A cautionary tale for those of you planning to take a trip abroad this summer.

If you follow my ramblings, you will remember that my eldest daughter announced that she will be getting married this autumn. The wedding to be held in Napa Valley, California.

As soon as the venue was confirmed, we rushed to find flight tickets to San Francisco. Given that Rosh HaShanah is about the same time, we figured we needed to get something booked post haste, before the flights filled up and/or the prices followed suit. Perish the thought that the father of the bride couldn’t make it to the wedding because he couldn’t get a flight.

Regrettably, the emotion of the moment over ruled common sense and, instead of doing our homework properly, we headed straight for the El AL site and quickly booked five tickets at what we thought were reasonable prices.

A few weeks passed then, yesterday morning, I was reading some blog entries about trans-atlantic flying and El AL in particular. I found an entry complaining about El AL’s pricing policies and referencing the fact that the writer had found Delta to be considerably cheaper.

Know what? They damn well are!

A quick check of the Delta website showed that I could get Tel Aviv to San Francisco for US$450 less per ticket! Whats more Delta would fly us all the way via Atlanta, Georgia in less time and without having to deal with a code share change of terminal to American Airlines at Kennedy (a well known nightmare). And, for reassurance, I also checked a few other airlines and even British Airways were US$300 cheaper than El Al!

We called El Al to check the cancellation fees – US$640 total for all five of us. Of course, they weren’t interested in trying to keep us. They could pocket the cancellation fee and resell the tickets at a higher price. So, we booked ourselves onto Delta and waved El AL goodbye.

Total saving US$1,500 even after paying off El Al.

If only we had looked before we leaped!!

And, a final note for the employers of all of you who are still allowed to enjoy the perks of Business Class Travel. British Airways has just slashed many of their Business Class fares by up to 40%.

Moral of the story: Just because you live in Israel, never book on El Al without first checking out the other airlines. If you do, you could well end up paying way too much for your flights.