My old Tulane University school chum David Price, now a computer whiz in Dallas, is pretty excited. He’s taking his first trip to Europe this fall. Though it’s an independent trip, he still has an experienced guide to show him the ins and outs:

Me.

When my roommate Leon, my usual traveling companion of late, realized he didn’t have enough annual leave this year from his job as an Eglin AFB data analyst, I started casting around for someone to join me.

Choosing a traveling companion for 21 days of adventure isn’t easy. Compatibility is a serious issue. I’ve seen friendships unravel after the first week or so of constant companionship. Expectations can vary, even among the best of friends. Somebody wants to plunge into Europe’s eons of civilization while the other wants to sample every beer brewed in every country. Pre-departure offers to poke through a few museums and gaze at dusty old masters in exchange for stumbling through every pub and Biergarten somehow just don’t work after the first few experiences.

Asking David to join me was easy. Though we haven’t seen each other in a few years (make that about seven, to be exact), we keep in touch via e-mail. But better still, our friendship goes back to our college days. David was there when I moved into my first apartment the day after I graduated. In fact, my electricity wasn’t even turned on yet, and in the swelter of a New Orleans May evening, he and I used metal rulers to scrape several layers of old wallpaper off my front room walls.

We lit a few candles to continue the chore until sunset, then sat around on the two folding chairs my parents had brought me and chatted late into the night. It was a bonding experience. I figured anyone who’d let me talk him into scraping wallpaper by candlelight would let me drag him around western Europe.

Our first priority, after purchasing plane tickets. I got mine in March from Priceline.com after extensive online shopping. I began at Farecompare.com, which allows you to see, side-by-side, the offers available on several travel Web sites such as Travelocity.com, Orbitz.com and others. A feature I really like is their fares forecast that comes up after you enter your departure and arrival cities.

Farecompare offers a wealth of comparison shopping information. Meanwhile, other windows are popping open with the information of the partner sites you checked when you started your search. As an example for this blog (since my actual flight info is at home and I’m at our comfortable News Bulletin office!), I entered an October 27 departure from Dallas/Fort Worth with a November 15 return. Several decent prices beginning at $781 roundtrip caught my eye.

But the fare posted by Ultimatefares.com really made me sit up. Only $578 they boasted, plus taxes and fees, of course, but hey, how much could they cost? Another $100 or $150, experience told me. That still beat the almost $800 the other sites offered. Yikes! I clicked it pronto, imagining all the things I’d buy with that savings.

Then came the final booking window, in which you discover those innocuous “plus taxes and fees” really pack a punch. In the case of the bargain $498 airfare, they were $443.98! The great fare that would have had you salivating almost doubled!

As for the other guys’ nearly $800 offer, those sites were up front with their offers: Taxes and “fees” were included. The $781 fare included fees of just $103.10. Kinda makes you wonder about Ultimatefares.com, doesn’t it? It certainly makes me pause, and would certainly make me not bothering even checking their Web site in the future.

Air travel today is complicated — and expensive — enough without a travel vendor pulling shady stunts with hidden “taxes and fees” that double the cost of their front page offer. Like I said, I bought mine from Priceline.com where after a bit of “negotiating” with “The Negotiator” (portrayed by a paunchy looking William Shatner), I got my ticket in March at around $735.

David got his online, but when he found a better deal within 24 hours, American Airlines refunded more than $200 of what he was about to pay, and he got a great deal, too.

In my next blog, I’ll invite you to look over my shoulder as I start planning our itinerary. Two stops are high on our list: Munich for Oktoberfest and a visit to Crestview’s sister city, Noirmoutier, France.

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