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Airline flight discount coupon mistakes to avoid

January 20, 2008 by warren707 

Almost everyday I read about airline promotions that contain an airline flight discount coupon. Dispite that fact that many of these promotions might be legal, a lot of them contain a clause that makes them worth less than you would imagine.

First off. I’m not trying to make The Entertainment Book look bad. A lot of its discounts—especially at restaurants, hotels, theaters, and other visitor attractions—are real money savers. You can save money with the coupons instead of without them.

But you should be careful when it comes to any airline flight discount coupon. From my own experience, the issues I’ve gone through is common with all types of promotions.

All too often, “discount” deals are limited to base prices that are higher than the best prices widely available to ordinary consumers. Think about it, what good is a $50 discount on a $500 ticket when you can buy the identical flight, without the “discount” but in a different fare category, for $300?

Why should you buy a “free” companion airline ticket that is valid only with a $600 base fare, when you can purchase two round-trips for $250 each?

This reminds me of more complaints many people have with airline promotions such as this one: The small print is very detailed about the “booking classes” for which the deal is good for, but too many people find it almost impossible to locate airfares at any of those single booking codes.

On my Southwest Airlines tests, for example, the class shown on the fare display was “SE14NRX,” which has nothing to do with any of the codes listed on the coupon. And I saw no way to specify that I wanted Southwest’s site to list airfares in any single booking class that I probably would choose.

I encountered the same problems with a few other airlines, also.

The bottom line is this:
·Don’t assume that an sale actually cuts your travel costs.

·Don’t accept a coupon’s claimed dollar value—at best, it’s less than the hyped value, and it’s often completely worthless.

·Be sure to look closely at the fine print before you acquire or use a coupon.

·Make sure you check out the no-coupon alternatives before you bite.

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