You said: “Package travel, for the sake of this discussion, means combining component A and component B of a trip together-airfare and hotel, airfare and rental car, hotel and rental car, whatever.”

Okay, I mean, if you want to limit the definition of package travel to that, I guess you’re entitled. I don’t that makes any sense, though. In these days of unbundled charges, anytime anybody is combining two things that you might ordinarily purchase as individual items should be considered a package, and, indeed, is considered a package by many people other than you. For people like me who do most of their flying on Southwest, even a ticked priced by a round-trip fare instead of two one-way fares is a package deal.

Of course Chris’s original point is valid, but it goes a bit too far. SOMETIMES, it makes sense for a package deal (defined the way most people actually think of it) to cost more. But not often. My only disagreement was that Chris seemed to be saying that a package deal should *always* be cheaper. I just don’t agree with the “always.”

Your case isn’t the same sort of apples-to-apples comparison; an “all-you-can-use” ticket is not a combination of ten, fourteen, twenty-six, or ninety individual trips. It’s a convenience pass that says, in effect, “for a flat rate high enough, we’ll forego the hassles of keeping up with dollar balances on your pass, and you can forego having to monitor the balance and add money to the card when you need it.

Even if you’d purchased a card entitling you to, say, fifteen trips at the price of ten as long as they were used within the month, skipping six of the trips wouldn’t mean they charged you more per trip taken – it means you bought tickets and threw some of them away.

Package travel, for the sake of this discussion, means combining component A and component B of a trip together-airfare and hotel, airfare and rental car, hotel and rental car, whatever. Assuming each is supplied via its own company and it’s travel company C that sells them to you, there’s really no justifiable reason at all that buying A and B together from C should be priced higher than buying them as a package. What fool would buy them at a higher rate?

Sandy’s examples aren’t of packages being priced higher, but the downside to the savings you *should* be seeing in a package price: packages are often noncancellable. But that’s a different issue than the price of bundled vs. unbundled components. And Victoria’s experience (combining special discounts) also skews the comparison because you expect the AAA price to be lower than the rate available to the general public. Again, not apples-to-apples.

Chris’s original point is valid: If a travel company is combining Component A and Component B into a package, there is *no* reason that package should ever cost more than those *exact* same items, priced separately and added together. None.

Just pointing out that sometimes it makes sense for a package to cost more than its parts.

I also like checking with the services then going to the carrier. It’s one less layer of blame to go around. I typically find the price is almost the same, and (with the airlines suffering) I actually feel better that the airlines don’t have to give a cut to a third party.

As far as I can tell, the only advantage to booking together would have been that we could have shared a single change fee if we changed together. Still – the additional fare would have been $80 more total and the change fee is $75.

I use Orbitz, Travelocity, etc. to check prices, then go to the carrier directly. Often times, it’s less. Also, if something happens like a flight delay due to mechanical or weather, the airline will put you up at their exspense. Try and get that out of Orbitz!