I found some good fares on EF just 15 minutes ago for travel from SCL to both LAX and DFW in the next weeks, and they are substantially lower than what shows on AA.com. I called the EXP desk and she gave me the same fares on aa.com, even though I told her that I have the fare basis codes. What can I do to book these fares? They are valid for my trip - dates, routing, min/max stay, etc. Just noted that the same fares do not appear on ITA, but I don't know how trustworthy that is anymore... Thanks!
I saw the response on TOBB and there is one thing which when I last looked was not at all addressed there ITA shows all available fares for a particular route but some fares are dependent on where they are purchased. For example sometime ago I was searching for a fare on Alitalia MAP/PMO return to LIN. Although ITA priced the fare at about $200 when I went to the AZ site the exact same dates and flights came up to more than $400.00. A little experiment by logging into the Italian and Spanish AZ sites came up with the same ITA fares. BUT I couldn't even use a US credit card to pay for it on the Italian site. Found out later it was not possible to get that fare by purchasing in the US ( and a few other listed countries) Had a friend in the UK purchase the tickets.
The other bulletin board. A site founded by Randy but sold off to a nameless faceless corporation. Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk
Anyone care to share the reason from the TOBB or was it only the purchase issue? I'd rather not provide the faceless corporation with my eyeballs
Basically, EF shows every fare that is or was published, so some of the fares may no longer be available... Also, keep in mind EF does a sweep of AA to see what's available. It may be you found a fare that has sold out, but EF has not seen the change yet. Even AA.com gets an update of the back office system on some schedule. But when you go to buy, it submits the request that may or may not get approved. It seems many are expecting a single, master database with everyone looking at the same instance. Unfortunately that would be a very slow system and expose the system to disastrous hacking. What we see via AA.com is a copy of what is in the back office where the CSRs may be connected. Where EF is getting its data could be a special feed from that back office system or AA.com, in which case is just that much more out of date. So how do you know if the person/service you are working with is the most current? You don't. Just like asking questions of a CSR, if you believe you are not getting the correct answer, HUCA. The same works for online systems, try again a few minutes later. Maybe you'll be looking at newer data. It's too bad they don't reveal when the data was last refreshed.
