Guy Betsy

Same flights, same dates.

ba.com shows exact same booking for £44 more than expedia

Why?

JAXBA

Point of sale? Sabre (or whatever Expedia uses) slightly behind Amadeus availability? Day of the week ends in Y?

TPJ

I think BA now charges booking fees for ba.com transactions, while Expedia does not. I recently bought a ticket on VA (SYD-ADL-SYD) via Expedia and saved some money as there was no fee charged.

scubaccr

exact same fare classes on both outbound and inbound ?

Deltus

OTAs are often a few pounds cheaper than BA.com.

I'd buy from BA, and then claim the difference under the price promise.

Guy Betsy

Yep. Exact same flights etc.

Don't want to bother with claiming price difference etc. So just went ahead and booked thru Expedia.

Globalist

SIN-LHR-AMS-SIN in PE was SGD 200 cheaper on Expedia.
Same dates, same flights plus BA charges my credit card from London in my local currency (SGD) attracting another credit card fee.

Not a few pounds...

Globalist

navylad

OLTA are often cheaper than airlines, they reduce their fees to make them more competitive. The downsides are difficulties if you need to make changes (can't go through the airline), less likely to get free or POUG/AUP and there is some evidence (see this thread) that you are more likely to be offloaded if overbooked or they need to reduce weight.

710 77345

It's incredibly rare for TAs to be cheaper than BA, something has normally gone wrong or they are cheating on the POS. Reducing their fees doesn't drop the price below what BA.com can charge.

navylad

That's not my experience, I can usually find a fare cheaper by searching through various OLTAs, the likes of Tripsta and sometimes CheapOAir (clearly other travel agencies are available and I'm not endorsing either of these, just my experience), particularly when they send you discount codes.

When BA has a sale on, these prices are sometimes not available off BA.com.

For example, I just put in LHR-BCN for the 16th June (selected purely as it is my birthday) for a week, BA.com £447 + any CC booking fee, tripair.nl £442 and no CC booking fee. Admittedly I then apply military discount to BA.com and it is usually far cheaper.

Bottom line, always shop around, but be aware of what you are buying and the downsides of buying indirect.

710 77345

You're lucky, I think we have fewer than 10 reports of BA's price promise being successfully used here in the 10+ years it's been operating!

Fly2Where

Um.... i found the opposite. I recently booked 3 tickets, 2 of which has ba.com booking fee listed, so it became couple pounds more then expedia. However, since the price different is negligible, i went ahead with ba.com.

rossmacd

If you "live" in Germany, then the booking fee is removed.

irishguy28

Because people who go direct to the airline website aren't interested in flying with a competitor or for shopping around, and therefore are letting the airline know that they are willing to pay above the odds.

omk298

I've had a couple if successful claims over the last few years, only for a few pounds each though. I think I've also had one unsuccessful claim for no obvious reason.