cary999

I'm researching flights from LAX to JNB South Africa for Sep 1 returning Sep 20. (Yes!!!! safari).

Orbitz comes back with Swiss Air flights for $1,711. But you go in to select and you get "We're sorry. Due to changes in airline availability, the fare for your selected trip is no longer available. We have adjusted the fares for all affected flights. The fare for your selected trip is now $ 2794 total. See below. (Message 1048)"

Now I know flight fares change by the minute but Orbitz has had this going for two days. Travelocity does not seem to have this problem, they come up with the current fare.

This is not the first time I've had this problem with Orbitz. Same thing a few weeks ago for a flight to Europe.

Comments?

regards - tom

Momliz

I had the same problem with Orbitz, also researching IAD - JNB. The flights consistently came up, after I hit "Select", as either not available or, when there was one marked "Act fast only X left at this price" I would get the same error message you did. Bait and switch, I think. And, this was over a period of about two weeks. And, the same flights kept coming up with attractive prices, but when selected, nothing available. I finally called them, and the lady on the phone, a reservation clerk, I guess, said that the airlines don't update their sites. But, over two weeks? I don't think so. It was bait and switch. I quit in disgust and booked with the airline. It was very frustrating.

rkkwan

It's not bait and switch. It's a limitation for the current fare-pricing mechanism.

But that points to the question of why you are even looking at fares there first. I use it as a last resort, for complex itineraries that the airline themselves have problem issuing the tickets.

AAFrequentFlyer

All major airline fares are loaded into <b>G</b>lobal<b>D</b>istribution<b>S</b>ystems. The lowest fare may be loaded into the system but the airline may not be offering that particular fare at this time, so that's why you run into misunderstandings like this on occasion.

Simple example:

Fare Q - $1000 - 14 day advance, non-refundable, no mileage, etc.

Fare L - $1500 - 7 day advance, non-refundable, miles

Fare N - $2000 - 7 day advance, refundable, miles

the three fare codes are in the system but the airline only released the L and N fares at the moment. Some of the sites have a filtering system that automatically skips any fare code that is not available at that moment, some don't.

Many of the smaller, secondary travel resellers actually use this to their advantage. You will see fares advertised on their home page <i>ABC-XYZ as low as $1000</i> but then you won't find the fare, simply because the airline did not release it. Bait and Switch? maybe, false advertising? no. There is a $1000 fare in the system, it's just not available.

Momliz

so, the cheap flights that some sites (orbitz, kayak...) find are different fare classes that the airlines may not advertise? I have always found the fares on the airlines sites to be higher, but would I find cheaper ones if I searched different fare classes? I'll try it and see.

KatGio

I have had that happen on Orbitz also. As far as lower fares, a year ago we booked business class tix on Orbitz for $2600pp to Mxp while the Delta site quoted $6400pp. Quite a significant difference, I'd say.

clevelandbrown

KatGio,

Was the different fare for identical tickets. I think Delta has markedly lower fares if some of your travel will be on a weekend, so quotes for different days could vary quite a bit.

I think now they guarantee their website fare to the the lowest on the internet (for identical flights) and offer money to back up their guarantee, but I don't know how long that guarantee has been in effect.

I swore off the third-party sites (other than for research purposes) a few years ago after multiple difficulties with some purchases made me less than fully confident that the tickets we bought would result in the flight we planned. Strangely, the last straw that broke the camel's back for me involved almost monthly emails that a connecting airline had canceled our flight, followed by calls to the ticket seller, who made calls to someone, and called back and said all had been fixed, only to have the scenario rerun after a week or two; the flight itself went flawlessly, but I didn't want to go through the cancel/uncancel every few weeks game again. Perhaps those problems have been resolved, but I've been very happy buying directly from the airline's site.

deladeb

Orbitz and cheap tickets have been posting non-existent Swiss Fares for 2 weeks now...frustrating!

Momliz

longer than 2 weeks - I spent 2 eeks off and on a few weeks ago chasing down non existent IAD JNB return fares on swiss

Momliz

weeks, not eeks quot;&gt;

cary999

FWIW, after a few days of this Swiss Air thing on Orbtiz I called them and complained. I said they couldn't get it correct the first time but other search engines did. Orbitz said, well ok, were sorry and we will give you a free ticket to JNB. Uh, well, not exactly that, but they did say they were sorry for the inconvenience. And I replied that was exactly the answer I was expecting, thank you very little.

regards - tom
ps - after doing the Orbitz etc. search thing I always call the airline and if they are within a reasonable $$ difference (sometimes no diff.), I book with the airline.