armouredant

You could try the ITA Powertools bookmarklet, which has settings for adults and children at the very top of the page, once the tools load. Can you post a picture of your itinerary?

TWA884

As a new member, @Collie206 is unable to post images.

The desired itinerary is posted in the BookWithMatrix.com: a tool to easily book with ITA Matrix thread.

Globaliser

Because TWA884 has posted the pointer to where your itinerary (or at least the fare calculation) is, I've now been able to work out what I am 95% sure is the reason for what you are seeing.

The price that ITA gave you uses two different fares for the two different passengers.

The "adult" is being priced using a combination of KAA2AFBN outbound and KAA2AFBN inbound. This gives you a total price of $306.00.

The "child" is being priced using a combination of LAA4AQBN outbound and KAA2AFBN inbound. LAA4AQBN is a higher fare than KAA2AFBN, which is why the total price is $340.00.

ITA will show you itineraries priced using different fares for different passengers, so that you can see the lowest prices. It typically splits the prices like this when there is only one seat left at the lower price. It uses that to price one passenger, and then prices the next passenger using the next lowest fare. I am pretty confident that this is why ITA priced your itinerary like this. It is not because the child fare is higher than the adult fare. You should be able to test this by pricing the same itinerary for two adults: you will probably get exactly the same total price, with fares split in the same way as before.

However, most airline booking systems will not let you make one booking that uses different fares for different passengers. So if there is only one seat left at the lower price, you can only get it by booking one passenger on the first booking to get that seat. The second passenger will be on a separate booking at the next lowest fare. If you must put both passengers onto the same booking (as some airlines require when children are involved), then you will both be priced using the same fare - and that is only possible by using the lowest fare that has two seats available. In this case, it will be the next lowest fare. That is why you appear to see the "adult" price being "raised" to the "child" price. That's not what's happening, and the reason is much simpler - there's only one seat left at the lower fare.

FWIW, here is a more legible version of the fare constructions:-

Fare for 1 adult
Fare 1: Carrier UA KAA2AFBN SEA to FMY (rules)
Passenger type ADT, one-way fare, booking code N
Covers SEA-IAH (Economy), IAH-RSW (Economy) $120.93
Fare 2: Carrier UA KAA2AFBN FMY to SEA (rules)
Passenger type ADT, one-way fare, booking code N
Covers RSW-IAD (Economy), IAD-SEA (Economy) $120.93
US Transportation Tax (US) $18.14
US September 11th Security Fee (AY) $11.20
US Flight Segment Tax (ZP) $16.80
US Passenger Facility Charge (XF) $18.00
Subtotal per passenger $306.00
Number of passengersx1
Subtotal For 1 adult $306.00
No changes may be made to this ticket after purchase.
This ticket is non-refundable.
Fare Construction (can be useful to travel agents)
SEA UA X/HOU UA FMY 120.93KAA2AFBN UA X/WAS UA SEA 120.93KAA2AFBN USD 241.86 END ZP IAH SEA IAD RSW XT 18.14US 16.80ZP 11.20AY 18.00XF IAH4.50 SEA4.50 IAD4.50 RSW4.50

Fare for 1 child
Fare 1: Carrier UA LAA4AQBN SEA to FMY (rules)
Passenger type CNN, one-way fare, booking code N
Covers SEA-IAH (Economy), IAH-RSW (Economy) $152.56
Fare 2: Carrier UA KAA2AFBN FMY to SEA (rules)
Passenger type CNN, one-way fare, booking code N
Covers RSW-IAD (Economy), IAD-SEA (Economy) $120.93
US Transportation Tax (US) $20.51
US September 11th Security Fee (AY) $11.20
US Flight Segment Tax (ZP) $16.80
US Passenger Facility Charge (XF) $18.00
Subtotal per passenger $340.00
Number of passengersx1
Subtotal For 1 child $340.00
No changes may be made to this ticket after purchase.
This ticket is non-refundable.
Fare Construction (can be useful to travel agents)
SEA UA X/HOU UA FMY 152.56LAA4AQBN UA X/WAS UA SEA 120.93KAA2AFBN USD 273.49 END ZP IAH SEA IAD RSW XT 20.51US 16.80ZP 11.20AY 18.00XF IAH4.50 SEA4.50 IAD4.50 RSW4.50

Keter

ITA is now missing India 12% GST on business/ first class (K3).... As Delta is based on ITA will Delta be missing this tax too?

Keter

Can it be a mess linked to new Malaysia departure tax introduction?

For MH fare if POS KUL/ SIN/ SYD Q charge of 70 USD per direction is added (it is fare rules, but the application is not specified) but this charge is not actually added by OTAs (ie Expedia SG).

And yes.. I just checked DL is missing 12% GST I hope ITA does not get bankrupt - we all love this tool!!!!

andydd

here's what you should do.. If it's a regular ticket, then you should just book 1 adult ticket from ota and then subsequently call the airline to add a child ticket to your adult ticket. You can't buy a child only ticket from OTAs.

If you dont know what I mean by regular ticket, then you probably are booking one already, so nothing to worry.

If you want to book both tickets,in lower FBC, choose another date. Btw, if only 1 ticket is left in lower FBC, if I were you.. I would hurry up since anybody could pick that seat.

dvs7310

I'm curious why it was at some point disabled to search multiple countries for departure? (Country of origin) This function used to work fine, I want to say it was last year that it stopped. Now I get the error: I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I'm totally flexible on which airport I can depart a long haul from in East Asia depending on the savings (it's usually significant). So I would search for example, SEL, TYO, HKG, PVG, PEK as my departure string. I just can't imagine why this is now disallowed, forcing me to instead search one by one. (well PVG and PEK can be combined, but others all have to be unique).

Globaliser

There was much speculation when it happened, but one obvious possible reason was to try to reduce the unmanageable number of possibilities returned if a large number of origins is specified. It's worth remembering that ITA was always an exercise in trying to manage the unmanageable, and that even with the current limitations it still often gives up on complex searches before exploring the full set of possibilities because it simply can't look at that many combinations.

With some imagination, you can still get much of the former benefit. Do a multi-city search for:-

• [*]

This will give you some idea of which countries have the lowest fares. If, for example, that turns out to be the country that includes DDD, you can then search again for DDD and other cities in the same country to AAA and back again.

ChocolateFactory

dvs7310

But for Americans for example it would work, you could do NYC, LAX, SFO, MIA, SEA, ORD, IAH as an origination string and that would be ok, because it's one country, but those places are no where nearer to each other than my same TYO, SEL, PEK, PVG, HKG, TPE string. Europe would be the same, lots of airports in a small-ish area but different countries.

fuyao

This has nothing to do with taxes.
With amadeus you can search only 3 origins+dest in 1 request. ITA is the only search +pricing engine, thats allows more than 3
Amadeus wants a few cents for every masterpricer request, ITA is free, so its most likely just a cost cutting decision

Globaliser

But just like the points that ChocolateFactory made about the theory that I mentioned above, this theory is also subject to the problem that it doesn't help ITA to keep costs down if the change means that a user makes a dozen requests instead of just one.

ChocolateFactory

Globaliser

Hence we are only left with speculation.

ITA's usefulness is nevertheless undimmed to those who have learned how to use it and who are prepared to use it properly as a tool (which has never meant searching only once to find an itinerary, because using it to its full extent requires digesting information and refining queries to find the best solution). The change only adversely affects the lazy who are looking for shortcuts to having someone to tell them what to do.

shallowdrift

Just to flag up, a few days ago I discovered ITA missing perfectly good Air China fares they had on their own site, any idea why? No weird options or anything, and both Kayak and Google Flights had the China fares.