I learned a couple of things about Expedia this week. Many of you probably already know about these, but for anyone who doesn't:

1. Expedia tends to list fare options in a way that seems absolutely committed to presenting the lowest price first, even to the extent of completely ignoring my request for flights at specific times of day (they do stick to the requested date, at least) and sometimes presenting 3-connection options if they're a couple of dollars cheaper than direct flights. So in the past I've assumed that the lowest price they present after the initial search for an itinerary is in fact the cheapest way they've found that I can get from A to B and back. But in this case, my needs were a little more complex. Instead of needing A-B-C/C-B-A, where the "/" is a stay or stopover, what I needed was A-B/B-C/C-B-A. Expedia's initial results were $906, but none of them worked for the schedule I needed. However, I could see flights that were components of the various offerings that, combined individually, would give me the schedule I needed. So I tried the "select flights individually" option. I figured that, since the specific combination I needed wasn't listed, that must mean that my combination of segments would cost more than $906, perhaps a lot more. But lo and behold, when I put together the segments I wanted, the price was $770!

The moral: In some cases it may be worth reassembling your intinerary using the "choose flights individually" option.

2. Once upon a time it was worth looking at sites like Expedia to find airfare and hotel rates better than those you could get directly with the airline or hotel itself. And I know Expedia has restricted prices at hotels that can still be better than the hotel's unrestricted rates in some cases, but in general I had come to assume that for an unrestricted rate, I could usually get a price from the airline or hotel that is the same as or a slightly better than I could with Expedia et al. But recently I had the dubious joy of booking four flights on Alitalia. As mentioned above, Expedia gave me a price of $770 for the four flights. Alitalia's price for the exact same itinerary and class: $1,703.

The moral: Just because it's the airline's or hotel's home site doesn't mean they have a best rate guarantee, even now.

I have noticed the same thing. What I do for a circle trip is:

1) look up the three lowest base fares that allow for my advance purchase and day/time restriction and then add the taxes. If the total price displayed for the circle trip with the flights I like is what I just calculated, then I know I have the lowest possible fare for the circle trip.

2) If the price displayed is higher, meaning seat availability is the limiting factor, then I ask for a round trip on the three city pairs. Sometimes Expedia will find a cheaper routing, and then I specifically ask for that routing on the circle trip.

I am guessing that the additional time Expedia will spend looking for cheaper routings is used only on round trips (or an open jaw, which is basically the same thing), but not on a circle trip, because the number of possible routings increases dramatically as you add stops.


If you know what flights you want and are having trouble getting Expedia to display them because they're $2 more, go back and set up a multi-city itinerary using the connecting city as a "stop". This will cancel the complicated routings that are done on round trips.

When you choose flights, ignore the initial price estimate because that is estimated assuming that each entry in the multi-city itinerary is an individual fare. Once you choose flights, assuming you have chosen appropriate connecting times (less than four hours domestically), Expedia will re-calculate the price using through fares.

I've been booking through Orbitz rather than through NW's website because I can get the schedule times I need. NW will allow you to pick and choose, too, but the total price usually comes out a little higher. Orbitz adds a service charge, but overall they're about a wash. Also, NW always seems to list exactly 16 possibilities -- maybe it's just my itin, but it seems there's always 16 choices.

Orbitz also lets me construct a flight using partners (like America West) which will earn me NW miles but which I can't book on nwa.com. Or maybe I can, but I just don't know how.

I've never used either Expedia or Travelocity. The latter, I hear, is the mileage runner's friend, but i'm not into that (at least not yet ). Still, I'd like to know if I should switch to one of these services rather than Orbitz.

Try all of them and see which you like best. It's OK to switch.

Usually I use Expedia but occasionally that will fail (fail, as in, I know there is a better way and can't get Expedia to do it), and then I use Travelocity. One time I used itn.net before they disappeared. I've tried Orbitz a few times but was never able to beat anyone else.

I found a great route on ITA but could not create it on Expedia. It simply was not available. Found it first try on Travelocity. Expedia has always been my first choice but I am now checking Travelocity as well.

I have found in the past that after finding a route on ITA, I use the choose flights individually option on Expedia, and it always ends up the same or even a few bucks less.

I agree expedia never comes up with the lowest fare on its own, especially for multi-city itineraries

I search for flights on Orbitz.com, sometimes take a peek at Expedia (although one must confirm the fare is BOOKABLE, as I've tried to book a really low fare and a "Sorry, this fare is sold out error" message occurs)
Having found the best schedule/airline (if the trip is on one airline), I go to that airline's website and book. 95% of the time, the airline website is the same price and one can get 1000 bonus miles for booking directly (on many airlines). I think AA, US, CO and DL all have lowest fares on home site guarantees.

I discovered this about Expedia some time ago. Thanks for posting this information so that others will be aware of it.

If I go to the Expedia multi-city itinerary booking page, I can see only 5 city pairs that I can enter. Is there a way to increase this to six? Some advanced setting that I can't seem to find?

No. You don't have to enter five non-stop cities. If each entry requires one connection, using all five will give you 10 segments. It's very difficult to auto-price 10 segments, so having six entries doesn't really help.

Actually, it does. I want to book specific flights on each city pair and I didn't like the connections that Expedia threw up either on the complete itinerary or on the build trip by segment