I found a one-way on Google Flights that I wanted to book for cheap SQS. I called AC and the agent said the itinerary can't be found/booked. Is it even possible to book these flights (not through third party sites...? it's a nightmare if something goes wrong)?

Looks like an auto pricing error to me. Made a quick dummy booking, the system will price for G which is ~ $205 but unable to confirm for AC323 and AC8349. There is a great chance those OTA won't actual ticket.

Let's be clear the $206 fare is a Basic fare, which does not earn SQS. And I can get that booked on the AC site.

But if you're okay with Standard (which actually earns SQS) and $230... https://book.aircanada.com/pl/AConli...062259&CABIN=E

Wow thank you! Yes that's the BE price but 230 is still good for me.
I actually make these trips somewhat frequently... how did you book the ticket? I'll book it myself next time!
and I made a mistake on the date .. it should have been May 2nd.. but there is a similar itinerary on that date too (changed the dates to May 2 on the link you gave me and it seems to work), but still would like to learn. Thank you.

ITA Matrix and AC reservations

Hi CanadianCow, Can you let me know how you seperate a one-way flight to two departing flights. Because I'm very new to ITAMatrix, and I found whenever it has 3+ connections AC won't take it. Multi-city won't work as well. Both will lead to flight selection which does not preserve what I see on ITAMatrix.

You need to use the old ITAMatrix and the extension to get to direct booking link. There's a lot of reading to do and I finally figured out how to work this thing. I recommend taking the time to read through everything. This is going to save me a lot of $ going forward. Thanks canadiancow

Is there a new script on their website to prevent booking married segments with absurd routing through google flights like this?

I was able to book flights like this from Google flight search before, but now when I get directed to AC's website, it will either load a blank page or kick me back to search page.


I guess they have "patched" this quick and easy way to church SQS/SQM?

I would like to know what has changed this fall on the Air Canada booking site. In my thread Did Air Canada stop selling business class on some route, I have discovered by phoning in that YES they have somehow stopped selling Mixed Itineraries. I phoned an agent, and they were puzzled too. I tried YYJ-SFO, YYJ-PSP, YYJ-LAS etc etc etc. And all those routes they won't sell business class as its a "MIXED" itinerary YYJ-YVR (DASH-8 ECON only flight) - wherever in business, you cannot book. However you can book Mixed Itineraries on Canadian only flights or Europe.

Frustrating Google and OTA's are still showing the mixed itinerary flights, but NOT bookable when you click through. Nor can you of course book on Air Canada.com

My guess (and its only a guess) is that these two things may have to do with married segments and availability in specific classes not showing. But I don't know. So for now, my only choice is to book business on another carrier like Alaska when travelling from YYJ to routes on the west coast.

I've run into this as well, noting however that AS doesn't have a Business class (it's First).

I wouldn't necessarily ascribe malice where simple incompetence will suffice and AC IT can be plenty incompetent. There is definitely something broken in the pricing engine on the website right now. These mixed cabin itineraries should still be bookable through a TA; I just took one all the way through to just short of final checkout with Amex travel and it got through the pricing validation check.

This isn't the only situation where the AC pricing engine won't always work. Even on the phone, the agent pricing engine will mess things up at times and not pull the correct fare or auto price an allowable route. If you have a sufficiently knowledge and motivated agent, they should be able to get it manually priced from ticketing on the phone (or just use Amex travel's online booking engine and do it yourself).

With respect to deeplinks (from Google flights or matrix or elsewhere), there are a bunch of reasons why a deeplink won't validate and kicks you back to flight search. It usually has to do with an availability mismatch or an auto price issue. It's entirely possible that the same error is responsible for both of the above issues.

I've also seen connection combinations on Aeroplan where business seats aren't being sold on entirely AC operated itineraries. This shouldn't be possible based on what we know of the current program. To my mind, it's likely related to the same pricing engine errors.

​​​​​I sure hope all this is only IT hijinks at any rate.
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