Same Flights, Different Prices.

Booking flight online is easy, much easier than going through traditional travel agency. I used to call my travel agency to book flights. It turned out that for a couple times, I could give the agency hints or specific options that I found online with specific lower prices than they suggested for me. Pretty soon, I changed my shopping behavior to be in favor of online travel booking, rather than embarrassing traditional travel agency with better flights deals that I know of from the Web. That was around year 2004 and 2005.

Travel search is a big sector, too big of sales amount so it has to be excluded from e-commerce statistics for people who closely monitor 'traditional' e-commerce market. Flight booking, hotel reservation, vacation packages, etc., are aspects of online travel market. Getting bigger and bigger, and trickier.

Take flight as an example, assuming going from point A to point B, leaving on date one and come back on another date, I tried to pick a specific airline to compare prices. Unlike I compare prices of tangible goods online, travel package comparison is a bit different, but at least I figured to 'fix' all variables to focus on one round-trip flight to see if the prices are the same, or different, offered from the SAME airline but sold through different online travel sites.

The short answer is no. I didn't get the same price for the same flight booking of the same airline, same route. Prices differ from one online travel site to another (See the quotes extracted from my shopping basket below). One site would charge me for $1,477, another for $1,973. What gives?

You have to believe and know to try a couple more places for your flight tickets. The difference may be as big as $500 bulks as demonstrated here. Go to the right place to do your smart shopping decision.

Allow me to make 2 simple recommendations, try Keeca Travel and TravelLocation.

		United Airlines Flight # 831 Departure: San Francisco, San Francisco International Airport, USA 2006/12/01 1229 Arrival: Taipei, Chiang Kai Shek, Taiwan 2006/12/02 2110 United Airlines Flight # 830 Departure: Taipei, Chiang Kai Shek, Taiwan 2007/01/01 1010 Arrival: San Francisco, San Francisco International Airport, USA 2007/01/01 0806 All prices displayed in USD Adult 1 x 1235.00 Taxes 1 x 242.01 TOTAL 1477.01

San Francisco, CA (SFO) to Taipei, Taiwan (TPE) Friday, Dec 1 Flight info Dates Misc Fares United Airlines 831 Boeing 777 Dec 01 12:29 pm depart SFO Dec 02 9:10 pm arrive TPE stops: 1 Class: Coach Fare Basis Code: BLEX Booking Class: B Fare Rules Delete Taipei, Taiwan (TPE) to San Francisco, CA (SFO) Monday, Jan 1 Flight info Dates Misc Fares United Airlines 830 Boeing 777 Jan 01 10:10 am depart TPE Jan 01 8:06 am arrive SFO stops: 1 Class: Coach Fare Basis Code: BLEX Booking Class: B Fare Rules Delete Total Airfare (including taxes and charges): USD 1973.01 Penalty: Penalties may apply. Please see fare rules.