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CONTINENTAL DRIFTER
Booking a multi-destination trip can be cheap and easy online by Elliott Hester

Putting together a travel itinerary can be difficult, even with the help of a travel professional. When the trip requires multiple flights and a variety of hotel rooms and rental cars, planning can be a bewildering experience.

Thanks to the Internet, however, I organized a 4-week, cross-country business trip involving 13 flights, 8 hotel stays, and 8 rental cars. I made the bookings myself, in only a couple of hours. I even managed to book rooms at four-star hotels—all at a substantial discount.

The business trip was in fact a promotional tour for my latest book, which was published in September, 2005. My publisher’s budget allowed for only an 8-city book tour. I was thrilled, of course. But like many authors, I wanted to present my book in as many cities as possible. After discussions with my publisher, 12 cities were added to the tour. But for these 12 destinations, I would have to pay all expenses.

Booking 13 flights (including a return flight home to Chicago) proved to be the most challenging aspect of my itinerary. Having previously used the Internet to book flights, I know that online travel agencies charge a $5.00 booking fee. Booking directly through an airline Web site will eliminate this charge. But rather than spend hours scrutinizing one airline site after another, I selected an online travel agency.

The major online agencies (Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, and CheapTickets) offered pretty much the same prices on the same carriers. In the end  I chose Expedia.com, despite the fact that its “multi-destination” link is buried under an “additional options” link. (Travelocity’s multi-destination link appears clearly on the home page.) While Travelocity allows you to book up to 4 flights at one time, Expedia allows for 5 simultaneous bookings.

After entering my first 5 destinations and clicking the “search” button, only a few flight options appeared on the screen. But when I switched to the “one-way” trip option, a multitude of flights popped up. I then clicked on the flight displaying the lowest non-stop fare from Chicago to my first stop: Cleveland. I repeated the one-way trip purchase process, in order of scheduled bookstore events in Raleigh, Atlanta, St. Louis, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Albuquerque, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston.

I paid as little as $174 for an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Boston (traveling Oct. 31, 2005), and as much as $324 for a United Airlines flight from Boston to Chicago (Nov. 2, 2005).

Renting cars was easy online. I belong to frequent-driver programs at Budget and Alamo. “Fastbreak” and “Quicksilver”, respectively, allow customers make online bookings, bypass the rental counter, and walk directly to their rental car. As is the case with airlines, my only loyalty is to price. I gave my business to the car rental company offering the lowest rate.

I used Hotwire.com to book all my hotel rooms because it seemed to deliver the lowest rates on the Web. In San Francisco, for example, I paid $79 for one night (Oct. 30, 2005) at the four-star Sheraton Gateway Airport Hotel. Travelocity listed the same hotel for $99 the same day. Through Hotwire, I paid $89 for a room at the 4 1⁄2 -star Intercontinental Hotel Buckhead in Atlanta. Of all the online booking options I tried, no other site could beat this price.

There is a catch, however. Hotwire does not divulge the hotel name until after you’ve provided credit card information and clicked the purchase button. Instead, properties are listed according to star rating and price.

As is the case at most online travel discounters, Hotwire’s travel partners (hotels, airlines, car rental agencies, cruise lines, and vacation packagers) allow the agency to access “unsold inventory—empty seats on flights, empty hotel rooms, and unrented cars—at big savings. By showing the name of our travel partner after you book,” says Hotwire, customers get “travel deals that are significantly below published prices.”

Using Hotwire.com to book 17 nights in 8 different hotels (5 four-star properties, 2 three-star, 1 two-and-a-half), I paid $1,478 including taxes and fees. Online car rentals totaled $623 at Budget.com and Alamo.com. Thirteen flights, booked through Expedia.com, cost me $1,663.

After returning to Chicago, where my 12-city book tour began, I pondered the $3,674 price tag. Yes, I could have been charged twice as much had travel arrangements been made with a traditional travel agency. Yes, I could have saved money by staying at the Super 8 Motel. But for $89 per night, the Intercontinental suited me just fine.

Next stop: Sosua, Dominican Republic

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