Have you ever found a fare lower than the lowest offered on an airline's own website? Even after considering points/miles/bonuses?

I just did, for the first time. American Express Open site had a listed an HP SNA-LAS fare for $143.30, while HP's own site lists $152.20. The 6.2% savings falls short of the 8-10% promised by Amex, and after considering miles, even farther short. The $9 savings here is more than eaten up by the loss of the 500 mile online booking bonus, and being forced to use my no-benefits Open Amex versus my 2 miles/$1 HP Visa. That's a hidden cost of 804 miles, which I value at 2c/mile or $16.08.

Anybody realize some real savings this way?

This not only happens once in a while, it happans most of the time. My booking with UA over the last year have all resulted in cheaper fares on travel sites than on ual.com, except once when I found a cheaper fare on one of UA's overseas sites than on the USA-based one.

Almost allways, although it pays to find the lowest fare on a general travel sight and then enter the specific rutings into the carriers sight, which will often bring up the same fare (and you get the online bonus miles).

One thing I've noticed is that it since the code share agreement, it is often cheaper to buy USAir flights at United.com. I don't don't know if it works the other way araound.

I have even gotten lower fares by using some old technology (ie: I telephone the airline and the csr ends up offering a lower fare than the airline was offering online or matches a fare that another airline is offering even though their web site is not offering that fare)

[This message has been edited by magic111 (edited Jan 17, 2004).]

Consolidator fares (still mileage and status earning) for international travel are ALWAYS cheaper than equivalent class airline site fares.

Travelocity often bends fare rules when doing multi segment trips.

Example:

If I need to fly LAX-DEN without a sat night stay, I plug in the dates, and then plug in a third segment (say, LAX-LAS) a week later. Voila! A discount fare.

And I will always make sure I need and take that third segment.

How do I get back? Same kind of logic. LAS-LAX on one day, LAX-DEN-LAX another.

I have an extensive writeup on how to get cheap fares on the travel experience part of my web site, including info on consolidators. The easiest way to find it is to go to my web site below, click on Gary's Cheap Travel Hints in the lower part of the table of contents, then on Cheap Fares again, in the same place in the new table of contents.

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Free Frequent Flyer Miles

What does considering points/miles/bonuses mean? You will never get the book at the airline's website bonus by going someplace else, but that doesn't mean it's not a better deal.

It's not at all infrequent to be able to get a better price by checking more then just the airline's website. Orbitz for example beats the airlines sites quite often, travelocity sometimes ignores fare rules, etc.

The best one ever was we were booking a flight that was on Delta. On Delta it was something like $380. On United they were offering the Delta flight for $160. We called Delta for the $160 rate, they said they couldn't do it, but would we mind purchasing it on the united site and they would see if it went through or not. Couple of mouse clicks later, they said the reservation came through, totally amazed what ever route it was was available for that little money.

You can often beat the airline, hotel, cruise line, car rental, etc's fares by shopping around a bit. Not all the time, maybe not even most of the time, but certainly sometimes.

Incredible as it may seem, this is happening more and more in my experience. This past week was no exception. Looking to book two tickets (one for me, one for Mrs. MileKing) from IAD to DFW, both on the same dates, but leaving at different times and returning on the same flight. Checked all the usual sites (AA, Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, etc.). For my flights, Orbitz had the lowest fare at $277 which includes their $6 fee. Other sites were at $286 and aa.com was $314. That fare came up on aa.com whether I selected my trip by fare or by schedule, and whether I was logged into my account or not. Mrs. MileKing's flights came up as $277 on Orbitz and $281 on aa.com. Prices elsewhere were $286. I booked her ticket at aa.com as the extra $4 was worth it for the 1000 mile booking bonus.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when the airlines can't provide the lowest prices on their own web site.

A year ago, I would have said "No way - AA.com is always cheapest."

In the past year, AA.com has been the cheapest for about 80% of my flights; Orbitz has beat it about 20% of the time. Sometimes Orbitz beats it with a 30-40% lower fare, other times it just beats it by a few bucks more than the commission and bonus mile value.

I have never seen Expedia or Travelocity beat AA.com - just Orbitz - but I always run a quick check at those sites just in case.

yes.

With AA, I've found that to be the case, too, along with sale fares popping up a day ahead when AA matches someone else's sale. I've booked a couple times on Orbitz to lock in a great fare, rather than waiting to see if the same fare/routing pops up on the AA site the next day.

That does surprise me. I've found it difficult to get the phone reps to match what I can find online -- at several airlines. Maybe one reason is I'm almost always dealing with the cheapest fares.

Have to admit that has become rarer and rarer. But I am still at times offered fares that beat the lowest fares that were online.

I can well believe that eventually the csr's will be told not to offer lower fares and then we will be at the mercy of the web offerings only unless one has access to their own crs.

This happened last month to us with UA. Save almost $400 on 2 tickets to Italy by calling. I wanted to use an old credit, so I had to call. I WILL be calling again!


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ChgoBob