New York Times
Sunday, March 14, 1999
Cheap Air Fares: Bidding on the Web The company, Magical Holidays at 501 Madison Avenue, set up www.skyauction .com with no minimum price for any air
ticket, package tour or hotel stay. Registration to bid is free, with payment by credit card or check. The president, Michael Hering, said that Magical Holidays was begun in 1981 and, like other consolidators, has contracts with most major airlines to sell tickets below advertised prices when seats are not filling up at regular rates.
The Web site, which has a student section with domestic tickets and overseas tickets for long stays, opened Feb. 17. Among the brands identified in the auctions are Virgin Atlantic, Continental, United and Alitalia. One couple won an auction of two tickets to South Africa on Virgin Atlantic for $685 each, plus tax, as against $1,299, plus tax, for a 21-day advance purchase quoted by the airline. Bids can be canceled by E-mail to the company, support@skyauction.com. There is a hypertext line on the site.
Skyauction bids can be based on how much has been bid -- bids in the ball park are posted -- and how many tickets are available. In each sale, the price necessary to get a ticket at a given moment is posted, and others that qualify are listed. Most auctions go on for a week, but some of the offers, Mr. Hering said, represent deals that airlines provide for particular dates that are selling badly. These may last only a day. Some winning bids are a loss for his company, Mr. Hering said, in that he pays the airline more for them than they fetch.
New York tour operator and airline-ticket consolidator has opened a Web site to accept bids on domestic and overseas tickets, and the owner says that no bid -- not even $1 -- is too small to start. Many of the fares have limited windows of availability; others, particularly for students, offer a round trip to anywhere in the United States to be used in a wide period of time.