A 2 dollar difference,same fare,different sites,why?
 

I'm booking a ticket on OS from VIE-DEL, the fare is the same but if I book it directly from OS or Expedia I get a fare of $726 but if I check it at ual.com then the fare is about $724. Can some1 please explain why the difference? Is it because the sites use different exchange rates?

Exchange rates are a possibility, depending on how Austrian prices out (not sure if they use the dM or the Euro as their base)...

I've also seen many price differences ranging from $0.50 to $15 depending on the CRS they are using and how it calculates the taxes.

-nate

When I used to use Travelocity and/or Expedia to find my flights, after determining which flight I wanted I'd book it on the airline's site. The airline's site would typically be $4.50 cheaper than than Travelocity/Expedia (can't remember which one I used to predominantly use). I've always assumed that Travelocity/Expedia was marking up the flight a bit to get a piece of the action. tls

The thing is that the price Expedia/Travelocity are giving me is the same price I got when I called OS. But United's website is the only giving it cheaper.

This happens all the time when you compare prices for the exact same flights between the major CRS systems. Each system has slight variances in how it computes the fare and taxes. This happens most of the time on international tickets and not that often with domestic routings.

Sthokie - I've had good luck booking OS tickets through a European-based agent. On an upcoming flight FRA-VIE-CAI, I saved about $300-$400 per ticket by booking on www.opodo.de (based in Germany). They require a German address to send the tickets to, but there is no problem using an American billing address.

The hardest part was navigating the German. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

------------------
"What do you mean you didn't get miles for that?!"

My experience has been every time that Expedia and Orbitz have been lower than United.com (and much lower) than aircanada.com and higher than aa.com, nwa.com and continental.com. The good thing is that it isn't hard to check.

The moral of the story is to shop multiple sites. These sites use different CRS systems, so fare filings and taxes can be computed differently.

Any published fare sold on Expedia, Travelocity, or Orbitz can't be marked up, as the credit card is billed by the airline. Service charges (in the case of Orbitz) or shipping fees (for paper tickets) are imposed on any of the sites, but are disclosed separately.

I would buy on united.com if OS doesn't support E-tickets. United.com is one of the few online sites I know of that sends out paper tickets via regular mail for free, and doesn't force you to pay $15 for unneeded Fedex.