Delta stock -- Iny meeny miny moe, catch a monkey by the toe -- Hold, sell, hold . . .

The headline in the 8-24-04 Atlanta Business Chronicle (abc) is not good: "Delta fund manager warned employees about stock."

Independent financial advisor U.S. Trust Corp., which was recently appointed to manage both the Delta Stock Fund and its ESOP fund, sent a letter to Delta employees on Aug. 9 saying it was freezing the Stock Fund and would consider terminating it entirely.

The article notes: "Shares of Delta stock (NYSE: DAL) have been trading in the $4.25 to $4.50 range recently, down about 60 percent over the past year."

True, but this is only part of the pain. Around 5 years ago the stock was selling in the 70 day range.

Delta continues to lose about $4.1 million each day.
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I am a big eBayer, and also get all of my airline tickets online, and have for years. But with Delta in such trouble, I think next time I will do one for the Gripper and buy Delta.

And maybe with the corporate changes announced last week, Delta won't be too much more.

But heck. I had planned on using some new online tools I have not tried before.

In the past I have relied primarily on Orbitz.com (I check Expedia.com, and used to get most of tickets from Travelocity.com). I play with Priceline, but usually cannot leave at just anytime.

But a recent article reports that these established players lack some of the best prices -- and are being challenged by a new generation of price-searching sites.

Rather than serving as online travel agents, the new sites are search engines that scan as many as 150 other travel sites, including the majors, for prices. That lets travelers do side-by-side comparisons rather than having to check lots of different sites.

"For example, a search might provide the price of a plane ticket on Delta Air Lines through Expedia, as well as the price available by booking directly through Delta. That's important because, as the travel industry gets squeezed, many companies are keeping some of their best prices on their own sites. Airlines, for instance, can save up to $17 in various costs per ticket by selling directly to the public."

"The new sites aim to address what they see as shortcomings of the major online travel agents. For example, most of the fast-growing discount airlines like JetBlue and Southwest Airlines don't show up on the big travel sites at all. Other discount carriers like Spirit Airlines sometimes offer promotional fares only via their own sites. And just this week, InterContinental Hotels Group said it intends to remove its 3,500 hotels from Expedia and Hotels.com in its continuing effort to wrest control of its room inventory from third-party Web sites."

I read about this in, you guessed it, the wsj, and will email the article to you if you want it. But the 4 big new players and websites are as follows (one of the newest entrants: A group of former executives from three major online travel agencies -- Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity -- have launched a 5th company, Kayak Software Corp., that next month plans to offer a test version of a new search engine at Kayak.com.):

FareChaser http://www.farechase.com/website/index1.html
Looks at 150 or so travel Web sites for air, hotel and car rental prices.
Found fare of $148 from Atlanta to Chicago's Midway airport. Lowest price on Orbitz for the same dates and to the same airport was $172 on Delta Air Lines.
Yahoo Inc. recently bought it.

Mobissimohttp://travel.mobissimo.com/travel/search_airfare.php
Currently only air fares, but company will add hotel and car-rental capability later this year.
Search for inexpensive flight to New Orleans from New York City, turned up JetBlue flight for $166.70. Lowest price on CheapTickets.com was $239 on American Airlines.
Searches non-U.S. travel sites, and plans to allow searches based on activity. (Example: New York to the beach, instead of New York to Jamaica.)

SideStep http://www.sidestep.com/?redir=B
Company says it searches "dozens" of travel Web sites.
A search on www.sidestep-hotels.com for a room in Beverly Hills spotted a $98.47 nightly rate at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Beverly Hills. On Travelocity the price for the same class of room and same date was $129.94 a night.
For hotels and car rentals, consumers can search Sidestep via any Web browser. For airfare, currently SideStep is software that you must download and install.

Qixohttp://www.qixo.com/index.html?QIXO_Session=212eb57b6ab7df8dbff4496224554e9e
Searches more than 28 airfare sites, and also has limited hotel and car-rental search tools.
Looking for a Miami to Las Vegas flight, we found a $201 flight on American Airlines. The price on Expedia for the same flight was $200.
This search engine acts like a travel agent because it makes the reservation for consumers, unlike the other engines. Qixo charges a $20-a-ticket fee.