First-Class Ticket Buyers Get Second-Class Treatment Online

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March 02, 2005 (5:50 PM EST)

By TechWeb Technology News

All of the top three travel web sites have shown problems in selling first-class airline tickets, with the process oftentimes much more complicated than buying an economy class ticket, a consumer study released Wednesday showed.

Among the problems found on Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity ranged from fares that jumped in price suddenly to labeling business-class fares as first class, according to the study from Consumer Reports WebWatch.

Consumer demand for first-class tickets has increased nearly 10 percent from 2003 to 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation; yet, WebWatch testers found that buying a first-class ticket online was "much more complicated than buying an economy-class ticket."

Among the study's key findings was "fare-jumping," which is when a rate for a ticket suddenly increases or decreases during the booking process, sometimes without notification to the user. The problem occurred on Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity, WebWatch said. But the single-largest incident of fare-jumping occurred while testing Expedia, totaling $748.

Although testers queried the sites only for first-class fares, the sites continually returned itineraries with business and even economy-class flights. Testers also found problems on the three sites with missing or incorrect labeling information for the airlines' classes of service.

Expedia led all six sites in returning the lowest, first-class fare 4 of 10 times. Travelocity returned the highest percentage of nonstop first-class flights, and Orbitz recorded the highest savings for a single itinerary, returning a first-class fare of $1,348.70, or 242 percent less than the lowest fare offered by its closest rival.

Consumer Reports WebWatch released the study, "Major Travel Sites Face Credibility Crunch," in conjunction with its one-day national conference in Dallas on trust and credibility issues in the online travel market.