What Is the Best Way To Find and Buy a Cheap Domestic Flight?
First it is helpful to understand how the market for domestic fares works. After decades of offering travel agents a standard commission of at least 10%, many of the larger airline carriers in North America stopped paying base commissions to travel agents, beginning in March 2002. The elimination of commissions for domestic flights is important because travel agencies now needed to find a source of revenue to earn from the sale of domestic flights. Service fees have become the new source of revenue for travel agencies since commissions were eliminated. Since 1998, the number of agencies charging service fees has increased from 64 percent to more than 99 percent of agencies, today. Typically, agencies charge fees for all airline-related services from as low as tens of dollars to hundreds of dollars. Therefore, finding the cheapest domestic flights is directly related to finding the cheapest services fees. Now that I understand how the market for domestic fares and service fees work how
