Who needs savings when you can go to the Super Bowl?
PHOENIX -- Some of the passionate football fans arriving here to watch the New England Patriots battle the New York Giants in Sunday's Super Bowl are reeling from sticker shock. Others are taking the sky-high prices in stride.
Travel agent Charlene Ocone-Pecora tells of the trip she booked for two New York City chefs who cared only about seeing their Giants. No matter that the airfare topped $1,000 and required a detour through Tucson. Or that the rental-car tab for two days was above $400. "They're die-hard fans," the owner of North Arlington, N.J.-based 4 Season Travel Bureau said. Money "is just not an issue."
Hotels, airlines and other tourism businesses are betting money is no object for plenty of fans. A sampling of prices showed airfares to Phoenix from Boston and New York quadrupled over the weekend last month when the teams advanced to the Super Bowl.
Some rental-car prices have tripled. And some suburban hotels are commanding significantly higher rates than they typically would even during this prime season for desert tourism.
The Holiday Inn Express in nearby Peoria, for example, is getting $399 a night for Super Bowl weekend, vs. $169 a night the following weekend.
Some hotels tested the market and apparently found the limits of consumer tolerance. The new Comfort Suites hotel in Goodyear, open just a few weeks, advertised last week in New York newspapers, offering room rates starting at $600 a night with a four-night minimum.
With rooms slow to book, the hotel reduced prices to the regular rate of $179. "We were just looking to see what the market will bear," said Nena Gourlay, director of sales.
Round-trip tickets on peak-time non-stop flights from Boston, already higher than normal from early bookings by confident Patriots fans, jumped to a range of $700 to $2,700 after the matchup was decided by conference championship games on Jan. 20.
The Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group dtg has supplied its rental locations at the Phoenix airport with additional cars in anticipation of Super Bowl week. It has raised its rates, too. Dollar charges $139 a day to rent a premium car such as a Chrysler 300 during Super Bowl weekend. Two weeks after the Super Bowl, the same car can be leased for $64 a day.
"It is supply and demand and looking at what the competitors do," said company spokesman Chris Payne.
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," said executive Dave Bird. "Traffic is going to be horrendous, and we have to buy a ($165) parking pass."
Some fans have avoided the supersize costs by planning ahead. Tom Bielenda, a Boston-area resident and confident Patriot fan, arranged his Super Bowl trip in September. He'll skip Phoenix-area hotels and drive about 110 miles Sunday to Glendale from Sedona.
"The prices in Phoenix are ridiculous right now," said Bielenda.
Rick Ardis, manager of Ardis Travel in the Giants' hometown of East Rutherford, N.J., said the budget-buster for most fans isn't airfares or hotels but game tickets. They're going for $3,000 and up on the Internet.