travelocity trick
 

I get different results with the Fare Watcher than I do with the search. I've seen this before several months (years?) ago.

For example, I am checking fares from LAX to BKK. On the travelocity homepage I see the Fare Watcher fare of $484+ When I click on through it shows that United offers that fare. Below that one, it shows 7 more fares. EVA for 565+, EVA for 567+, United for 574+, China Airlines for $607+, followed by two more EVA fares 613+ and 620+ and one United fare of $624+. The list shows results for Today thru August.

When I do a query by Flexible Date, April thru August, I don't see any of the United fares listed, just the EVA and China Airlines fares listed above along with three more EVA and China Air fares.

Point is that the Flexible Date search did not list the same thing as the Fare Watcher. And the lowest fare was not the same: Flexible Date had 565+ but Fare Watcher showed 484+

Same thing with LAX-NRT. Flexible Date search for April thru August shows the lowest fare as $486+ on American. But, Fare Watcher shows four United fare between $354+ and $484+

Not all the fares that fare watcher gives are necessarily available to book at the time you check (that is, they are sold out).

My farewatcher always says that the fares they are reporting were harvested at 2am (they don't say which time zone), but I usually get the email sometime during the day (the last was an hour ago), so there is a lot of time for the no doubt few tickets at the lowest price to be sold out before I even get the email.

And since no one is paying for the fare watcher service, I wouldn't expect them to put the resources into it necessary to run the searches constantly.

The travelocity farewatcher shows the prices on their homepage based on my preferences. I click on the fare and then click "search for availability" and it lists those fares. Am able to select dates and flights, but then the price shown $1800 or more is nowhere near the farewatcher price. That farewatcher looks useless.