Person@l Shopper: Excursions on Net can bring back good travel deals

Thatâ€™s not spring you sense in the air.<br><br>What youâ€™re picking up on is the enticing promise of vacations yet to come. Where will you go this year?<br><br>If you can be flexible, there is no better

Friday, April 14th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Thatâ€™s not spring you sense in the air.

What youâ€™re picking up on is the enticing promise of vacations yet to come. Where will you go this year?

If you can be flexible, there is no better place to plan and pay for a vacation than online. There are thousands of great Web sites that will help you do a little virtual exploring to narrow down where you want to go. Many of the most popular travel books and magazines have an online presence, and there are many Internet-only resources. But that is just the dating and courtship phase of planning a vacation.

The Person@l Shopper wants more than mere destination flirtation. Clip this column and save it for when youâ€™re ready to commit, to shop, to buy.

Ready? Here are some tips that will help you save money without spending all day shopping on the Internet.

First, check out the major airlinesâ€™ Web sites. Airlines usually offer the best deals leaving from airports where they have hubs. In Dallas that means American Airlines, which offers some outstanding online-only flight prices. A friend of mine in Atlanta gets similar deals on airline tickets from Delta Air Lines, which has a hub there.

In February, American offered round-trip air fares from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to European destinations, including London, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Rome and Zurich, for $269.

Sure, it was cold there then. But it was chilly here, too. Would you rather shiver while gazing at Reunion Tower or the Eiffel Tower?

This month, American has offered round-trip fares from Dallas to Washington National for $169 and to Nashville for $139. Usually, round-trip fares to those cities from Dallas cost more than $200. Similar deals are offered by most airlines. They usually have to be purchased within a week or so, and travel usually has to commence within two weeks to a month.

For American Airlines, go to www.aa.com, sign up for an AAdvantage number and ask for weekly e-mail notification of online sales.

The key to getting the best deal is being flexible. If special fares advertised on the Internet do not work for you, the airlines still usually offer lower fares online than you can get over the phone or through a travel agent. Flights leaving on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are often cheaper than others.

Also, red-eye flights usually offer lower prices. To maximize your savings, be sure to stay over at least one Saturday night.

Another advantage to buying flights online: Airlines often offer extra frequent flier miles. Many airlines now offer complete packages, with air, hotel and car rental included. While these can be good deals, hotel selection is often limited. It is usually cheaper to book hotel accommodations separately. You will have greater selection that way, too.

To check fares on several airlines concurrently, use one of the excellent online travel sites such as Travelocity at www.travelocity.com or Yahooâ€™s Biztravel at www.biztravel.com.

With these sites you can search many airlines simultaneously to find the lowest fares, and you can make hotel and car reservations. Itâ€™s a one-site stop and shop, which makes travel planning easy. Youâ€™ll save time and money.

With Biztravel, youâ€™ll even earn points, similar to frequent flier miles, that can be saved up and redeemed for merchandise on Yahoo sites.

Different travel Web sites will give different results, so check several to get the best deal. For instance, in a quick check for a round-trip flight from Dallas to New York, Biztravel gave me a price of $446.50 and Travelocity came back with $334.

As for cars and hotels, the major car rental agencies and hotel chains have online Web pages, and most take bookings.

It is important to remember that the airlines, hotels and car rental agencies will view Travelocity and Biztravel as travel agents, and that can make changing reservations more difficult - not impossible but more difficult.

For lodging, it is better to book directly through the hotel Web sites as opposed to using Travelocity and Biztravel, which mostly book with major chains and often offer higher-priced downtown hotels as their first options.

Many places - Boston, New Orleans, San Francisco and the Texas Hill Country, to name a few - have thriving bed-and-breakfasts that only use bed-and-breakfast booking services.

Three excellent online guides to inns and bed-and-breakfasts are InnSite at www.innsite.com, www.bedandbreakfast.com at www.bedandbreakfast.com and Travel Dataâ€™s Internet Guide to Bed and Breakfast Inns, found at www.traveldata.com/inns.

One more advantage: Booking your lodging online saves on long-distance phone calls, a real advantage if you are traveling outside the United States.

Another great way to find out super travel deals is a site called Smarter Living at www.smarterliving.com.

This is a comprehensive site that offers the same type of services as Travelocity and Biztravel. It offers weekly e-mail updates like the airlines but includes many airlines, car rental agencies, even deals on travel magazines.

In a recent e-mail, Smarter Living listed round-trip air fares between Houston and Dallas for $79 on American Airlines, Houston and Toronto for $139 on Continental Airlines and other fares from airlines including Southwest and Air Canada.

One of most intriguing sources for travel deals online is www.Priceline.com. This is the site that William Shatner pitches in those self-deprecating TV ads. Priceline.com procures services such as airline tickets, hotel reservations and car rentals under an empowering premise: You set the price.

You tell Priceline.com how much you are willing to pay for an item or service, and its browser scurries off to find that service at that price. Many airlines, lodging providers and car rental agencies are willing to make reservations under those conditions. You give Priceline.com a credit card number, and if the site finds the deal you want, it immediately makes the reservations and charges your card.

I have never used this service, but an editor tells me he has had excellent luck with the site, which he describes as â€œvery service-oriented.â€

A double charge to his credit card was taken care of immediately. But be aware that once you buy a service over Priceline, you canâ€™t cancel and get your money back. If your plans change, you are stuck.

Another good site for travel deals is www.bestfares.com at www.bestfares.com. This is a sort of online travel magazine that offers articles and tips as well as the latest specials.

The same rules apply to travel purchases as any other online buy - only use your credit card on secure servers and be alert for scams. If a little voice tells you to avoid a deal or site online, listen to it - thatâ€™s most likely your common sense talking.

Bon voyage!