How to find these fares?
 

Hi Group.

So, I wanted to go to Orlando from Halifax.

Leave April 19th return April 24th.
so I check on ac.com, and I get a price of $623 return. I feel it's a bit high.

So I check flights.google.com and search all airlines. I come up with a fair of $380 return! I think "Wow, that's good. But I wonder what airline it will be?"
Turns out, It's Air Canada.
Well wait a minute, why didn't this fare pop up on the air Canada website? I click on the link to book the flight and it even directs me to the air Canada website. Here, I can book the flight directly with Air Canada.

http://s24.postimg.cc/xrlpxpkdx/picture.jpg

So, why isn't this price and itinerary coming up when I go to www.aircanada.ca and search for my flights. It seems a little unfair the Air Canada website gives me a price almost 40% higher than a fare they're hiding on their own website.

Any ideas?

So what you're saying is you found what may be a fare AC doesn't want you to book, and you're posting it on FT? :p

I hope you booked it first :)

I found similar things in the past. G is sold out on a flight, but going through the right booking link, you can book G on the flight :p

Is this what you call a "hidden city" fare?

Perhaps the moral of the story here is, never search for flights on aircanada.ca. Search first using flights.google.com, and then let it link you to aircanada.ca :)

Nope, hidden city is something else lol

Had the same thing last year booking YYZ-CPT on Hipmunk. Directed me to the AC website to finish the booking, but it was the US website. Much lower than what I could book on AC and at that time the exchange rate was pretty much flat so I booked in US dollars.

Google flights does a WAY better job at joining fare purchase for city matches that is at a reduced rate than AC.com does.

Google Flights can see that booking A-B as one fare and B-C-D as a different is cheaper than booking A-B-C-D direct so it does it. AC.com usually does not.

A hidden city fare would be if you used the return portion to go to Ottawa.

I've seen the same issue with WS.
Google flights comes up with more creative routings (more than one stop)and cheaper fares.

I see this all the time. The best explanation I can come up with is that when google flights forwards you to the AC website, the point of sale is in the US not in Canada. It's not new that the same routing has a different fare based on what country you buy it in. I just find it odd that the pricing I see on the AC website is priced in CAD and not USD.

I'll check my credit card next week, but I'm pretty sure it charged me in Canadian. $373 CAD is a fantastic round trip price from YHZ.

The AC web site gives a limited number of flights between A and B; it will not give you other price options for flights between A and B; it will virtually never give you a 3 flight pure AC (no code-shared) option on its web site.

Try multi-city booking between these 3 city pairs - and the web site will add the fares of each of the 3 flights (ie it will not combine the fares).

I'm pretty sure ac.com is set up to never (or rarely) offer 3 segment flights, even when it's legal and shortens the travel time. For example, ac.com will never let me book the yvr-yyz red eye when going from yyj to yow. I have to call in or use Google flights.

It seems the consensus is ac.com won't allow 3 segments, which is why it wouldn't bring up the cheap flight that google flights found.

When I travel on the companies dime, I booked shortest flights from point A to point B. However when it comes to my own personal travel, I tend to cheap out.
$683 for a one stop YHZ-MCO OR
$379 for a two stop YHZ-MCO.

I'll always pick the cheaper.

Is it me, or do you have the answer to your thread title before even posting.

Use Google flights...

Enjoy AC Rouge :)