Speech99

I normally search using google flights, spinning the wheel of deals to see where I can go on a trip. I've found great deals on the site, and knew I had to call in with the specific class to get the ticket price to work. Today, for many locations, I get a price populated which looks great, but when I click the outbound, the fares more than double. Same scenario to several different cities, all showing great fares on the map and dates searched, but isn't available when proceeding. Normally when you click the first flight out, at the best price, it will keep you in the ball park. I've never seen this there before. I did select Skyteam partners only, and the outbound flights were on Skyteam. Thanks for any advice/info.

xliioper

Are you using multi-city to search? The ITA/Google Flights search code is broke because it doesn't check married segment inventory when quoting fares with multi-city search (it only checks inventory on the individual flight segments). Once you've pieced together the segments, it does a final check on the married segment inventory to see if there is really inventory there (and not just on the individual segments). If not, it will re-quote the correct fare for which there is actual married inventory available in the buckets. At least with DL flights it does this final check. With AA/UA flights, it does not seem to do this final check and will send you off to aa.com or united.com with a bogus fare quote. If you do a one-way search instead, all is well and it will correctly check the married segment inventory on the multi-segment flight options it quotes.

Speech99

Thanks for the note. I was just using the regular round trip search. Same issue for ATL-FCO and ATL-CDG, same dates. That is great to know about the Multi-City issue though, I do that often as well, and have not seen the issue.

xliioper

Roundtrip and one-way should be fine. There may issues with cached inventory or fare filings. You can check actual fare bucket inventory with an ExpertFlyer account or for free on the BCDTravel website (https://flightavailability.bcdtravel...MnAvlMain.aspx).
I should add that the multi-city fare issues have to do with combining multiple segments on a single fare (so searching for flights with a 4 hour connection or less domestically, or 24 hours internationally). If each segment is on a different date, you generally shouldn't run into issues. Each segment will fare individually in this case (since they can't be combined on a single fare) and checking inventory on the individual flight segments is the correct behavior. There's some exceptions to this (Hawaii fares often allow stopovers between islands, for example).

ajggiant

I see what you're talking about. Take ATL-FCO, Outbound on 12/24 returning 12/30. There are a number of options showing for ~$600-618. Some of these have more unusual routings routings (ATL-BNA-JFK-FCO) or (ATL-LGA, transfer, JFK-FCO) However, clicking through, the price jumps to ~$1,500, and also, requires you to call in to book, rather than providing a clickable link. If I put the same dates in ITA Matrix, there are no fares in the $600 range, everything is ~$1400 plus. That said, JFK-FCO is available for $600, so maybe the married segment issue that xliioper noted is at play here, with Google maps trying to "position" to NYC. I see the symptoms, but I'll defer to those who know more to identify the cause.

xliioper

It could be Google Flights is trying to combine multiple fares on a single ticket which are not allowed to be combined and only checks the fare combination rules after you have gotten to the end of the fare quote. There's $300 seasonal fares for NYC-CDG and $400 for NYC-FCO. But these fares do not permit end-on-end fare combinations on a single ticket (you will need to book fares on separate tickets to get from ATL to NYC). This is different than the multi-city issues (which deals with combining multiple segments on a single fare).

SEASONALITY
OUTBOUND - PERMITTED 30SEP 19 THROUGH 12DEC 19 OR 24DEC 19 THROUGH 30MAR 20 OR 21OCT 20 THROUGH 15DEC 20 OR 05JAN 21 THROUGH 10MAR 21 FOR EACH TRANSATLANTIC SECTOR. INBOUND - PERMITTED 29OCT 19 THROUGH 24DEC 19 OR 08JAN 20 THROUGH 07APR 20 OR 01NOV 20 THROUGH 24DEC 20 OR 11JAN 21 THROUGH 17MAR 21 FOR EACH TRANSATLANTIC SECTOR.

Speech99

Holy cow! You all are great! And I have no idea what all that means, except you were able to repeat it as well! So in the end, I can't nab that great fare! Thanks for everyone looking into it!

But, since I normally fly Skyteam, is there a way to track just their flights and get alerts? I keep getting a ton of offers from the travel sites that don't apply since the preference due to status is Skyteam.

Thanks for any ideas on that one as well.

xliioper

You can book the $300 NYC-CDG fares and $400 NYC-FCO fares. You just have to book the tickets to get to/from NYC separately (I'm assuming you are not based in NYC). The fare combination rules just prevent the two fares from being combined on the same ticket, but there's nothing wrong with buying the fares as separate tickets. The total price should be roughly the same as the fare quotes you were seeing. You just have to be aware that if your flights are delayed and you don't make the connection, they aren't really required to reaccommodate you on alternate flights. Although, if both tickets are on Delta, they will usually work with you. Generally, it's a good idea to leave plenty of time for your connection so you have a smaller chance of running into this situation. Delta also has NYC-LHR fares available for about $350 from mid-August onwards.

tangfish

I wish Google Flights had a "never show basic economy fares" checkbox.