First off, apologies if this is covered elsewhere, my search turned up very little. I'm a bit new to MRs, but getting the hang of things by reading a lot. One thing I haven't been able to resolve for myself is the advantage of posting fares without taxes. For instance, a hypothetical fare from SFO to DTW for $149+ but taxes and surcharges put it at $189 all-in. Why list the $149 price?

I understand there's one reason (having experienced it recently), namely that when paying with a credit/voucher one can avoid some add-ons. But this seems a rare situation, and one that's generally trumped by the convenience of knowing the all-in price.

Farecompare does this and I find it quite frustrating (I get excited when I see low fares, especially internationally, only to find out that they're 10-30% underpriced relative to the "real" cost). It feels a bit like the 'each-way fares, r/t required' business that the airlines pull, but I don't want to jump to conclusions. Are there other reasons people would generally be interested in the pre-tax/fees price? Put a different way: if/when I post a MR, I would probably list the a/i price, at least in the header; any reason not to?

Thanks for the great info, everyone. :)

Why not search a bit more for existing threads before starting a new one?

Posting any fares with taxes is illusionary. If you put in three stops for a flight, it's going to be much different than a non-stop flight. If there are unusually heavy taxes or fuel surcharges, I'll mention it in the post, but otherwise any normal FT'er knows how to check pricing.

Why not search a bit more for existing threads before starting a new one?

Sorry, as I mentioned in my post I didn't come across much in my searches, but I may not have tried hard enough. If you know of other threads that address this, please post and someone can close this one down. I certainly don't want to be redundant, I just haven't seen much consistency on this issue in MR posts, so it piqued my curiosity.

What is difference between+ and ++?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=524698

More informative to post +, or ++, or All In?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=538201

We should post "all in."

We should post "all in."

I disagree, for the reasons listed in post #2. All-in isn't really meaningful when it can change depending on the routing utilized.

Mike

Posting "all-in" is fine (since you use that to ultimately calculate the true CPM), but the "+/++" fare needs to be posted for reasons linked to above.

Personally, I appreciate details much more than exact pricing with taxes. I am tiring both the "maybe I think perhaps FC has a fare probably that's showing at $X though I haven't tried pricing it, etc" as well as the threads that have next to no substantive info in booking class, permitted routings, seasonality, min stay, stopovers, or where to find it even. Give me more info and I can find out the taxes for myself but it shouldn't be an FT guessing game as to where the fare you posted can be found or if it's even available. Yes, it takes a little bit of investigating but it sure saves everyone else from does just that and it's a courtesy I try and extend my fellow FTers.

As a member I prefer base fare for the reasons cited.

As a moderator, I'm moving this to the MR discussion forum. :)


VPescado
MR Forum Mod (and member too).

I prefer all in quotes. While it is true that different routings can yield differences in taxes/fees, these variations are usually small relative to cost of the ticket + taxes for a "normal" routing.

If possible, why not just put both in the title?

Example: IAH-PDX o/w 69++ (~145 all in); Tues, Wed, Thurs & Sat

I certainly did not mean to re-hash what (I now know) is a age-old discussion on FT, but I appreciate those (espcially Tclin) who took the time to provide responses to my question, namely what are the reasons one alternative might be preferable to another. Clearly most everyone has a preference, but I was curious about the possible benefits/drawbacks of each approach, not pure preferences. Sifting through the old posts, I came up with:

Advantages of base fare:
(1) Different routings will have different taxes/fees, but the base fare provides a consistent starting point.
(2) Some vouchers/coupons have restrictions that depend on the base fare, not the all-in price.
(3) Using a cert/voucher can reduce taxes/fees, making the base fare the more relevant price.

Advantages of all-in:
(a) May be closer (as a quick estimate) to what someone will actually pay for a given origin-destin, (1) notwithstanding.
(b) Especially on international routes, add-ons vary substantially, so base fares provide less universal signals as to the final price, especially if you are less familiar with a particular airline.
** As some have pointed out, experience with MRs makes (a) and (b) less relevant, as one gets to know how to mentally adjust fares for a given route/airline. However, many FTers are not as experienced, and all-in fares may be helpful.
(c) Changes in fee/tax/surcharge structure over time will make the base fare more difficult to interpret, at least until ** kicks in.

Based on previous posts, it seems that [airline, city pair, base fare, all-in fare, booking class] would be a generally useful approach, but I am in no way being prescriptive here.

In any case, to the Mods, my question has been answered.^

i think we should post all-in. i could ask the airline to let me out of having to pay taxes, but i don't think they will. also, the difference between a non-stop and a one or two stop (or more) flight isn't as great as the difference between without taxes and taxes.

let's show all-in.

Posting the "+/++" price helps newbies who actually want to bother to learn how to do some stuff themselves, by letting them become more familiar with pricing on routes, and because the prices they will see when booking will be the "+/++" amount until they get to the point of deciding to "pull the trigger" or not. They will have a clue as to whether or not they are sniffing around the correct fare from the "+/++" price without having to waste time going through most of the booking process to see how it will end up.

Steve