Consumerreports.org and Consumer Reports WebWatch Rate Airline-Ticket Booking Web Sites

Expedia and Travelocity Rank as Top Picks But All Sites Could Improve Privacy and Disclosure Policies

YONKERS, N.Y. — ConsumerReports.org, the largest publication-based subscription site on the Web, and Consumer Reports WebWatch, a nonprofit research project with a mission to improve Web site credibility, today announced that e-Ratings, unique evaluations of online shopping sites, have been updated to include airline-ticket booking sites.

The latest round of e-Ratings follows the September 2002 evaluation of the six largest independent travel Web sites: Cheap Tickets, Expedia, One Travel, Orbitz, TravelNow.com and Travelocity. The examination, conducted by Consumer Reports and Consumer Reports WebWatch, evaluated each site on its fares, flight itineraries, ease of use, customer service, privacy and security policies. From the evaluation two clear winners emerged: Expedia and Travelocity.

This time around, the same six sites were evaluated on a slightly different set of criteria: privacy and security policies, customer service, clear disclosure of advertising relationships, usability and content. Once again, Expedia and Travelocity earned top rankings overall, with Orbitz running close behind for promising to maintain consumer privacy, enabling easy navigation through the site and providing a satisfying online experience.

While many of the sites earned solid marks for low fares and customer service, all could be more forthcoming in disclosing their relationships with advertisers and some could improve their privacy policies, according to ConsumerReports.org and Consumer Reports WebWatch. None of the six sites reviewed adequately disclosed the scope of the relationship between the site and its airline partners, which made it next to impossible to judge the objectivity of flight prices.

Similarly, some sites could better explain what they do with personal customer information. Expedia and Travelocity have excellent privacy policies, promising that they won't rent or sell personal information, but policies at other sites, such as Cheap Tickets, are more confusing.

"Back in September of 2002, Consumer Reports WebWatch urged independent airline ticket-booking sites to adopt its core guidelines for Web credibility as well as its industry-specific guidelines," said Beau Brendler, director of Consumer Reports WebWatch. "We are pleased to see that many of the sites have made improvements. However, if sites want to develop trust among consumers it is imperative that they dramatically improve site disclosure policies and are transparent about relationships with site partners."

Since 2002, What's Changed?

• Since the last time the six online-travel sites were assessed, processing fees and service fees have been added. Back in September of 2002, only Orbitz charged a fee of $5-$10; both Expedia and Travelocity have since imposed a $5 service fee. Neither Expedia nor Travelocity informed the consumer of the new fee structure until further along in the booking process.
  
  
• Paper-ticket fees have become more prevalent since the last evaluations. All of the six sites now charge between $10 and $20 if consumers prefer a paper ticket instead of an electronic one.
  
  
• Cheap Tickets and TravelNow.com have made enhancements to their booking engines. For example, Cheap Tickets now lets consumers specify the number of stops they are willing to accept when booking a flight. Both Cheap Tickets and TravelNow.com let consumers re-sort flight results based on price or schedule.

"The new online travel e-Ratings provide consumers with valuable information that is most important to them when booking travel online," said Helen Popkin, associate editor of ConsumerReports.org. "Overall, we were pleased to see that the top airline-ticket booking sites provided consumers with a great deal of control when booking flights and several sites kept their promise of having 24/7 customer service available for users."

EDITOR'S NOTE:
To access the complete free e-Ratings report log on to www.ConsumerReports.org and click on the "Airline-ticket booking sites: An important source," story located on the homepage in the "free highlights" section or go to www.ConsumerWebWatch.org, the gateway to all things related to e-Ratings.

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