Welcome
to I. T. S. Travel/DiscountAir.com. I. T. S. is a fully licensed
and insured travel agency which is family owned and operated.
In business for over 25 years, I. T. S. was one of the first (if
not the first) air consolidator to go on the Internet in 1995.
The company is run by Stephen Hetherington who has been in the
travel industry for 12 years with a degree in Information Technolgy
and Masters of Business from Keller Graduate School.
If you are not familiar with the terms "airfare
consolidator",or "wholesale airfares" let us try to
explain. Because we sell a tremendous amount of airline tickets,
certain airlines are willing to give us special fare contracts
to promote their airline. These fares are "unpublished" fares
as opposed to the "published" fares which every travel agency
has and which the airlines will quote to you when you call them
directly. The "unpublished" fares we sell range between 10 to
50% cheaper than the "published fares. Most of the business we
do involves international travel to Europe, Africa, the Middle
East, Asia, Latin America and the South Pacific. The tickets we
sell are on your regularly scheduled airlines, not a third world
carrier. We are not allowed to advertise the name of these airlines
and can only reveal the name when you contact us. We try to give
you a clue to the airline by giving you its hub city. For example,
flights to Latin America connect through Houston and flights to
Europe connect through Zurich or Frankfurt. We do not deal with
charter airlines, we do not buy bulk seats and try to resell them.
We sell you these seats only if the space is available.
People frequently ask us why do the airlines "secretly"
sell their tickets at lower prices and why do they only do it
through special agencies. The answers are relatively simple. The
airlines give us special fares to fill otherwise empty seats.
The best analogy is your supermarket. If they don't sell a can
of soup today they will sell it tomorrow and make a profit. Not
so with the airline. When that plane takes off with an empty seat,
that profit is gone forever. So it is better for them to get something
for the seat rather than nothing. That does not mean we only sell
last minute seats, but we will explain that later. The airlines
make most of their money by selling from their published fares,
so they don't want to lose that profit by reducing fares overall
to the general public. So another analogy is in order. Just as
many manufacturers have out-of-the-way factory outlet stores to
sell their overstocks and seconds, so the airlines use consolidators.
We are "out-of-the-way" in that we are not allowed to advertise
the names of the airlines. Just as savy shoppers know about and
take the time to shop the outlet stores, so do savvy travelers
know about air consolidators and use them to save money.
There are pros and cons to buying consolidator tickets
and the pros far outweigh the cons. You are flying on a major
airline at a dramitically reduced price; you can buy your ticket
for next day travel to almost a year ahead; your ability to buy
tickets within the 21, 14 and 7 day advance purchase rules for
the same price only increases the amount of money you save; you
may earn frequent flyer mileage on most of our airlines; in many
cases these fares are available for both individual and group
travel; you can fly into one city and leave from another -and
discounted business class fares are available on some airlines.
The negatives are that the airlines don't want to make changes
or refunds to these tickets once they have been issued. If changes
or refunds are allowed heavy penalties are charged.
We also offer great deals on car rentals, hotels,
tours and cruises. For domestic air travel we can offer you great
savings with our partnership with Hotwire.com. Just press on our
link to get domestic fares which you can actually book on-line.
Our goal is to provide you with top class service at great price
savings. If you are unsure of anything or just have questions
please e-mail us. We try to answer all mail within two hours during
our normal work hours. In Arizona, this is from 8:30 AM to 5:30
PM, Monday through Friday. We are on Mountain Standard Time with
the exception that Arizona does not "spring ahead" with Daylight
Savings Time.
International Airfares
