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.