I'm very dissatisfied with the paid services of bestfares.com. If you haven't been there, it purports to hold a tremendous value in insider information to anyone that travels. For your $49.95 annual fee, you get a package of stuff and a monthly magazine.

After living through the first year, I still haven't got everything I paid for, and I have come to question the real value of this subscription.

I've cancelled my automatic renewal and fired off the below complaint. Take it as you will...

Mr. Tom Parsons
Best Fares

Please cancel my automatic subscription renewal that has already been charged to my credit card and credit the funds back to the card.

I am very disappointed with your services.

1) I have asked twice for my "free" copy of Insider Travel Secrets during the past year. No book has ever arrived, even though I was assured that it was on the way. I guess I'll never get what I supposedly paid for...

2) Your travel agency services are very restrictive, and this is mentioned nowhere in the materials. Upon prodding your agent (who could barely speak understandable English to begin with), she mentioned that she could only book fares on 4 or 5 airlines - even though the itinerary I had in mind was significantly less with another carrier. After 20 minutes of frustration with her, I had to call a "real" travel agent to get the deal that I had uncovered myself.

3) The discounts and other special offers in your membership kit are readily available elsewhere to anyone with just a little travel savvy. Packaging them up is a service, but not worth your fee.

4) Your website contains probably 75% of what winds up in the magazine, so the actual magazine itself is of little value. It's cheaply printed and really boring to read.

5) The "touted" subscriber-only offers are more hype than substance. I've tried to book four of them and been shot down every time for various reasons. Not much value if you can't get them...

I can go on, but I'm sure if anyone reads this, they get the point. As for Tom Parsons, you should spend more time actually running your business than plastering your face all over TV. You're ignoring the people like me who actually pay you money.... and now regret it.

I plan on sharing this experience with other web-savvy travellers so they can avoid the same trap I fell into.

Sincerely,

Kevin Howard

Ken... thanks for the warning about bestfares.com. I checked out their site, got
a major headache trying to shift through the
webpage and came back here.

I had luck booking a few airline tickets
through BizTravel which sends a quick confirmation to a reservation and their
staff is very friendly. The best thing: NO
FEE!!! They also do the hotels and car rental.

I also go directly to the airline websites.
United booked quickly, ditto Continental.
A lot of problems with Delta (explained on
the Delta SKYLINKS page on FlyerTalk.)

Now my mind fails me... What's the airline
service WIlliam Shantner is hawking? I
don't trust that service, even though
Captain Kirk/T.J. Hooker is behind it. (Not
a fan of his either)

Good luck with your future flying, Ken.

CATMAN

There are a few things that I like about bestfares. I find their mag helpful. Also I like to look over their Snooze you loose section of their website. It's updated daily
and is only available if you subscribe. It might prove helpful when I retire and can take spur of the moment trips! Like the $198
round trip Denver-London on DL,BA and NW!
I booked an Alaska cruise with them on RCI
with just two weeks notice. 7 days for $599
each for my wife and I and our daughter for
$399! I looked at several other places and couldn't find a better deal.
I've not tried booking airlines with them but I usually book my own over the internet

thanks for the advance warning. i was going to buy a subscription with bestfares (i always use their "free" info), but will now look into it further. one of my friends that reads the site never is able to book any of their 'specials' either.

Snooze you lose is available for free. URL is
http://www.bestfares.com/newsdesk/snoozeTOC/snooze.htm

I've had the same problem about receiving
the book "Inside Travel Secrets" ... many
promises but no book, even with several
emails.

I found the Snooze you lose deals to be
great, and have saved a lot of money
based on those. But that's the only valuable
part of the web site for me.

I agree that most of the information provided by bestfares.com could be obtained by surfing the web. However since they do two things for you (a) surf all relevant airlines, hotel, car rental, credit card websites etc. (b) constantly update their site with new info.

For me they are definitely worth the $60 merely for saving me the time - it probably saves me 20 min a day and over a year that's a lot - I am definitely web-savvy yet I'm willing to pay for aggregated and sifted data that is pertinent and current. It's amazing what price people will pay for convenience in the real world - but are unwilling to do so in the "virtual" world.

Just my opinion.