Just looked up a flight to Milan in September. Vayama came up with a price for the same exact dates and flight numbers for AA as on AA's own site, but at over $100 cheaper! (Including taxes.) Does this make sense?

It is possible, but you have to wait to see if that fare is actually bookable or not.

If the fare is cheaper than the airlines price, it probably is NOT bookable at this time. Personally, I find Vayama a waste of my time. I wish it would go away.

every time I try to research a fare through vayama, it spends forever researching the fare. Once, I let it go half an hour, and it still hadn't come up with anything, the little counter was still spinning away at the bottom of the page. I have given up on them.

I had good luck with Vayama recently. SFO-JNB for $650 less than SAA's site. Clicked and it took. Checked with SAA and it is confirmed.

Well, the fare WAS bookable at this time! I am very surprised because I always found that it was cheaper just to go to the airlines itself. Most of them (airlines) even guarantee that their own site has the best price!

Just checked again - now it's $200 better on Vayama than on AA's own site. Yikes!

I checked my itin on Vayama, and it's $160 cheaper than on AA. The fare looks bookable - fare code N vs fare code S on AA. Can't decide if I want to try it or not.

These are unpublished fares that the airlines will release to certain consolidators. Depending on the airline, they may have further restrictions, despite the fare code being valid.

For example, I know that on Continental, consolidator fares are not upgradeable, even if they belong to a fairly high fare class and earn all the regular miles and EQMs.

But again, it depends on the airline. I don't know what AA's policy is.

On occasion www.aa.com still has problems pulling all the fare codes.

but, www.aa.com does offer the following:

<i>What is the AA.com Lowest Fare Guarantee?
A: If you make a qualifying airfare purchase on AA.com and then find a lower American Airlines fare for the exact same itinerary on another website with a difference of $5 or greater, American will refund the difference in fare and give you a $50 Promotion Code to be used toward a future flight purchase. The lower fare may not be available on AA.com, and the claim form must be submitted by midnight Central Time on the same calendar day that the ticket was purchased on AA.com. The itinerary must also originate in the domestic 50 United States and be on American, American Eagle and AmericanConnection flights only, with purchase through the AA.com website. For full details, please go to www.aa.com/guarantee</i>


so, if you're sure it is the exact same flights, all AA metal and originating in US, then you should go for it. Besides getting the fare mayched, you will receive a $50 e-voucher that can be used for future AA flights.

Just make sure you follow the directions as spelled out on the guarantee page.

Hi AAFF-

I did check the lowest price guarantee page on AA.com. What I'm not sure is:

In order to get the &quot;refund&quot; and the voucher, both tickets have to have the same fare rules. It doesn't say the same fare codes. So I'll have to read the fare rules word by word on both Vayama and AA to make sure they're the same. If they're not, then even if the flights are exactly the same, I doubt I can qualify for the lowest price guarantee.

That's what it seems like, but it has been reported by many that as long as the same class of service is bought, then the fare will be matched. As I said in my earlier post, www.aa.com has an occasional problem pulling all the available fares. It is getting better, but it still happens. I believe the &quot;fare match&quot; is done to iron out the problems. It gets the web services folk's attention and allows them to figure out why their site can't see the lower fare while other sites can.

Just make sure the fares are published fares, not some consolidator fare.

N and S are both published fares. It does not make a difference which one you bought on www.aa.com and which one you found somewhere else for less money. It should result in fare match and the $50 e-voucher.

More differences found, this time on Cheaptickets vs. Swiss, for JFK to Geneva: $796.00 at Swiss with Cheaptickets being $716.00 (again with all taxes and fees and same flights/days.)

Is Cheaptickets considered a consolidator? I didn't think so before this.

Cheaptickets is not a traditional consolidator, but they often have access to certain consolidator fares. So, some fares can be cheaper than what you can find on the airlines' own site. Same thing with vayama or 1800flyeurope.

All depends on the actual ticket being booked.

I just shop until I get lucky. In recent years, I've had the best luck with 1800flyeurope. But, another time I saved $200 over the Air France fares with Cheaptickets.

When i rechecked Vayama yesterday afternoon and again this am, that fare code N ticket on AA is gone.

Now they're offering Q fare for about $120 less. But of course I won't do it as I won't earn any miles for that, plus I think Q is nonupgradable.

<b>yk</b>,

it depends,

Q fare is not upgradable between US and Asia, South America and India but it is upgradable everywhere else. US, Canada, Central America, Caribbean and Bermuda.

The only time Q fare will not earn any miles is if it's a transatlantic flight. The fare will earn miles everywhere else.

Yes, AAFF. I guess I didn't say in my original post - the flights I'm looking at are BOS-CDG, BRU-BOS; so that's when the Q fares really suck.

I agree....

Right after the Q fare upgrade policy changed couple of years ago, I bought one to Buenos Aires. The EXP agent (apparently unaware of the change) was happy to apply my e-VIP to the outbound as it was available and put me on the waitlist for the return.

Couple days later I received a call from the tarif dept. The lady was very nice and informed me that Q fare was not upgradable. I played dumb and pretended I didn't know

She decided to allow me to keep my outbound upgrade since it already cleared but told me that since I have not cleared the inbound, I needed to upbuy to the next possible fare if I wanted to stay on the waitlist. It was ~$75 more. I took a chance and went with the higher fare and it ended up clearing few days before my return.

She also told me that a note has been put in my file that I was told about the new Q fare policy...

I've had great success with Lessno. Got a fare SEA/LHR direct flight on Northwest for $110 cheaper than any other site. Everything went smoothly and the ticket numbers show on NW website.