New Tools for Consumers - Better Research - smarter consumers?

There are now some pretty good tools available for researching and buying products.

This last week saw that Farecast came out of beta (this is beginning to be a huge joke as for example GMAIL is still officially in Beta), YAPTA started up and FareCompare - probably the grand daddy of them all - is still plodding out there.

These tools have in fact done a better job at consumer advocacy than say a Kayak or Mobissimo. In fact they are better tools. Too bad they don’t seem to have a good business model that is obvious.

So armed with this new set of tools are the consumers getting better or what?

At this stage there is an interesting lever being used by several of the sites to trumpet their successes. This is the fare refund program.

Way back when the OAG was the tool of choice (the book not the website!), every ticket was refundable. Today's tickets are rarely refundable for the lowest fares used. But in response to a general outcry over "Use it or Lose it" rules - many airlines introduced a fare refund or re=use program. Today most airlines offer this - even Southwest. However it is not usually offered in a manner that you can actually get your money back. Only with difficulty will Alaska offer the money without a fee. Basically most of the refunds get eaten up in "User" fees that the airlines slap on. For example Northwest will charge you $25 to issue a travel voucher - however if you insist on getting the cash - then you will need to fork over $100. Some airlines offer a one day return policy. Delta offers this and you can cancel your ticket and get your money back if you do so in 24 hours. BE CAREFUL though - you could get caught because if you do this online it will automatically cancel the seats you have taken and then put you to the back of the queue for a cheap seat. Meaning you could lose out altogether.

But the point of my story here is that there is a new chapter emerging that will change the shape of the relationship between Consumer and airline. In the past the airline controlled the intermediary (Travel Agent - on or offline) because that person was the one making the reservation and had a contractual relationship. In this new world the consumer is freely giving his own data to a 3rd party not subject to a contractual relationship. Thus these 3 players can aggregate the data and provide consumer facing tools at will. This will keep the airlines up at night while they try and figure out yet another losing battle in the war to retain opaque pricing information.

Fundamentally the consumer is more empowered IF HE/SHE is smart enough to use that information. So the trick for airlines and intermediaries is to retain their edge. For even more fun and games - why not contact one of the analysts at InTheKno and find out how you can actually use some of this technology to your advantage - irrespective of whether you are a consumer, intermediary or supplier.

Give us a ping. www.inthekno.com