US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - PHL-SEA: travelocity vs. usairways.com

Hey Chex! Heads up - I'm making a little trip to Seattle. Well, sort of. I'm going to Portland and don't want to fly another carrier that will require a connection. For about the same amount of time I can rent a car and drive the SEA-PDX leg. Plus, I can't upgrade on anyone else but US.

Anyway, when pricing this trip:
10/5 PHL-SEA US #107
10/7 SEA-PHL US #106

Travelocity: $318
USAirways.com: $371

What gives??! Why would usairways price HIGHER than travelocity? I tried other weekends in October and other flight options and always came ahead with travelocity.

I've seen this before too, it's just that for some reason (who knows why since I thought USAirways.com used Travelocity.com) other travel sites can pull up cheaper seats when US shows them sold out.

You should also check Orbitz which can sometimes get internet specials not available on USAirways.com even for specific flights.

I have seen this both on travelocity and orbitz. Also these sites seem to have deals and fare changes faster than US.com so I wonder what gives especially when US and travelocity both use Sabre. For example, fares on travelocity I was checking today appeared 2-3 hours before they showed up on US.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by PHL:
Hey Chex! Heads up - I'm making a little trip to Seattle.</font>Too far away to know to what I will be doing.

I apologize but the Chexfan Shuttle from SEA to PDX isn't in service anymore. geo1004 and beckles were able to grab the last two seat on that route. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Price variances could mean that these agencies have bulk deals with the airline. If so, you could have a case of one agency having a better price than the other. The other scenario might have one outfit willing to work on a lower margin, and therefore selling cheaper. Remember. USAirways.com is an outside vendor. In the past, West Coast agencies have had USAir tickets for less than their East Coast counterparts, as the company has tried to stimulate traffic from west to east. It's also fun to watch Side Step, if you have the version that locks on to Orbitz and other air ticket engines. Here again, you'll see the same flights come up in sequence on both englines, and there will be big price differences. One thing for sure, US has overcapacity between Philly and Seattle. If you compare the current sked with the original published one, you'll see they are knocking out a 757 in the evening, and some other flights have been downsized to A319's.

[This message has been edited by deelmakur (edited 09-04-2001).]

I had a related issue a couple of months ago. I found a CLT-SFO r/t on Travelocity for ~$240. I then called my corporate travel person to see if she could do better with our corp. discount and the best she could do was ~$1,800 (this was &lt;7 days in advance as I recall).

Weird, because she was using Sabre and Travelocity is a Sabre company.

I didn't get a very good answer when I first posted this. Any ideas why the discrepancy?

Mike