Originally Posted by FWAAA
I've never heard that AA would match Orbitz pricing.
Orbitz frequently has seats to sell in the cheapest buckets long after AA.com is all out of them. Makes no sense to me, but Orbitz has become a consolidator, not just a travel agent. But at least every Orbitz fare I have ever encountered earns miles.
This was once explained in one of the numerous threads about the price difference between online travel websites vs. AA.com. Orbitz isn't a consolidator, it just builds the price based on fare availability per segment, not as a whole trip. For example, take LGA-ORD-MSP. AA & AA.com would price that as LGA-MSP. Orbitz and a few of others would price that as LGA-ORD, and then ORD-MSP. Orbitz takes looks in the fare bucket of each respective segment to find the price, not the fare bucket of the entire LGA-MSP bucket as AA does. It's unfortunate that AA does this. They usually never match the Orbitz fare.