ft101

After a computer crash I've lost a lot of my bookmarked sites, including two for companies that guaranteed lower fares at a cost. No lower fare equals no charge.

Can anyone pont me in the direction of these sites, that I probably read about on here previously?

pjcarly

flightfox.com used to do this, but apparently they have pivoted to corporate travel.

skywardhunter

Google Chrome stores and syncs your bookmarks across devices ... Not the info you sought but fyi

ft101

Yes, but it's Google.

Anyway, I just found a back up from a few months ago. Flystein and Flightfox (mentioned above) were the ones I had saved.

CPRich

Yes, "Backup...." or "Export Bookmarks to HTML" periodically is a good idea.

dulciusexasperis

You're kidding right? You don't actually believe that anyone can 'guarantee lower fares' do you? Lower than what? Heck, I can guarantee you that I can find a higher fare for the same seat on any flight you want. I suppose that also means I can guarantee that I will find a lower price as well. If you find one, you find both.

Now all I need to do is set up a 'send me your money sucker' website and 'guarantee' to find lower prices for those naive enough to believe that actually means anything.

ft101

My computer crashed and I lost my bookmarks - why would I be kidding about that?

As to your comment on the websites, go and troll somewhere else.

pinniped

I'm genuinely curious about the premise of these sites.

Guaranteed lower fares...than what? Are these basically consolidator fares? Are they focused on specific international routes?

I don't believe for a second that my mundane regular Dallas flight that is typically $79 on Southwest.com is going to be cheaper (or available at all?) on these kinds of sites.

ft101

Never having used them, I'm not sure. My first thought was long haul routes and fuel dumping.

dulciusexasperis

My first thought was, 'there's a sucker born every minute'.

I just had a look at Flightstein to see what they do. So they ask you to tell them a price you got and the specific flight details etc. Then they ask you to answer some questions about preferences etc. Then a PERSON at their end tries to find you a lower price for your trip. The assumption of course is that they CAN find a lower price. They may change the airlines you will fly, the departure and arrival times, etc. in their search to find that lower price. What they will not do is guarantee you that they will find a lower price for the trip as you have shown them and the price you already have.

So what are they really guaranteeing? Well as their site says, 'our experts will beat your price or you don't pay our fee'. Now there's an offer to think about.

Gee, let me think. Does that sound like something amazing to me? Umm, no, it sounds like I could have taken another look at where I want to go and how I will get there, myself and come up with another possibility for getting there.

In other words, all they do is what any travel agent does, they do the looking for you. Whoopee.

Nothing changes in the world in regards to human nature. P. T. Barnum was right when he said it and he's till right today. 'There's a sucker born every minute.'

skywardhunter

It's a kid with ITA Matric and Kayak and Google Flights fiddling around for an hour for fee, figuring he's smarter than the average traveller (and probably right).

Most of us on here could probably provide the same service, kudos to the kid who's actually doing it.

enviroian

Athena53

Thanks for this. I've been wondering about these sites since I fly Business on my own dime but have been turned off by the usual, "tell us exactly what you want and give us your e-mail so we can spam you forever and we'll find something". I'm sure MCI-DFW-MIA-MAD is cheaper than MCI-DFW-MAD but I'm sure not going to add another connection.

chgoeditor

Google is your friend. Read more than just the first search result.

ft101

flyertalk is also a friend. There's a thread with over 15,000 posts about it, although not at all easy to interpret.

I thought (but don't know) these sites may be using something along these lines, particularly as you can put restrictions on routings/airlines/stopovers etc which would restrict some of the issues above.