I wondered how many other managers in your company can do the same in making their purchasing choices. Or how many DELTA managers could do something like that in running their departments?

Ahh, I follow the firm's regulations to the letter. It is better to have a job than to fiddle a bit, and then not have a job.

The point that I made was that a new regulation which did not make sense was introduced, in an attempt to fix a problem that did not exist.

Before, we really did care about flying economically. Now, judgement has been taken out of our hands.

In this case who does "they" refer to. If it is Delta, then they definitely do care. They, and every other carrier, definitely wants high domestic fares (and high international fares....and high everything fares)....that is way this works.

I think you are wrong and need to clarify the definition. Is this making $100-200 for their own salary or making $100-200 for the company (payrate vs billing rate). Most anyone travelling as a consultant has a BILLING rate over $100, and in reality that is what employers care about. Because most at this end of the pay scale are on salary so they cost their employer the same sitting in an airport as in their office. But if Bob is sitting at the airport he isnt MAKING me $200 an hour they care about.

I am a consultant and dont bill my clients for my travel time, but am starting to think about doing it (at a lesser rate than I charge them for my time on site). I am spending a LOT of time traveling and losing a lot of potential billable time to it

Well, unless you are going to be working on site at $200/hour on that day and if you get there later, you work less then this isn't an issue. As you say, most are salaried, so if you have a travel day, it doesn't matter to the company how long it takes you from a purely dollars standpoint.

We charge travel time but we do it at a flat rate of 20 hours per trip....so again it doesn't matter how long it takes.

I have noticed this too. I'm flying to EUG for work(in Corvallis), and driving up to PDX and staying the weekend for some fun. (I haven't been to PDX since 1996!) Then I have to drive back to Corvallis for a few more days of work and then I'm flying home from EUG. The cheapest I could find was $469 for my flight. I think those were "L" fares too, and I think the most I've ever paid per MQM, over 37¢!

So I decided to fly a friend up to PDX to meet me for the weekend, DL wants $433 for a SLC-PDX friday pm to sunday pm. WN on the same flight times $218. That's a no brainer.

I know DL needs to raise fares, and I'll pay up to $50 more to fly DL on the short hops, heck, I'll pay $50 more buying friends tickets on DL, because I'm a loyal customer, but I sure as heck won't pay twice as much!

Having worked for several software firms over my career, I am use to billing 1/2 of normal hourly rate for travel time.

- RS

I agree that delta.com's fares are always high but I have been able to book them through local online travel agencies (in HNL, for me it's PandaOnline) and get much cheaper fares. It might be a regional thing for HNL, but I've been able to get good fares cross country HNL-IAD.

Example 1: 4/5-4/12 HNL-LAX on delta.com = $649.30. Same flights from pandaonline.com = $371.52

Example 2: 4/2-4/5 HNL-IAD on delta.com = $987.91. Same flights from pandaonline.com = $689.74

Maybe someone can help explain why these smaller travel agencies can get better fares than what delta.com offers. I wish for DL to adopt the best fare guarantee like NW.

Wow, Pandaonline is great. I checked CVG to OGG for 11/10-11/18/06 and their price was $728/pp. Delta's fare was $1009.

I'm bookmarking that site for future reference!