My favorite tool for finding flights is Kayak. Kayak will perform a search, with pretty specific parameters you give it regarding stopover airport, takeoff time, landing time, etc. I use it to find flights, and then I typically go to BigCrumbs and then onto Expedia to book the flight, that way I get $3.20 from BigCrumbs and Expedia Rewards points from Expedia, all in addition to the typical airline miles I’ll earn once I fly.
In any case, Kayak is only useful when it reports prices back that are true. I’ve noticed recently that the prices it has been reporting back have been less than factual. In other words, I’ll see a price, I’ll go to that site, and it won’t be available. I even try to use the link through Kayak, and it still doesn’t work.
My girlfriend and I are doing three nights at the St. Regis Punta Mita in December, and while I was fortunate to get two economy non-stop award tickets home to SFO (it’s a short flight – not worth the miles for first), we’ve gotta buy tickets down there. Every day I fire up Kayak to see what flight prices are doing, hoping to get a relatively good deal. A while ago, I thought I had one:
This flight looked pretty good. We would fly to Houston, could spend the night there at the airport Marriott, and then get to PVR early on Thursday morning. We would also earn quite a few miles. Ready to book, I clicked the Expedia link.
Um. Right. Like I’m going to pay nearly $1200 for a one-way economy ticket to Mexico. Grrr back to the drawing board.
A few days later, I found another good option. This one was being show by Vayama, rather than Expedia.
While I forgot to take a screenshot of this error message, it was quite similar to Expedia’s, telling me that this fare was no longer available.
While I only highlight a couple of these examples, this has been happening to me more and more! I’m not sure why this is becoming so common for me. I wonder if this is just a simple mistake by the booking companies like Expedia / Vayama or if it’s some type of dirty marketing. Perhaps they just want us to see low fares that pop up with their logo next to them, even if these fares aren’t available. Whatever the reason is, it has been happening to me about once a week.
Dear companies, please stop. OK Thx. Sincerely, Kevin.
