Can you trust your travel agent?(lowest airfares)(Buyers Guide)

When you telephone a travel agent and ask for all nonstop flights available on a certain day at the cheapest fare, that's what you get, right?

Not necessarily, according to Consumer Reports Travel Letter,which asked 840 travel agents about airline fares for 12 of the most popular U.S. routes for leisure travelers. There is intense competition along these routes, and in most cases two or more carriers offer the same low fare. Yet only 51 percent of travel agents disclosed all low-fare flights when the Travel Letter's anonymous callers first asked for them; another 12 percent revealed all low-fare carriers when the caller repeated the question. Twenty-five percent of the travel agents never disclosed all the cheap flights. And 12 percent erroneously presented a higher-priced fare as the cheapest. (We know this because at the same time we called the travel agents, a consultant checked a computer-reservation system that listed all available flights and fares.)

Why does it matter that so many agents omitted competing airlines with the same airfare? Because it violates the principle of full disclosure. And it doesn't allow consumers the full opportunity to choose an airline based on their experience, frequent-flyer benefits, and beliefs about safety.

It's impossible to determine whether the agents' poor showing resulted from lack of training, inadequate technology, or intentional bias. Major airlines and other travel enterprises such as cruise lines, hotels, tour operators, and car-rental companies pay travel agencies bonuses (or "overrides," in industry parlance) to steer customers their way. This practice is especially troubling because now nearly all travel agencies are charging their customers service fees--ostensibly for impartial information.

Our survey found the following:

* None of the 47 agencies we called in the Washington area named both airlines with the same low-fare nonstop flights to Fort Lauderdale, even after two requests.

* In the Boston area, 42 percent of travel agencies did not provide any low fares for nonstop flights to Washington.