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Airfare prices rising, but bargains do exist
April 7, 2010

TAMPA - Savvy travelers will need to sharpen their price shopping skills to land what few good deals might arise.

Average summer domestic round-trip airfare this year is $360, 9 percent higher than a year ago, according to a new Travelocity.com report based on actual tickets purchased. For international flights, the average round-trip international fare of $806 is 10 percent higher. The combination of offering fewer seats to trim costs, the Delta-Northwest merger that reduced competition, and pent-up summer leisure travel demand has enabled carriers to raise prices and promote sales that won't look like bargains to people accustomed to paying less than $100 to fly from Tampa to Chicago.

For those willing to study Travelocity, Bing, Ding and other airline and online travel agency travel planning sites, it still may be possible to arrange relatively thrifty vacation air travel plans. Southwest Airlines continues to offer discounts on its free Ding site, available at Southwest.com. On Tuesday, Southwest launched a separate three-day sale that ends Thursday for travel good through June 23.

One-way prices to 22 airports from Tampa include a $127 fare to Chicago and $91 to New Orleans. Bing.com provides a search engine that gives the odds of whether it would be better to book a flight now between two destinations or wait a week, based on historic trends.

For example, Bing.com tracked round-trip fares between Tampa International Airport and Los Angeles for mid-June that ranged from $326 to $925 and recommended buying now, with a 63 percent probability that the lowest fares would increase $21 to $42 in the next seven days.

"I would say in general fares are up over last year," said George Hobica, of Airfarewatchdog.com. "Fares to Europe are definitely higher this summer than last.

Tampa is lucky in that there are several alternate airports and it's served by low-cost carriers Allegiant Airlines at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International and Southwest at Tampa International, he said.

Hobica, whose site tracks airfares and does not sell tickets, recommends people check Allegiant Airlines.com, USA3000.com and Southwest.com separately from Internet travel agents, along with Spiritair.com for deep discounts.

"People should wait for AirTran's weekly Tuesday sales, which other airlines match," Hobica said. "If they can wait for travel after Labor Day they'll save money."

Source :- http://www2.tbo.com