Re: College Financial Aid Consultants

On Thu, 9 Oct 2003 00:46:37 -0400, Stan Brown
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> in 
>misc.consumers, Larry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Again, why would you want to pay for this service?
>
>Why do people pay others to mow their lawns? It's a matter of paying 
>to have that time available for something else. By definition, 
>that's not a matter of right or wrong choices but of personal 
>preference.
>
>I normally try to be pretty independent, but recently after I spent 
>several days trying to find a decent flight combination from my 
>small town to Chicago on the usual Web sites,(*) I finally gave up 
>and put myself in the hands of a travel agent. She found a fare that 
>was lower than the lowest one I;d been able to find, and at shorter 
>travel time, and she charged me $35 to do it. I considered it money 
>well spent. Even though the amount she saved me was less than the 
>fee, I had the whole business settled and done with. I wish I had 
>done that up front instead of wasting time on Web sites.
>
>We have the choice of Binghamton, Ithaca, Albany, Rochester, and 
>Syracuse airports. _None_ of them have direct flights to Midway, and 
>all involve one or more changes of plane in each direction on the 
>trip.


Stan, the next time you are travelling, you might want to check out
sidestep.com - they astre a specialized travel search engine that I've
found to consistently finmd lower fares than Expedia and Travelocity -
sometimes as much as 50% less.  

The site does install a toolbar, but Spybot and AdAware both give it a
green light.

I know what you are saying about the choice to pay for convenience,
but it might be worth taking a look.