Sites that alert you to better travel deals
Tingo.com is a website that will watch your purchase and rebook you at a lower rate automatically, or alert you that you're entitled to an airline price drop voucher. Credit: Tingo.com
Between the time you book a trip and the time you take it, there's a good chance that the hotel, rental car company or airline will have lowered the price. These websites (one of them just launched) watch your purchase and rebook you at a lower rate automatically, or alert you that you're entitled to an airline price-drop voucher.
HOTELS
Surprisingly, once you book a hotel room there's a good chance that the same room and dates will go down between reservation and arrival, as I discovered quite by accident last year. Needing to book an additional night's stay at a London hotel, I rechecked my reservation (made on Expedia.com) a week before my arrival and discovered that the daily rate had decreased by $75, saving me $750 on a 10-night booking.
There's now a website that will do the price-check-and-refund work for you automatically, rebooking you at the lower rate, and checking for further drops up until the day of your arrival or until the rate becomes nonrefundable.
Each time the rate goes down, Tingo sends you an email with a new booking number at the lower price. Another consumer doesn't have to book the same room category and dates at a lower rate for the refund to kick in, unlike Orbitz's "Price Assurance" program, which also refunds hotel price drops.
Although the site is new, experience has shown that rate drops occur about 33 percent of the time, with average savings of $36 on a two-night stay, although savings of over $500 per stay aren't unheard of. Tingo works with virtually every hotel group and thousands of independent properties, unless the consumer is booking a nonrefundable rate. There's no limit to the amount of the refund, there are no claim forms to submit and the refund is made directly to your credit card.
AIRLINES
For several years, Yapta.com has allowed consumers to enter their flight details on several airlines and receive an alert. The site only works with Alaska, American, AirTran (until it's fully merged with Southwest, which doesn't participate), Delta, Hawaiian, JetBlue, United, US Airways and Virgin America (no foreign-based carriers). And, of course, only Alaska and JetBlue (and for a few more months, AirTran) will give you back the entire amount of a fare drop refund, in the form of a voucher good for future travel up to a year from the original booking, with no fee. The other airlines mostly deduct $150 from the value of any voucher issued for a domestic fare, and up to $250 on an international fare, which often wipes out any savings.
Even so, Yapta has helped save consumers millions of dollars since its founding, although whether these fliers ever ended up applying their voucher savings on a future flight is anyone's guess, and it's always possible that revenue-hungry airlines will increase the "refund fee" at a future date, or eliminate price-drop refunds entirely. Orbitz's Price Assurance program issues cash refunds, not vouchers, if an airfare you booked goes down after you buy it, but another Orbitz customer needs to have booked the exact same flight numbers, flight times and dates for the refund (up to a maximum of $250) to kick in.
RENTAL CARS
Rental car rates fluctuate, too, and Autoslash.com will track your booking and rebook you automatically if the price goes down before you pick up the car. Not only that, but the site will apply any discount coupon codes you might be eligible for, further lowering the cost. There's no need to issue a refund since you usually haven't paid for the rental in the first place (although some companies now offer discounts for prepaid rentals).
Caveat: the site works only with Hertz, Thrifty, SIXT, Dollar, Advantage, Europcar, Payless, E-Z and Fox, so it's possible that a nonparticipating firm would have a lower rate even after a price drop on a car you booked at one that does play ball. So far, other companies (Avis, Enterprise, Budget, National, Alamo) have refused to participate. Autoslash claims it has an 85 percent success rate in reducing the cost of its customers' rentals.
