, other than the offensive color scheme on their website?

disclaimer: i used to work at orbitz, until about six months ago. at this point it's just idle curiosity.

--dan.

I for one hate Orbitz now. I got a hotel reservation with them and they double-billed me, hotel billed me and Orbitz billed me, and I still haven't gotten a refund after two months. Do you happen to know any influential e-mail addresses (i.e. Company president etc..) I could complain too?

I took wild guesses as to the dates. (Houston -> Atlanta Oct 20, Atlanta -> DC Oct 20, DC -> Albany Oct 22, Albany -> Houston, Oct 26)

There's Delta all the way for $409, with a change between DC and Albany in Cincinnati and one between Albany and Houston in Atlanta.

Continental's is $670 with a change between Atlanta and DC in Cleveland, one between DC and Albany in Newark, and one between Albany and Houston in Cleveland.

Ezekiel: coference 60mi N of Albany: Saratoga or the Sagamore on Lake George?

The conference is at the Sagamore, but the conference hotel sold out. I'll be staying 10 miles down the road at the Georgian, also in Lake George.

lastdan: have you checked 'jet blue'?

American Express / ITN offers JetBlue, Southwest, and I presume other discount airlines as part of its normal flight searches. The only airline that could possibly accomodate this entire itinerary is Delta, but they'd have me bouncing all over the place. The only sane way to cover all these cities is to use multiple carriers.

robricc: What day do you have to be in Albany? ... Maybe you can hitch a ride with me if the times match-up.

I arrive in Albany on Sunday, October 19. Then I'm renting a car and heading up to Lake George. I'll be there for the conference until Wednesday, October 22, then I'm on my way home. My hotel is ten miles from the conference (grrr), so I pretty much need to have my own rental car.

djc: what do you hate about orbitz, other than the offensive color scheme on their website?

I haven't used Orbitz in a while, so I went back and checked it out. The color scheme has definitely deteriorated since my last visit, but that's not what I hate. If you try doing anything even remotely complex with Orbitz, it's entirely incapable of finding reasonable fares. Example: I have a day trip to Ithaca coming up in November. Fly in Thursday night, fly home Friday night. AmEx/ITN found me a round-trip for $1700 (yikes!). Orbitz found cheaper fares that involved 3 or more stops (unacceptable), or $2400 for comparable one-stop round-trips. Strangely, Orbitz found a later-evening flight from Ithaca to Pittsburgh than AmEx/ITN did, but maybe there's no later connecting flight back home to Houston that evening.

The other thing I hate about Orbitz, even if you're doing a more normal itinerary, is their horrific N^2 display. If there are N outgoing flights, and N return flights, they'll show you all possible combinations. There's no way, that I could ever figure out, to have it just list the flights and let you make two separate choices.

Back before they closed their doors on September 11 (they were hurting well before then), my favorite online travel agent was BizTravel.com. Their flight search engine was significantly slower than their competition, but they could always find reasonable flights, even to obscure destinations. They also had a wonderful on time guarantee: if a flight on a "guaranteed" airline was late, they'd reimburse you some cash. It's fun when you're rooting for your plane to be late. Lastly, BizTravel had a preference form for car rentals where I wrote down "Japanese cars preferred" and it somehow always worked. Now-a-days, when I book directly with Hertz, there's nowhere to put in your own preferences like that.

But I digress...

(Houston -> Atlanta Oct 20, Atlanta -> DC Oct 20, DC -> Albany Oct 22, Albany -> Houston, Oct 26)

Close, but not quite. Here's my final itinerary, in case anybody's really curious.

Flight/Equip.: Continental Airlines 1220 Boeing 737-300
Depart: Houston/Thursday October 16 7:53 am
Arrive: Atlanta/Thursday October 16 11:08 am

Flight/Equip.: Delta Airlines 1241 McDonnell Douglas MD-80
Depart: Atlanta/Thursday October 16 6:35 pm
Arrive: Baltimore/Thursday October 16 8:30 pm

Flight/Equip.: Southwest Airlines 903 Boeing 737-300
Depart: Baltimore/Sunday October 19 2:30 pm
Arrive: Albany/Sunday October 19 3:40 pm

Flight/Equip.: Continental Airlines 6189 Operated by: Northwest Airlines Airbus A319
Depart: Albany/Wednesday October 22 4:05 pm
Arrive: Detroit/Wednesday October 22 5:44 pm

Flight/Equip.: Continental Airlines 6827 Operated by: Northwest Airlines Airbus A319
Depart: Detroit/Wednesday October 22 7:07 pm
Arrive: Houston/Wednesday October 22 9:01 pm

Without trying too hard, how about:

Thursday, Oct 16
Delta Air Lines 532
Depart: 5:45am Houston, TX (HOU)
Arrive: 8:45am Atlanta, GA (ATL)

Thursday, Oct 16
Delta Air Lines 944
Depart: 9:45pm Atlanta, GA (ATL)
Arrive: 11:22pm Washington, DC (IAD)

Sunday, Oct 19
Delta Air Lines 5798
Depart: 8:45am Washington, DC (IAD)
Arrive: 10:15am Cincinnati, OH (CVG)
Delta Air Lines 5704
Depart: 10:45am Cincinnati, OH (CVG)
Arrive: 12:31pm Albany, NY (ALB)

Wednesday, Oct 22
Delta Air Lines 1480
Depart: 6:35am Albany, NY (ALB)
Arrive: 9:12am Atlanta, GA (ATL)
Delta Air Lines 4178
Depart: 10:10am Atlanta, GA (ATL)
Arrive: 11:22am Houston, TX (HOU)

That's all Delta and related for $564.

I know the times don't match that closely, but I don't know exactly what your schedule is.

BTW, this is all Orbitz, and while I understand your problem with listing all the permutations instead of listing options, it's still better than anything else I've found. If you want better, get a travel agent (IMO).

Okay, here's a really weird thing. I just got an e-mail from trondent.com, whatever that is, which was tagged by my Bayeasian Mozilla filter as spam. False positive. It contained a PDF. If you read the PDF, it has most but not all of my itinerary. It's missing the Atlanta to BWI leg on Southwest, and the price listed on it is $100 lower (presumably, the cost of the single Southwest leg).

Allegedly, this whole thing is a paperless eTicket. Anybody want to gamble on whether something gets screwed up?

if airlines sold paint" essay

obligatory link

Oh wow, I hadn't remembered that I'd first heard that one on CarTalk.