Problems with Travelocity Fare Watcher?
 

Often I ignore the Fare Watcher emails, but anytime that I have tried to get the fare that is highlighted, I am never able to. Is that b/c I do it too late, or does it really never exist? Eg, I tried PIT-CDG on Lufthansa, which was listed for me; when I clicked on it, it said that there were no flights at all on the day that I had chosen. Is this just a ploy to get one to chose a more expensive fare? Thanks; I'd like to hear from someone for whom the Fare Watcher did work, and how they did it! Merci!

good question, I get the alerts myself and on the couple of occasions that I've actually looked into them, I couldn't get the promised fares either for the listed dates.
Maybe there's just one seat at that rate available?

My choices were never available at the time I wanted. Also I could never get it to stop farewatching a choice even though I followed the directions to delete. I finally bailed altogether.

I think the fare listed is for for immediate travel - not for all future dates.

I have used it once and was able to get the fare - but that was for that same weekend.

Something smells rotten here. I've had the same thing happen. Click on date after date and no luck. Waste of time so far.

I am on several fare watchers for various destinations. If you look at the post it says "retrieved at such and such a time". It may have timed out. Another thing I find is that when I go to the list for looking for the fare I may get a calendar with the dates that the fare is offered--not offered every day. I don't think anything is rotten at all. I have gotten good fares and been grateful for the reminder without having to check every day for myself.

just to clarify
with Travelocity fare watchers, when you sign up for one, you put in the dates you want to travel (departure and return dates) and the fare is supposed to be linked to those specified travel dates, as I understand it.

Well, mine was retrieved at 2:00a.m., but not sent to me until 11:43am, and soon after that I tried to get the fare. I'm glad that you find it to work smoothly, Gretchen, but it seems that most folks are having my experience. Hope springs eternal. . .

Actually, you don't put in dates. It simply looks for the best fare between two cities for any dates in the future. When you click on the fare, it is supposed to take to you a calendar telling you which days have that fare available.

I have used it with success, but I've also seen the same thing as grandmere:

You click and it takes you to a calendar. You click a date that it says is available, it thinks for a bit, and then tells you that XYZ airline does not service that route on that day, even though it just told you that not only did they service it, but at the low quoted fare.

It is also not uncommon to choose a date and have it sold out, but that's not a ploy. There's just limited availability.

I think travelocity has a glitch in their system when it comes up with those low fares and then tells you that no such flight exists. It does work sometimes. I've found it to work best on domestic routes, and I know I can generally trust it when it comes up with NWA flights because my local airport is detroit. Other than that, it's a crapshoot. Still, it takes a couple of minutes to click on the fare and see what happens as opposed to me searching daily. Not too bad, all in all.

Yesterday I got in and said my dates were flexible .. there was a wee tiny box. I think I had to put in March, 2005..

Sometimes when Travelocity says there is no availability for a certain price for certain dates, you can still get that price from the airline web site (or another web site).

I get my fare notices via Yahoo, but its linked somehow to Travelocity. I did not put in any dates, just stated I wanted to be informed when a fare fell to a certain rate.

A huge percentage of the time, I click on the date periods of the fare and it shows no seats availible or you get a departure date, but all the return dates are not availible.

Suzie - That's different from farewatcher. You can search on flexible dates on their web site, but if you set up a farewatcher it will email you anytime the price of your flight goes up or down by the amount you specify. You can't specify which dates it emails you about, though. You can, however, specify that the watch should expire at a certain time.

Travelocity - farewatcher... perhaps then that is what I have...

Interstingly, AirFrance's website was $5 cheaper for the same dates.

Travelocity (and the other big booking sites) adds a $5 booking fee to airplane tickets. It's a great place to search for fares, but unless they're offering an exclusive deal, you'll get a better price with the airline once you've used Travelocity or similar to determine which airline it is and which dates will get you the best price.

I use farewatcher and was going to say that I didn't think you could specify the dates to watch. Unfortunately, I think that would be great.

I've never tried to get a fare, just read about them sometimes, but am about to dismantle the feature as it is fairly worthless to me. First, I would like to know about fares changing by perhaps $100, but not $25, which is not that meaningful. Also, the fares I get are usually for winter sales right now, of course, when fares drop real low, but that's of no use to me if I want to go next spring/summer. YOu can't specify the time period, that's what bothers me and makes it not that useful.

I think it might be good if you just wanted a real low fare and didn't plan your vacations very much or care about timing.

My experience with Travelocity has been a nightmare. We booked travel for September to Greece with them and have had numerous problems--the major issue is each time there is a schedule change or another issue, you wind up talking to a rep in India who, while very polite, is clueless and unable to fix a problem. Just got an email today which said call immediately--I did, they knew nothing. I have spent hours on these tix--will never use Travelocity again.

I haven't read all the posts but it happens to me also. It is a nonspecific time for a fare reduction--e.g., the fare was reduced, click on the link and you will find out WHEN the reduced fare is available. It may or may not be for when you want to travel.

Christina, you can specify the time you want to search--"until October, etc", and you can specify notification for more than $25 in the "notify me when the fare drops _____" and you can specify. At least this is my recollection of my registering.

Gretchen, Christina's post and the OP were a fairly long time ago. I believe that Christina has mentioned in other threads since then that she has successfully booked tickets via travelocity.