Bing Travel may predict whether an airfare will rise or fall, but Continental took some of the worry out by giving travelers the option of locking in airfares for 72 hours or seven days for a fee.
Continental calls the new feature FareLock, and for fees starting at $5 for a 72-hour hold and $9 for a week-long hold, it gives consumers the ability to lock in the airfare without any obligation to purchase the flight.
Travelers can purchase the ticket during the FareLock window, use an auto-ticketing feature to book the flight at the end of the lock period or take no action and lose the lock fee.
The fees vary, Continental says, based on the itinerary, the number of days until departure and the length of the hold.
Like other passengers, travelers using the FareLock feature can make reservation changes or cancel the booking within 24 hours of ticketing and get a full refund. However, these passengers would forfeit the lock fee, Continental says.
FareLock may drive some incremental bookings and ancillary revenue for Continental from travelers who would have been concerned about fare increases.
Terrific move by Continental, I truly believe this can become a new product niche for airlines. Note that the fares do vary and on an international route from AMS-NYC a $532 fare requires a $9/$19 lock costs.
The french airline Air France implemented this product nearly one year ago …
The transatlantic business class flight sector has seen much volatility in recent years. Let’s briefly review the sector and consider how we can reduce our premium airfare. – We saw the emergence (and subsequent bankruptcy) of the independent “all-business class” airline.
Just another way for airlines to screw people, this was once a free option, reserve for 48 hours but was moved to 72 hours, FREE for the last 6 years i have used continental, some sites claim this is a “new feature” when it isnt. Just like directTV or inflight entertainment was free, now it costs $6 for directTV, that used to be free as well and if your going outside the U.S you are lucky to get maybe 6 channels yet you still pay the full $6.
I am getting sick of all of these add-on options, why are WE paying a fuel surcharge for our tickets, that should ALL be included in the price and the cost of THEM doing business. Just like every other business in the U.S they are raping people on things that they should be paying for, the profits these companies turn a year and they dare to pass their operational costs onto the customer?
The government does need to start stepping in on this robbery, it is unreal. i for one am now looking at other airlines to do my 3 flights a year, Continental has gone to far from leaving our luggage behind in Newark cause of a crappy hockey team, to excuse after excuse of when it was supposed to arrive and now this crap.