THE TRAVEL MAGICIANS: THEY TURN SEATS INTO SAVINGS THE TRICK IS TO SAVE MONEY. TICKET CONSOLIDATORS MAY BE YOUR BEST BET WHEN YOU MAKE A LAST-MINUTE RESERVATION TO TRAVEL LONG DISTANCES.
By JOE BRANCATELLI

(FORTUNE Magazine) – New York investment banker Richard Sansone had worked hard. So hard, in fact, that he knew he needed a vacation...but had no idea where to go. He turned to playing stick-the-pin-in-the-globe to find a vacation spot. His pin struck Mauritius, a pristine little holiday island in the Indian Ocean. Then came the bad news: One travel agent quoted a staggering $6,698 for a last-minute, roundtrip coach flight from New York to Mauritius via London.

Sansone made it to Mauritius, though, and he paid just $2,495. The $4,200 discount materialized when another travel agent secured the Mauritius itinerary from a "consolidator," a ticket wholesaler that thrives in a peculiar back channel of transportation where many of the world's airlines quietly dump their excess seat inventory.

Acting like the outlet malls of commercial aviation, consolidators can save you anywhere from a few dollars on deeply discounted, advance-purchase tickets to a few thousand on last-minute, long-haul business trips. The discounts vary by route and season, the restrictions are sometimes convoluted, and consolidators can't always get the seats you want when you need to fly, but a recent check of the market yielded last-minute savings of as much as 77% when compared with the prices quoted by the airlines for an unrestricted coach ticket (see chart).

"Consolidators deal in distressed merchandise," explains Jill Donaldson, a New York City-based vice president of British Airways. "They buy tickets the airlines can't sell, and we give them the kinds of prices that allow them to turn around and offer huge discounts to certain travelers."

So how can you cash in on this bargain bonanza? Only with great caution and a good travel agent.

For starters, finding a consolidator ain't easy. A few advertise in the classified sections of the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and major dailies like the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, but most work only by private referrals. In fact, the consolidator industry is so shadowy that no one even knows how many consolidators are in business at any one time. One of the few published guides, The Airline Consolidators Quick Reference Chart, lists about 100 companies. Consolidators themselves put the number at 300 or more. Smart travelers don't even bother tracking consolidators down, realizing that most won't sell tickets directly to consumers.

Indeed, the biggest and most reputable ticket consolidators-- companies with names like Jetset North America, C.L. Thompson, and C&H--essentially act as wholesalers, buying huge lots of tickets from the airlines, then distributing them to travel agents, who add a small markup.

But using a travel agent to find a consolidator ticket isn't just a matter of convenience. Even savvy travelers need a guide through the maze of restrictions the airlines slap on seats sold through consolidators. Just ask Dallas decorator Susan Flynn: She bought a $450 roundtrip ticket to Paris direct from a consolidator. She thought the "open" return on her ticket entitled her to fly home whenever she chose. What it really meant was that she had no confirmed seat on a return flight, and she waited five extra days in Paris before the airline found her a ride home.

"When you're buying a consolidator seat, you've got to understand the restrictions," says Gary Topping, president of Gulfstream Travel in Gulf Shores, Alabama, the agency that wrote Sansone's Mauritius ticket. "It's only logical to expect that tickets 70% off the full coach price involve some conditions."

Although they vary by ticket and destination, most consolidator seats have a fairly standard set of restrictions, according to Topping and Rochelle Lieberman, president of Gateway Travel. For instance:

--Not all tickets purchased through a consolidator are eligible for frequent-flier miles, and you probably can't use frequent-flyer miles or coupons to move up to business class or first class.

--Most consolidator tickets are nonrefundable; changing your itinerary or time of departure can carry a $150 fee.

--Some consolidators cannot arrange for advance-seat assignments, which means lining up with the tourists and the backpackers at the ticket counter.

--Virtually all consolidator seats are "nonendorsable." In other words, you must fly the airline whose name is on the ticket. If your flight is delayed or canceled, you must wait until your airline has another flight--and an empty seat--to that destination.

Another fly in the consolidator ointment: It's been months since consolidators had first- or business-class seats to sell. The airlines are doing such a booming business in the premium classes that there's literally no excess capacity to dump on consolidators. "Buying a business-class seat through a consolidator is impossible these days," says Lieberman. "Even six months out, there are no seats. And you can never get a first-class seat anymore."

All those restrictions and hurdles traditionally have deterred corporate travelers. But as more and more business travel is generated by entrepreneurs and small-business people--travelers who can draw a direct line from the cost of their ticket to their bottom line--consolidators are capturing a larger slice of the business-travel pie. "Entrepreneurs love us," says Barry Rush, president of Jetset North America in Los Angeles. "Consolidator tickets may not be perfect for the corporate traveler, but individuals understand the value" of saving $1,000 or more on a single flight.

And make no mistake about it: The dramatic savings are what make consolidator tickets so overwhelmingly attractive. Consolidators may not have first-class seats to sell, but they are awash in cheap coach seats that can be purchased with little or no advance planning.

"If you're working up a vacation and can buy far in advance, don't waste your time with a consolidator. They won't beat airline prices," says Topping. "But the longer the haul and the shorter the window for purchasing your ticket before departure, the better the deal the consolidators offer."