American Airlines Low Fare Guarantee
 

My wife and I are traveling from St. Louis to London and returning from Rome to St. Louis in September. I have been looking for a good airfare for some time and today I have found the exact flight I want on Airfare.com for a total of 1986.30 for two tickets and on AA.com the same flight is 2094.00 for two tickets.

American has a "low fare guarantee" if the exact same flight is five dollars or more cheaper, per ticket, they will refund the difference and give you a fifty dollar voucher.

Has anyone tried to use this guarantee? If so what was your experience? Do you feel like they would honor the airfare.com offer?

Thanks!
Richard

You will need to check the booking code (a 4-7 digit alphanumeric string usually found in the "fare rules" small print...) In order for AA to honor the low price guarantee the code has to be the same from both sources. If it is, then call AA right away.

Remember any given seat on any given flight may be sold under different rules and conditions than the one next to it, for a different price. Factors include return dates, prebooking dates, upgrade eligibility, blah blah.

Thanks!
I found a "fare basis code" (7 letters)on AA for my flight, is this what I should be looking for? If so Im having trouble finding it on airfare.com, any advice?

Thanks again! RM

What <b>Gardyloo</b> said is not correct. It does not have to be the same booking code. What it has to be is the following: Same dates, same flights and restricted or unrestricted fares, after that it's good to go. In another words, you cant't purchase a unrestricted fare on Expedia for $1000 and then go to AA and ask for a restricted fare match of let's say $500 and the voucher.

There is a great discusiion about this issue here. At first most were very sceptical when the thread started up, but as you read into pages 3-4 and on, you will see proof that it works like it's suppose to without having an exact fare code match. There were posters that had N fares and AA still approved the guarantee even though AA.com had an S fares, and others posted similar stories.

It was suppose to be reversed. You can't purchase an unrestricted $1000 fare on www.aa.com and request a fare match if the Expedia is a restricted fare for $500. :-D

and here is the link to the discussion:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=395567

The only exception to the above are &quot;unpublished&quot; fares, such as tour, special event, etc.etc. fares.

Thanks! Ill take a look at it.

I guess I stand corrected. Wasn't my understanding. Go for it.

Remember that they American prices does not include earphones and wine with dinner.

AAFrequentFlyer or anyone who has utilized the low fare guarantee from AA.com is there anything about buying the exact same trip (whether or not its the same restriction I do not know) from airfare.com that would make you believe that AA would claim it was not in accordance with the guarantee?

I just did a booking on airfare.com and nowhere does it show the fare code. If this is some kind of a special fare (tour, consolidator, etc.), in another words, an unpublished fare, then AA won't match it.

The only way I know of checking is by calling a live agent at Airfare and asking them what the fare code is. If it's a published fare then AA should match it and give you a voucher.

Here is a list of published fares:

First Class A, F, P 100% + 50% bonus
Business Class D, I, J 100% + 25% bonus
Full Fare Economy Class Y, B 100%
Discount Economy Class H, K, M, L, W, V 100%
Deep Discount Economy Class G, Q**, N, O**, S 100%

Good luck!

Thanks for your help. I attempted to get information about what kind of fare it was by calling airfare.com but they didn’t have/wouldn't give me the fare code. On the website it does say &quot;USD $897.5 + Taxes (Special Fare) For All Passengers&quot; so it may not work. However, it says nothing about a special fare on the actual purchase page.

Without knowing what the fare code is I can't tell you what will happen. This very well may bea consolidator fare. If AA checks, then you'll be out of luck.

You could take a screen shot of the final - before purchasing page on airfare.com, buy the tickets on aa.com and then apply the guarantee, but that's taking a chance.

Did you try pricing the trip on all the other major travel sites? Most if not all will show you the fare code before purchasing.

Good luck!

I tried a dummy booking on airfare.com and could not get to a screen with the detailed fare rules shown, only general &quot;no refund blah blah&quot; rules. Their final price is almost $100 less for the same itinerary as AA's. However, you have to buy the tickets before they'll tell you any more about them.

Since Orbitz and Expedia both return AA.com's price, it leads me to believe that airfare.com is a consolidator. I don't know if AA's price guarantee applies to consolidator deals; I'd bet not but I've been wrong before ;).

You'll probably be okay with consolidator tix. I wouldn't do it myself but only because those tickets usually don't offer mileage or similar benefits.

What dates are you using. I just tried aa.com with an open jaw as you need and in September and the final all in fare came back with $1806 for 2 tickets?

Consolidator fare will not work with the guarantee. It has to be a published fare.

A few points:

1. If you read the link on Flyertalk.com that AAFF links to, you'll find that the fares don't need to be in the same fare class to get the refund + $50.

2. I tried some dates in Sep for your itinerary. I found that $897 + tax/fees = $980.43 fare on airfare.com. [I also can't find the fare class, not that it really matters.]

3. I punched in the same dates (9/9-9/27) on aa.com, and found they cost $975. Which is basically the same price as airfare.com, minus a ~$5 fee.

9/12 - 9/26 is even better -

<b>2 Adult
820.00 USD
83.00 USD
1806.00 USD

Total Price 1806.00 USD </b> :-D

The following are the flight and dates we are most interested in.

STL to LHR flight 1763/86 2:45pm-6:35am

FCO to STL flight 111/1037 11:30am-6:58pm

For 2 tickets on Airfare.com the total price is $1986.3 on AA.com the total price is 2098.00.

Also if I book from AA.com and attempt to get the low fare guarantee should I book the two tickets in two separate transaction in the hope of 2 $50 vouchers?

dates would help....:-D

oops. We want to leave on Sept. 1 and return on Sept 20

Unfortunately, the fares quoted by me above on AA to Europe don't kick in until 9/10. The Labor Day weekend is very busy for AA especially to London and to top it off, you want to leave on Friday just before the weekend.

So, that leaves you with airfares.com. Basically you're betting $100 to win it back plus $100 in vouchers. BTW, you would get 2 vouchers if it worked regardless how the tickets were booked.

I do have a feeling, this is a consolidator fare as everybody else is showing fares about what AA and every other airline is showing, but who knows?

Good luck and let us know how it turns out, if you decide to gamble...

Also, remember that consolidator fares plus 2 published fares, Q and O don't earn any mileage if that's important to you with AA.

Good luck!

I assume you know the procedure for the &quot;guarantee&quot; but just in case...

You have to purchase the tickets on aa.com
submit the claim before midnight of the same day
make sure you take a screen shot of the airfares.com final screen before purchasing in case they want proof.

Good luck!

If you google airfare dot com you will see that it's regarded as a consolidator.

I just found this on their own site:

<i>Since 1979 we have been focusing on discount airline <b>consolidation</b>.</i>

and

<i>Wholesale and consolidator tickets are specially negotiated, deeply discounted tickets offered to travelers. We are able to offer these negotiated discount rates on behalf of our customers through our high sales volume.</i>

There is a slight chance that the &quot;guarantee&quot; person at AA may be too lazy to check, but OTOH, I believe they know who the consolidators are, so I would not count on this working.

I was interested in the information on this post, so I went to airfares.com.

Am I doing something wrong? The drop-down box for dates only had 2004 and 2005.

It's just got to be me...

No &quot;s&quot; - airfa<b>re</b> dot com.

Gotcha!

Seems to me the low fare guarantee is not worth it.