andrzej

Can somebody explain as to why this would be such an important issue to AA?
I believe AA does not pay any commission to the other online travel agencies anyway, so why would they care where you bought the ticket from as long as you are flying AA?

inlanikai

Its not where you buy the ticket, although that is part of it, its how much you pay for the seat. If you were AA would you rather get $500 for seat you sold through Orbitz or $600 selling it through AA with a promise to "make good" difference plus another promise of $50 of value in the future IF you follow all the rules to their satisfaction?

Even if AA sells it for the same price as someone else AA still comes out ahead because they get a small amount of collateral business from purchases on their site or phones for rental cars and hotels. Not a lot, but some. Also, I am pretty sure if they sell a ticket through a TA or online site they have to pay a small fee to the GDS that cleared the transaction.

Ready2Go

Bingo! This is not a rebate program, it is an advertising program.

Boraxo

To be fair, all of these travel industry "rate guarantees" are bogus. People have reported similar problems with SPG, priceline and others when asking for guarantees or refunds.

A better idea is - as suggested above - to dash off a quick letter to the FTC and your state AG, with a copy to the [orig travel provider] executive of your choice. Eventually they will get religion, but it usually doesn't happen until litigation is filed.

My Dad always said, if you can't do it right, don't do it at all.

gemac

Oddly, though, making their guarantee really mean something, by stripping out the baloney with a procedure like the one outlined in Post #14, would make them more money, because passengers wouldn't bother to check around with all the other websites, they would book through AA.com. Since I assume the others make money, AA would be taking their customers for profitable business. But some people think that a good long-term business model is to see how much money you can cheat your customers out of.

JohnAx

Out of mercenary curiosity, why is Orbitz cheap? When I compare them to expedia Orbitz seems to be significantly cheaper, so much so that I worry

FWAAA

I don't know why, but in the five years or so of Obitz' existence, I have often found that it has inventory in the cheapest bucket for sale long after aa.com no longer has such inventory. I have long suspected that Orbitz acts as a consolidator (not just a travel agent) with respect to such inventory, and my suspicion has been confirmed by several people. Sometimes aa.com is the source of the cheapest tix, sometimes it is Orbitz, and other times Travelocity or Expedia is the cheapest.

My advice to friends/relatives/anyone who will listen is to always check several sites if price is important. It is impossible to be certain who is cheapest until all are consulted.

alamedaguy

I almost never have any luck with Orbitz. I often have the joy of clicking on a fare only to find out it has changed, though. For me, Expedia has been the most fruitful by far.

alamedaguy

I think the OP's experience is definitely the exception, not the rule. If one reads between the lines here, it looks as though there have been quite a few success stories. Please see the SPG forum for a "guarantee" with hassles.

gemac

Sure, there are successes, and probably substantially more successes than failures. If they were all failures, this would be a major con game instead of proof that AA thinks we are all stupid. The point is that even though there are successes, there are failures. AA has set this up so that they are playing Dirty Harry, telling you "Do you feel lucky, punk?" Why not make it straightforward, so that you can get the lower fare plus a reward without having to gamble by buying the higher fare and hoping they treat you right and you have the same understanding that they do of their unpublished definition of "equivalent fare".

nologic

This is the difference with the AA guarantee and the hotel guarantees, where you can cancel your hotel booking on the hotel website and get a refund, or not be charged.

RChavez

This happens primarily because of the differences in which Orbitz checks availability than other sites. Orbitz uses ITA Software's engine for shopping. As a means of simplifying the problem, ITA only checks segment-based availability (as opposed to "through" availability). Meaning if you are flying from A-C with a connection in B, often times carriers will make availabile a seat from A-B and one from B-C, but none from A-C. This is sometimes why Orbitz is able to find seats when other sites are not. The downside of this is that some carriers have begun to catch on, and refuse to confirm a seat on your B-C leg if they see you already trying to book A-B.

However, if I'm not mistaken, AA.com has since cut over to ITA, and you should notice increased parity between Orbitz & AA.com. (Though I am a recent beneficiary of a $50 voucher due to Orbitz having the lower fare).

While private, negotiated fares may sometimes be the reason for lower fares, the more predominant cause for variation across sites can almost always be attributed to the differences in their respective fare search algorithms and the manner in which they each check seat availability.

acf573

I think there are two main advantages. First is that they don't have to pay GDS/CRS system fees because the reservation is entirely internal. This is not insignificant as AA estimated in this testimony here (pdf) that in 2001 they paid $3.78 per passenger enplanement (or roughly $12 per roundtrip ticket) versus about $0.50 for Southwest. In 2001, they paid $424 million in CRS fees. If they could get it down to WN levels, that would save them about $368 million per year. Note this isn't directly an issue with Orbitz as Orbitz/ITA Software has a direct link to AA's computers (and other major airlines).

Second is that if you're a mostly loyal AA shopper, your eyes won't be tempted by the sight of another airline's price on the same route. In essence, if they train you to only search at AA.com, you can't see how much you could save if you flew another airline. Alas, I am not one of those blissfully ignorant people as I always see how much more I'm paying to earn miles/status on AA. $100 in the case of my last ticket.

Regarding stale pricing on Orbitz, I believe it's because ITA Software (the back end for Orbitz) caches some of the data to save on GDS fees.

Doppy

Every time I think I'm going to take advantage of this "deal" I read the fine print and give up on it. There's too much.

And most of the time the fare classes aren't exactly the same between AA.com and whomever else.

UncleRobin

I had a very similar experience as the OP. I had all the Is dotted and Ts crossed, but aa.com refused to honor the guarantee and their reason best I could determine was, just because.

Long story short, after several e-mails, faxes, phone calls, weeks and the threat of disputing the charge on my card, I got some restitution. Still AA acted like they were doing me a favor and would never give me an answer why they wouldn't honor the guarantee even after asking repeatedly.

I wonder if the difference gets over a certain threshold, they just tell you to go take a hike, instead of honoring the guarantee. My difference was around $500.00.

UR