Another possibly-related oddity. Google flights had a cheaper fare (round-trip, 1 connection each way), which was ~$300 cheaper (~1150 vs ~850), and linked to Amadeus for the "Book with American" than searching with aa.com. All in O class. I don't have the fare codes, and can't decode them anyways, but the oddity is when the Amadeus booking session timed out, it redirected me to americanairlines.ie instead of aa.com... where the fare was ~800 euro, which after exchange rates matches the $850 fare. So Google might be finding and displaying some EU sourced tickets in their results.

What were the cities involved?

Does it also appear on ITA Matrix? Last year I was trying to book a ticket with AA from a AY PE Sale, I could link it to any AA country site, but could not book, not even AAgents could price it out, they quoted thousands more.

https://www.google.com/travel/flight...rXUYGF2Sz9Apw6

CDG-SFO-CDG example dates 8/16 - 10/28

Yes and no. When searched as a one-way (CDG-SFO) shows all (or more, at least) of the US layovers. When searched as a round-trip or multi-city, the only AA options are only the LHR layover

Some metasearch engines just keep historical prices and redirect to historical websites no longer available. Remember, this kind of engines (google flights, skyscanner…) are not supposed to give a better fare than the one you can find at aa.com. Travel agencies (expedia, edreams,…) are.

Are you trying to book this from the US? EU>US flights are often much cheaper due to economics, so it's likely a point of sale issue. Have you tried using a VPN to say you're in France?

I had a recent trip I booked where it was $955 on aa.com when I looked on my phone that night. A few days later I went to book via PC and it was nearly $1200. Watched for a few days and it never changed. Searched again on Google Flights and it came up as $955. Kicked me over to aa.com and booked all as one ticket - no funny ticketing or anything.

I believe that happens when the round trip is (somehow) more expensive than two one ways. When you search on AA.com it shows the round trip fare, but Google flights often punts me to a multi-city YYY-ZZZ-YYY to get the two one way fare pricing.

They are quoting different fare filings. I can find the ones AA is quoting on EF, but not the ones Google Flights is quoting.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...dc0e750314.png
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...63b0be999f.png

Yes, I am booking from the US.
No I haven't tried checking out with the .ie site or using a VPN to relocate to Europe. Are you thinking that will offer me pricing similar to the .ie? What are the tradeoffs between VPN+.com vs US+.ie?

]Is it a similar reason to why the different fare filings aren't including the all-AA metal itineraries in the roundtrips on ITA Matrix?

AA is likely going to force you to the site that matches your locale. Doing an Euros currently site (ie .ie), will allow you to actually check out rather than likely be redirected or have it error out. The only tradeoff is the currency conversion, it'll charge in whatever currency of the site you use.

What do you mean by "search engines are not supposed to give better fares than aa.com"?

They're supposed to quote the exact fares that are available on AA.com at the time of searching, as they are not TAs (and are not the ones selling you a ticket). The TAs job is to sell a ticket at a price they see fit, and if they want to undercut the airlines and/or sell their ticket at a loss to gain a customer, then that's their prerogative.

But, when I click through to the results, they often include channels like kiwi that undercut direct channels.

Not entirely true. It doesn't seem to matter where you are.

I book roundtrip EU to US (usually MAD/BCN to PIT/ORD/STL) all the time in J using AA, but often with JV partner flights included (maybe this is the loophole?). If you do a Google Flights search (from anywhere in the world) for a roundtrip itinerary EU to US and find the itinerary you want, when clicking through, Google sites will route you to "bookaa.amadeus.com" pricing out the itinerary in Euros, even if you are in the U.S. It only matters where your itinerary originates, not where you reside/exist when the transaction is made (see screenshot).

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5f3ef3b0ef.png