Originally Posted by
SeeBuyFly
Many airlines and hotels provide different prices on different sites. Maybe the idea is to limit how many they sell at the lowest price.
Most of the hotels and airlines are giving low price guarantees and are dying to drive as much traffic as possible to their own sites in order to cut the distribution costs. Their own website is in absolute the cheapest way for them to sell a ticket.
Originally Posted by
SeeBuyFly
In other cases (e.g. AA), the airline's web site will have higher prices, with lower prices elsewhere.
AA has a best fare guarantee and is continuously pushing people to buy from AA.com. If you see a higher price there, it's an error and they will pay you the difference plus an additional $50 if you bring it to their attention (see
https://www.aa.com/i18n/reservations...itle=guarantee)
Originally Posted by
SeeBuyFly
Just because it was cheaper in one case at one point in time does not mean it will be cheaper in general.
That's why low price guarantees work in steering customers to the cheapest distribution channel. But I guess I learned that CX doesn't do this, as I couldn't find such a guarantee on their website. Weird.
Originally Posted by
SeeBuyFly
Sometimes (but not always) Kayak ferrets out the lowest price. The fact that airline prices are not transparent is the reason Kayak exists.
I forgot about that dinosaur! It too is broken: in the summary it shows a low price (in USD) for CX, lists CX as the only place to buy it from, and when I click on the link it goes to the CX website who then quotes me ... a much higher EUR 3119!! I checked American Express Travel and it's still EUR 1841 from them.
Frustrating.