Airfare

[PA Girl]

I really appreciated the ita link also. It's the best tool I've seen for surveying a month at a glance (if you're the type who books the airfare first, that's essential). But as for booking on the airline site... I tried and failed utterly. I had 3 different sites begging to book me on that $340 flight, but I thought I'd do it on the AA site and maybe sign up for the Amex credit card while I was at it. Total bust. AA simply would not display discount prices for that flight. I kept seeing links up at the top of the page saying $340 for such and such a date, but when I clicked on them they turned up THE SAME FLIGHT NUMBER at prices ranging from $590 to $740! I finally gave up and booked through Travelocity, which had no trouble finding that fare.

That is great you could get the fare through Travelocity. I learned the hard way that sometimes the lower fares on the booking sites "disappear" once I got into the actual purchase process. I had an epic battle with Expedia once and in the end, customer service said they had the right to change the advertised price at any time before the purchase was completed. I keep trying to buy at the lower price only to have the system block it at the very end.

[sherban]

My recent experience (last week) using ITA and AA website to book my trip:

I found the rates I wanted via the ITA matrix search looking at a month's worth of fares...then I went to the AA website and this is where it "got weird"...the AA webste didn't show the rated directly but AFTER you book the flights down, then the flights back showed a fare REDUCTION! This is weird..first I ever saw this but after playing around on the AA website a bit I figured it out. I think someone at AA web design/development screwed up...but the fares were there...just had to book don and back to see the net fare.