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You get an airfare price drop email alert
or You are “Researching Cheapest Airfares” from the FareCompare.com home page and we show you the cheapest published price calendar. You select your dates and hit “Find Flights” to check for seats and the quoted price doesn’t match up — why not? |
Simple Answer
The simple answer to why the advertised cheapest price doesn’t match the real time flight quote is that the airline decided NOT to sell you a seat at THEIR cheapest advertised price RIGHT NOW on your preferred dates.
Detailed Answer
First, we process airfare information directly from the airlines (only one of a handful of companies that do so) and send out airline ticket price change alerts via email anywhere from two to eight hours before the changes hit the airline websites (we do this so that you can be first to know when prices change), this means the airline reservation system may not be updated yet which is a common reason for a mismatch.
Second, airlines publish about 8 price points for each flight and they decide on a case by case basis — Each Time You Ask for a Real Time Flight Quote — whether or not to sell you the cheapest, 2nd cheapest, 3rd cheapest … price point — they can and do change their minds often (even throughout the day). This is one of the reasons you can ask for three separate quotes at different times of a day on three different airline quoting websites — and get 9 wildly different prices for the same flight. This is the way the airlines reservation systems were designed — to maximize profit of each seat sold on each flight.
Other reasons include the fact that prices change throughout the day (checkout the times of day airlines change their ticket prices) and sometimes we may even have a bug in our quoting system (we process millions of changes a day).
How Do Airlines Decide What Price to Sell You?
They use multi-million dollar software systems to study air travelers buying behavior including:
- How many business travelers paid $800+rt for seats in previous years for this flight — how many can they expect this year
- How well are airline tickets selling so far for this depart and return day
- Is the trip date near a popular holiday or event in the destination city
- Is the departure time on a popular day (Monday, Friday, Sunday) or time of day (8am or 4pm)
- Is the flight non-stop or connecting
- What are other airlines charging right now
- and dozens upon dozens of other variables related air traveler buying behavior
There is no doubt that every air traveler wants the best deal (cheapest advertised price) — myself included — if airlines sold everyone the cheapest price they would be out of business in a week — the reality is that about 10% of passengers on each flight are going to get the best deal — the rest are going to get a “relatively worst deal”.
Most airline ticket shoppers stumble upon a good deal completely by accident — just knowing that a new cheaper price as been filed by an airline puts you way ahead of the pack and gives you a much better chance of being in that elite 10% flying at the cheapest price.
What Can FareCompare.com Do Better?
FareCompare.com is not just another airline quoting system - there are dozens of them on the internet and statistics show most people shop 5 to 6 different sites before purchasing, so you are well aware of them.
We come to work each day working on new airfare technology to try to save you both time (the hassle of hunting for that cheapest advertised price) and money (ferreting out the bets deals from millions of airfare price changes that occur each day).
There is no perfect solution but rest assured we are the only company working day in and day out on making it easier to get the best airfare deals and providing you the information you need to make the best airline ticket purchasing decision.
My Question is alittle complicated, but i dont have a clue as to where to start. We recently flew to Miami, taking a cruise. We flew from Chicago to Charolette. We did not have boarding passes for the CLT leg so when we got to the gate we asked for passes. There were 4 of us. They said they did not have us on the flight. I pulled out my documents. We flew United from ORD and US air from CLT. Well the guy said United didn’t tip us over to them so he had to do alot of computer stuff to finally figure us on the flight. All was well very helpful. Now when we returned we flew American to Atlanta to ORD. When we got to the MIA to check in only 2 of us had tickets. Well after 45 minutes of computer work 3 of us had been found but my husbands ticket had been cancelled. After much work on their part, very nice by the way, they said US Air cancelled his ticket form MIA to ORD when the were doing the boarding passes in CLT. So we had to buy another ticket oneway back to ORD!! So how do we get our money back and where do I start and who will it be with?
So confusing, Thanks Jan Storey
Comment by Jan Storey — January 17, 2008 @ 2:14 pm
I am planning a trip to NYC May 23 - May 31. I have been watching prices since Nov. The lower flight prices only go up to May 20. Being a holiday week should I continue to wait or is the regular price that it has been since Nov the best I’m going to get?
Thanks!
Comment by Sandy Fox — January 31, 2008 @ 6:55 pm
Dear Rick,
Thanks for the writeup on this frustrating airfare alert situation. I have two questions: first, have the airlines become more devious recently concerning pricing? I swear I used to get alerts, go check prices, and bingo, there were flights that actually matched the alert price. This NEVER happens anymore, such that I have become a bit disenchanted with FareCompare. I hate to admit that, but it is truly frustrating to search multiple days, times of the day, etc. looking for that elusive fare! But maybe it’s not you guys, it’s the airlines pulling a fast one? My second question is, how do we get around this? I want to fly from MIA-ORD sometime in the mid-late spring, and I don’t really care when. I also want to fly MIA-SFO (or OAK), also within the next few months…so how do I find the cheapest flights if the dates are unimportant? At first glance, the calendar listing the (supposedly) cheapest fares looks good, but as you’ve pointed out, it’s pretty useless. There has to be a solution for the non-business-flyer who doesn’t care when she flies!
Thanks for pondering this,
Barb
Comment by Barb — February 7, 2008 @ 3:04 pm
I do not understand the alerts you send me. Sorry, maybe you’re not the right person to ask, and in this case i would be grateful if you redirected me, but i just can’t understand. I, more often than not, receive an email alert that prices for my trip have been going down from x to y (say 600 down 200) Price “x” (600) is underlined, i click on it, and sure enough the site would ask me to book my trip at price “x”. But i thought the email just told me price went down to the “y” price (e.g. down 200 would surely mean i can pay 400)?
Please help.
Comment by A — February 8, 2008 @ 10:38 pm
whats the difference between an air fare that is calculated/based on a mileage system verus a route system?
How can we find out such info on tickets from the websites? Is there a code? Thanks
Comment by Randy — February 12, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
what isan air fare that is calculated/based on a mileage system verus a route system?
How does this affect the price ticket? Which is better? Thanks
Comment by Randy — February 12, 2008 @ 7:54 pm
How is an airline ticket based on route system/structure verus a mileage system?
How does the pricing differ for such tickets? Which is better? Thanks.
Comment by Randy — February 12, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
My parents fly out to their summer home in May and back in September…can I book them on round trip tickets or do I have to continue booking two one ways? How many days can you have between flights on a round trip ticket?Thanks, Nancy
Comment by Nancy Ray — February 14, 2008 @ 9:29 am
I read all explanation regarding the price mismatch and find it all reasonable.
As I see it, the published fare has very little relevance because if the airline decides not to offer it at any time, it is the same as non existant.
So what is really relevant is to find the PUBLISHED FARE WHICH IS OFFERED at some time.
So for every publish fare, FARECOMPARE has a fare-code.
My search, which drove me nuts for long time was departing MVD to FLL (lowest pubhlshed fare = U$S529 ), and even though it appears in every single month, you cannot ever get it.
So in this case the fare is published by AA (code VLW3SOS and VLX3SOS).
So going back to my generic point, and letting my system engineering influential point of view.
You have the airline and you have the fare code, so is there any FILTER, you can apply to the airline database to get dates where that fare is not only PUBLISHED, BUT ALSO AVAILABLE?
These sort of information would give FARECOMPARE a even larger edge over other sites.
By the way, congratulations for the kind/class of information you offer.
Comment by Eduardo — February 14, 2008 @ 3:31 pm