Ken Alltucker and Dawn Gilbertson
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 24, 2008 12:00 AM
No matter that the airfare topped $1,000 and requires a detour through Tucson. Or that the rental-car tab for two days was above $400.
The New York city chefs who called travel agent Charlene Ocone-Pecora this week to book a trip to Phoenix for the Super Bowl just cared about seeing their New York Giants.“
They’re die-hard fans,” the owner of 4 Seasons Travel Bureau said. “It (money) is just not an issue.”
Passionate fans planning a last-minute trip to Arizona to watch the New England Patriots battle the Giants in Super Bowl XLII can expect some sticker shock.
A sampling of prices shows airline fares from Boston and New York have quadrupled over the past week. Some rental-car prices have more than tripled. And some suburban hotels are charging as much as six times a typical weeknight rate.
Plan to cruise to Scottsdale clubs in a rented Cadillac Escalade or have a chauffeur guide you around in a stretch limousine? Expect to pay up to double the amount you would pay seven days later. Organizers of Super Bowl XLII predict Arizona’s economy will be the ultimate winner of professional football’s championship game, with as many as 125,000 visitors looking to spend millions to book rooms, rent vehicles, shop and party with celebrities. Still, some fans are surprised by the cost of attending the big game – or even of hanging out in the metro area where the game is to be played.
“The prices in Phoenix are ridiculous right now,” said Tom Bielenda, a Boston-area resident and Patriots season-ticket holder. “The rooms that are available are going for five times the price of what they are worth.”
Money no object?
Hotels, airlines and other tourism businesses are betting money is no object for plenty of fans booking last-minute trips. Major resorts set their rates several years ago when they committed their rooms to the NFL, most at levels not sharply higher than regular rates this time of year. The steep price increases mainly can be seen at smaller and independent hotels.The new Comfort Suites hotel in Goodyear, open just a few weeks, is advertising in New York newspapers, offering room rates starting at $600 a night. There is a four-night minimum. Regular rates start at $179.“We were just looking to see what the market will bear,” said Nena Gourlay, director of sales.
She said most callers haven’t balked at the rates, which many of its competitors are also charging.
“If anyone has made any calls, they know that you’re not going to get your standard rate for the Super Bowl,” she said.
A new Courtyard by Marriott near Avondale and the Hyatt Place in downtown Scottsdale each ran ads this week on the Boston section of popular Web site craigslist.org. Hyatt Place offered $699 a night with a four-night minimum, while the Courtyard is going for $599 a night with a three-night minimum. Their standard winter rates are $199 a night and $229, respectively.
Airlines are also taking advantage of the Super Bowl supply-demand imbalance.
Fares on US Airways.com jumped up appreciably after the Patriots-Giants matchup was decided Sunday night.
Round-trip tickets on peak time non-stop flights from Boston, already higher than normal from early bookings by confident Patriots fans, jumped from as low as $700 last week to more than $2,700
The most expensive leg of the trip is Monday, Feb. 4. Many flights out of Phoenix to Boston, New York and other major cities are already sold out that day, forcing travelers to stay longer or fly out of Tucson or other cities. The airline is trying to bring in larger planes to add more seats.
“The one day that everybody wants to leave is obviously the day after the game,” said Wallace Beall, managing director of revenue analysis for US Airways.
Big business
Car-rental companies and limousine companies this week are busy fielding calls from corporate customers, groups and individuals searching for ground transportation to the Super Bowl. The Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group has supplied its rental locations at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport with additional cars in anticipation of Super Bowl week. It has raised its rates, too.Dollar Rent a Car charges $107 a day to rent an economy car such as a Chevrolet Aveo during Super Bowl weekend. Two weeks after the Super Bowl, the same car can be leased for $41 per day.“It is supply and demand and looking at what the competitors do,” said Chris Payne, a spokesman for Tulsa, Okla.-based Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group. “It is very much like the airlines in that respect.”
January and February is traditionally a busy period for limousine and shuttle companies such as Scottsdale-based Transtyle and SuperShuttle, which runs the ExecuCar sedan service in Phoenix. Add in a Super Bowl and the FBR Open, and the companies are scrambling to take orders.
ExecuCar is bolstering its fleet of limousines and shuttles with more vehicles. The company will charge $575 for a six-hour minimum to drive football fans to University of Phoenix Stadium on game day. The normal rate: $325 for six hours.
“We have to charge a premium for the game for two reasons,” said Dave Bird, SuperShuttle’s senior vice president of operations. “The traffic is going to be horrendous, and we have to buy a ($165) parking pass.”
Budget-savvy fans
Some fans have avoided the supersize costs by planning ahead. Bielenda, of Boston, arranged his Super Bowl plans in September on a hunch his beloved Patriots would make the big game. He’ll skip Phoenix-area hotels due to high prices and the crowds associated with Super Bowl week. Instead, he booked rooms in Las Vegas and Sedona, with plans to drive to Glendale on game day.“I got a better price for a room in Sedona than I could in Phoenix,” said Bielenda, a Patriots season-ticket holder since the mid-1990s.Rick Ardis, manager of Ardis Travel in the Giants’ hometown of East Rutherford, N.J.,said he hadn’t booked any Super Bowl trips as of Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, it’s out of the price range of most of my customers,” he said. “They’re just stunned.”
Ardis said the budget buster for most fans isn’t sky-high airline tickets or hotel prices but the price of tickets to the Super Bowl. Fans who didn’t win their team’s season-ticket lottery and don’t have NFL or corporate ticket connections face ticket prices in the thousands.
Tickets are going for $3,000 and up on sites like stubhub.com and ebay.com. The lowest package prices he could find started at $5,000 per person, and they didn’t include airfare.
Some see the high prices for flights, rooms and services as capitalism run amok.
“They think because it is the Super Bowl, they will spend an unlimited amount of dollars,” said Robert Tuchman, president of New York-based TSE Sports & Entertainment.
He expects many fans will look for cheaper rates over the next week, prompting hotels to adjust pricing. “The truth is, people will turn away, and they will find an alternative. Come a week from now, they may be slashing their rates in half when they don’t sell the room.”
Arizona has no anti-gouging laws, even though Attorney General Terry Goddard has called for such legislation to protect consumers.
The Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee helped arrange a minimum number of rooms for the National Football League. Beyond that, it’s not the host committee’s job to try to control costs for visitors.
“We can’t tell business what they can or can’t do,” said Bob Sullivan, president of the host committee.
Sullivan warns the NFL, the National Collegiate Athletic Association or organizers of other major sporting events will scrutinize a host city’s costs before deciding whether to bring future events here.
“They are not going to want to do business in communities that take advantage of the consumer to such an extent that it does not make the experience a pleasant one,” he said.
