Air Canada.com hiding some cheaper routes
 

Possibly already discussed (couldn't find something related) but I'm having a strange experience booking flights on AirCanada.com where some cheaper routes are not displaying.

The example I was looking at was a 1-way YYZ-YHZ on Dec 17. When I search aircanada.com, the cheapest option is $CAD 442 and includes direct flights or connecting through YUL or YOW.

When I search with the same parameters on united.com, I can flights as low as $CAD 190 with connections in YQM, YSJ, YYT, YFC).

Even worst, the 10:10am flight (direct) comes up to $442 on AC.com and $CAD 166 in basic economy and $CAD 190 in economy.

I do understand point of sale pricing can be in effect but I had both AC.com and united.com set to Canada.

I'm not sure if United can book a domestic Canadian flight without any segments touching the US. In any case, United codeshares are a totally different inventory than Air Canada and priced accordingly

Yes this happens. I have booked AC flights on United.com.

If you use a VPN you get cheaper price flights also

When in Ontario never book a round trip to the west as you get charged the HST both ways.

Lots of tricks to this game, lol

I actually have a US and a Canadian address in my United profile so I can change the point of sale at will and yes it makes a huge difference on some flights but for POS Canada, the only difference used to be that I can book the lower fare and get all my United points (if I book on AC, I get 25% in the lowest class).

But the point is I'm doing today YYZ-YQM-YHZ for half the price or anything AC was offering me (and that route was not an option on AC.com).

Ummmmmm............... Air Canada is in the business of making money........why would you expect a publicly traded company to leave money on the table if it did not have to?

Have you tried forcing a broken fare on AC? How do separate tickets (not recommended in general) price out?

Fair enough. Then it should be honest about it. Instead of putting up webpages like this that, if you are correct, amount to, well, lying.

https://www.aircanada.com/content/ai...guarantee.html

FOTSG question: If I buy a non-014 ticket from these sites that don't hide anything, can I eupgrade all AC metal segments where eligible (confirmed or waitlisted)?

What are they lying about? Nothing dishonest or untruthful at all

You don't know how code sharing works? It's been around for decades. Just like how you can book se NH flights cheaper if you book the AC codeshare flight number

And these fares being hidden by AC, are they hiding Basic fares, Standard fares, Flex fares, Comfort fares, etc?
If I buy these cheaper fares from UA, how do they get mapped when accruing to Altitude?

This:

“You'll always find our lowest prices on aircanada.com

No need to search for lower Air Canada prices elsewhere - you won't find them. That's our Air Canada Lowest Price Guarantee.”

*shrug*

Very interesting. I did a bit of digging on this. Just to clarify a few things as some previous posters have made incorrect assumptions.

• This does not appear to be a codeshare situation. The flights on united.com show up as AC marketed and operated flights.
• The cheaper $166 fares show up when searching on ITA matrix, so is legit.
• This is not a situation where united.com is combining 2 separate fares. This is fare basis L7U9CBA and the allowable routings per ExpertFlyer are:

Unfortunately the fare guarantee doesn’t apply as the routings and flight numbers shown on aircanada.com and the cheaper alternative must be identical. The AC site isn’t even showing those routing options.

Whether AC.com is being deliberately deceptive, I can’t say. It could simply be that the website is setup to exclude connections in smaller airports.

i haven’t tried a multi-city booking on Air Canada site. I wonder if that would show the lower pricing.

Further to my last post, there may simply be some sort of bug on the ac website. Tried multi-city booking via both YQM and YFC for the cheapest flights and got error messages on 2nd segment is sold out, but flight is available on a stand-alone basis.

I don't think aircanada.com is being deceptive. The lower price noted by OP involves 4 flight segments. The Air Canada website only shows the top results sorted by the fewest number of segments.

Lying? Where is there any lying on that page?