If there is one thing I think we can all agree on it’s that airlines employ shady pricing practices. A few months back I wrote about an issue with American and seat assignments. In that post I discuss how American deceptively shows certain customers seat maps in which some seats (preferred ones) appear unavailable. This shady seat assignment practice essentially up-sells paid seats to families so that they can seat near one another all under the guise that the rest of the plane is already full.
While I have a big issue with this shady seat assignment practice, I recently uncovered another shady pricing practice that I once again greatly disagree with. Sadly, the practice once again comes from my favorite airline; American. I’m guessing American isn’t the only airline doing this, but I just so happened to notice it when trying to book flights on American so I’ll pick on them for now.
Searching For Business Class Flights To Spain
One of the things I absolutely love to do is help others book flights. I love doing this because often I’m able to help them save money or find flights that were otherwise unavailable. That’s exactly what happened today when one of my eight bosses asked me for help booking flights.
The search was a little tougher than normal today because their travel dates were fixed and they didn’t have much flexibility when it came to origins and destinations. After my boss provided me with the details I immediately began searching for flights on my favorite tool, Google Flights.
I began the search by typing in the origin (Chicago), destination (Madrid), travel dates, and class of service (Business). After no time and all this is what I found.
For the dates my boss wanted to travel the drop-dead cheapest available round-trip ticket would cost $2,662 on Turkish Airlines. Now, my boss is smart, so she only flies with OneWorld carriers, so the price for that ticked would be a bit more as Turkish was out of the question. Instead, we decided on the below itinerary.
The above fare cost just over $3,600.
After deciding on the flights I clicked through to the American Airlines website to book. When I arrived at the booking page I found the flights and price exactly as I saw them on Google Flights (this is typical, as is the credit card pitch).
Great, smooth sailing from here, we were ready to book. But we weren’t because this is where we uncovered the shady pricing practice. See, across the hall my boss was doing her on search on American’s website and was only finding a MUCH higher price.
What Is American Up To Now?
Well of course when I’m trying to recreate this on my home computer I can’t replicate what was happening today at the office, but trust me this was 100% real.
In the other room my boss was searching for the exact same flights as I was on American’s website. With her search though, the price was coming up at over $4,000! That’s more than $300 more for the exact same flights. What’s more, the cheaper option of about $3,600 wasn’t showing up anywhere on American’s website.
I suspect any number of things is going on here. For starters my boss was using Internet Explorer on a work computer to search for the airfare. On top of that, she’s done this exact same search several times over the past few weeks and she’s most likely never cleared her cookies. I’m guessing some combination of those factors led American’s website to only show her higher priced fares.
Either way, I find it incredibly frustrating that American wouldn’t even show her that cheaper options were available. If she didn’t know any better she would have had to accept the higher fare and paid an extra $300+ dollars for the flights.
Final Thoughts
Airlines using your internet data against you is nothing new. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read articles explaining that you must clear your cookies when searching for airfare. However, I hate clearing out my cookies and browsing data each time I want to book a flight. For that reason, I always start my searches on Google Flights. I do this because Google Flights shows me what’s actually available. Also, once I find the flights I want I simply click-through to the airlines website and those flights and prices are selected and I’m ready to book. It’s incredibly simple.
One thing to note is that I’m not saying that Google Flights is always going to have the best price either. Often you’ll find less expensive flights on sites like Momondo, Expedia, or Orbitz. I just tend to avoid booking through Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) because I get 5X points on airfare booked with the airline from my American Express Platinum card.
In the end, Google Flights is an excellent tool to use to at least research flight options. I love it because I can search as much as I want and I don’t have to worry about the price changing because of my browsing history. When searching/booking directly with the airline I can’t say the same thing.
