Ask Terry Trippler

Passengers and airlines each have rights and also responsibilities. Unfortunately, in the ombudsman industry, nobody wants to give the airlines any rights or the passengers any responsibilities. I’m very middle of the road on that. The airlines probably never know if I’m going to rip ’em or compliment them.

Do the due diligence

I got an e-mail forwarded by a Boston television station. This man’s wife was flying Boston– New York–London on Delta. Her flight left Boston late and got to New York late, so she missed the connecting flight to London. Delta said she’d have to wait until the next day. The man wrote to the Boston television station and they sent it to me: ‘Terry, what is this?’

Well, I think this is inexcusable. Inexcusable. Because Delta’s rule clearly states that they’ll put her on another airline. And don’t try to tell me there isn’t another coach seat available from Kennedy to London all day today. I know better. But before I say that to the TV station, I need to know where she bought the ticket, how much she paid, the fare basis she had—everything. Then I can go into Worldspan [a global travel directory], look up that fare, read that rule, and be sure I’ve got this right. That’s where I’m different from the vast majority of other Internet travel writers or analysts. Before I will attack an airline, I want to make sure all the bases are covered.

What happens too often is that somebody misses a connection, they complain that the airline ‘didn’t take care of me,’ and then people write about it and rip Delta. Well, no, no, no, you can’t rip Delta because the rule is right here. In this case, I can’t see where Delta doesn’t have it coming, but I’m going to make sure before I jump.

Shop the airlines’ Web sites

One piece of information missing on the Internet is: What’s the lowest fare between point A and point B, and what do you have to do to get it? Maybe you have to travel on a Tuesday, you have to buy 95 days in advance, or whatever. But assuming you’re flexible with your travel dates—you want to fly to Sacramento to see your grandkids sometime in the next six months—it would be a valuable service if you could know that. Nobody is providing that service. We’re working on it, and we hope to incorporate it at some point into tripplertravel.com.

When you go to Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, or any of these online sites, they give you the price of a ticket if you buy right now. They don’t tell you what the price is if you buy tomorrow or the day after. And they only tell you about the lowest available fares right now. They don’t tell you about lower fares that are sold out. A couple of airline sites come close to providing that information. If you go to Southwest’s Web site or AirTran’s, you’ll see a matrix showing all of the fares: This one may be sold out, but here’s what the lowest fare would be. So maybe you could get that fare if you fly on a different date.