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Worth Saving
Opinion · July 11, 2002

Like that $69 plane ticket you just booked? The dirt-cheap rental car you picked up at the airport? The free travel agent's advice that came with it?

Kiss it all good-bye.

Big changes are coming to the travel industry, and when the dust settles you could pay more for your next trip. A lot more.

Two airlines are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. One car rental company is already operating under Chapter 11 protection. Travel agents are suffering after losing their airline commissions this spring. If these travel companies fail then the marketplace will become less competitive. Prices will go up.

Neither the government nor the executives running these companies seems capable of rescuing them. But you are.

Think of it as buying war bonds, only this time it's a war is to save your inalienable right to travel on the cheap. Here's how:

1. Buy a ticket on United Airlines or US Airways. Both airlines are struggling to recover after last year's downturn in business travel and from the repercussions of the terrorist attacks. Both have had recent management shake-ups and are appealing to the government for assistance. Both will die without your help. Try hard to forget how awful these airlines were even before they got themselves into trouble; that's beside the point. Focus, instead, on what will happen if they perish. Fares could go through the roof.

2. Rent a car from Alamo Rent A Car and National Car Rental. Its parent company, ANC Rental Corporation, is running under bankruptcy protection, and its stock was delisted from the NASDAQ exchange late last year. The car rental industry doesn't cut the same high profile as the airline business, but it is no less deserving of your help. Rental rates remain low, but if these two car rental companies end up in the junkyard then the resulting price increases could wreck your next vacation or business trip.

3. Use a travel agent. Travel retailers have been robbed of their airline commissions and beaten down by a slump in travel demand. Yet many of them continue to offer their advice at reduced rates (admittedly, they earn a bonus from the sale of certain products such as vacation packages or cruises). But since March, when Delta Air Lines announced it would no longer pay base commissions for tickets issued by travel agents in the United States, it's been a slow, sad decline for many of these professionals - especially small so-called "Mom and Pop" agencies who relied on commissions. The surviving agencies are imposing service fees to cover their losses which can add $30 or more to the expense of your ticket.

The timing of your patronage is just as important. Don't just do it during the summer when everyone else is. Plan a vacation during the fall, when car rental lots are full of unused vehicles and planes are flying half-full. Take a trip during the first week of January, which is called "dead week" because everyone stays home. Go when no one else does.

And remember why you're doing this. It isn't your patriotic duty, as President George W. Bush suggested in last year's advertising campaign sponsored by the Travel Industry Association of America. It isn't even because these businesses deserve to be saved. Many of them don't.

It's because their demise will inevitably make you pay more for travel. And that's something that only the competitors of these beleaguered travel companies want.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.