Roundup: Southwest sale starts summer fare war; Virgin America charging for first checked bag; Yapta adds hotel price tracking

Good morning, travelers. Aloha Friday!

Airline news | Yep, it’s time to start thinking about summer travel. Not because the weather is heating up — because the sales are. Yesterday we told you about the new Southwest summer sale going on with seats available every day but Friday and Sunday. Now Los Angeles Times Staff Writer Peter Pae tells us that major airlines, including American, United and Delta, matched the fares on most of the routes flown by Southwest. Are airlines scrambling to fill seats? Read: Southwest Airlines kicks off summer fare war.

In other news, Virgin America joins the list of airlines charging for checked bags. It’ll cost you $15 for your first checked bag, if you’re flying coach. Passengers flying first-class get two bags checked for free. Main Cabin Select customers or those flying on fully refundable fares will get one checked bag for free. The new fee schedule takes effect for flights that were booked starting March 19 for travel beginning May 5. In other fee changes, the airline that offers individual seat entertainment lowered the online change/cancellation fee from $75 to $50.

Travel website | Yapta continues to add useful features that other sites don’t have. Now it has added a hotel price-drop watch. It’s similar to its flight tracking — you pick a hotel, Yapta checks the price every day and lets you know when it drops. I’m testing it in a couple of different ways. I selected a few hotels in Las Vegas and near where I live in Carlsbad, California, and will see how the prices drop and compare them to other online hotel-deal sites to see who finds the lowest charges. I’ll keep you posted.

– Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel & Deal blogger

[Photo: Russian girls of summer by bajaeddy, Your Scene, Los Angeles Times]

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 at 9:38 am by Jen Leo and is filed under Airline travel, Business Travel, Deals, Good Morning, Hotels, News, Tips & Advice, Travel Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.