TexasKaren

I just booked my first ever flight on Singapore Airlines. I'm pretty excited to visit Singapore next year.

I started looking for flights from Sydney a few months ago, just by comparing fares using Expedia. SQ was always the most expensive by over $100 so I'd already given up on them. I'd finally narrowed my choices to a nonstop on Qantas, or a connecting flight on Qantas/Emirates. I was online looking for flights for a different trip when I discovered Google Flights (yes, I live under a rock and didn't know Google had its own flight search engine). I decided on a whim to check on the Singapore flight and lo and behold the fares were MUCH lower than on Expedia. Google just redirected me to the airlines webpage to book, so I double checked and sure enough - much cheaper.

Expedia is still showing the SQ flight at $755 USD vs. $642 for QF. Well, I just booked SQ for $504 using the airlines own website. I thought Expedia was supposed to be the same price as the airlines' websites, but that's apparently not the case for SQ with a 50% markup. Lesson learned.

lokijuh

Is that expedia.com or expedia.com.au?

If it was the US expedia site, I would expect some big differences between that and the SQ website. However, I would expect the Australian expedia website to be much closer to the SQ website.

Fares vary based on where you buy them. expedia.com will only access fares available to US travel agents, and probably won't be able to access the discount fares available to Australian based travel agents for a trip starting in Sydney.

Also note, in addition to google flights, kayak.com (choose country you will be departing from on top right hand corner to search for fares from that country) and skyscanner website also provide a good overview of fares available.

TexasKaren

Sorry. Yes, it was Expedia.com, in the U.S. The Singapore Air website quoted me in AUD, and I opted to pay in AUD rather than use their conversion to USD which would have been $526 USD instead of the $504 that ended up on my credit card

Thanks for the tip. I hadn't thought about the U.S. vs. Australia issue for searching. I'm glad the flight turned out to be so reasonably priced though.

NetJets Germany

Another factor that plays into this is that 3rd party sites, such as Expedia or GF, sometimes don't have access to / don't show discount fares on SQ, e.g. Super Saver fares. You will often only find those if you search and book on singaporeair.com directly.