[Anonymous]

[MrMichael]

Have found some flights on ITA matrix for 4 people at 197 per pax. However when I get prices on travel sites such as Hipmunk, ebookers etc it come out at 253 per person. Popped in to Thomas Cook, they were useless and found me something for 350! Anyone any idea please?

[first_class_please]

Airline website?

[MrMichael]

Tried that, it comes out at 254.

[mkcol74]

Have you tried a screenscraper type site such as http://www.skyscanner.net/

[MrMichael]

mkcol74, I have tried that, still comes out at 254 per pax.

The search in ITA matrix is 4 X pax. LGW – BOJ dep 20/8/16 return 27/8/16. Both daytime flights via Prague with Travel Service.

Bottle of champers if anyone can find a site I can book it on.

LON to PRG (rules)
Passenger type ADT, one-way fare, booking code J
Covers LGW-PRG (Economy)
£7.00
Fare 2: Carrier QS JQS PRG to BOJ (rules)
Passenger type ADT, one-way fare, booking code J
Covers PRG-BOJ (Economy)
£6.73
Fare 3: Carrier QS JQS BOJ to PRG (rules)
Passenger type ADT, one-way fare, booking code J
Covers BOJ-PRG (Economy)
£6.55
Fare 4: Carrier QS JQS PRG to LON (rules)
Passenger type ADT, one-way fare, booking code J
Covers PRG-LGW (Economy)
£6.73
Czech Republic Embarkation Tax (CZ)
£11.40
QS YQ surcharge (YQ)
£123.20
United Kingdom Air Passengers Duty (GB)
£13.00
United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge (UB)
£12.66
Bulgaria Passenger Charge (BG)
£5.90
Bulgaria Security Charge (ZF)
£3.10
Subtotal per passenger
£196.26
Number of passengers
x4
Subtotal For 4 adults
£785.04
This ticket is non-refundable.
No changes may be made to this ticket after purchase.
Fare Construction (can be useful to travel agents)
LON QS X/PRG 10.72JQS QS BOJ 10.31JQS QS X/PRG 10.04JQS QS LON 10.31JQS NUC 41.38 END ROE 0.652504 XT 13.00GB 12.66UB 11.40CZ 5.90BG 3.10ZF 123.20YQ
Total Airfare & Taxes
£785.04
Email this itinerary

[mroo_ywg]

The flights are with an outfit called Smartwings . Interesting though, the fares quoted on ITA are 50% of what is quoted on the Smartwings site … I would say it is an error in the ITA site.

[TheRealBabushka]

Book it with the airline directly?

[Senator]

Hi, I am finding ITA Matrix less and less reliable. One issue is airlines with married segments like Swiss and Finnair where the deals it shows are phantom deals. It is a shame as it has saved me tons of money over the years.

[rferguson]

MrMichael this is the process I use when want to buy a ticket from a fare seen on ITA Matrix.

– Search for fare/itinerary on ITA
– Once I get the itinerary open a new window and go onto kayak.co.uk and enter EXACTLY the same info as you get from ITA using the parameters to select routing/via/airline etc.
– When Kayak returns a result at the same fare go to the redirect website and book.

[MrMichael]

Rferguson, thanks, but still no joy. Did exactly as you suggested and it came up at 253, I guess it must be an ITA Matrix error. Interestingly it did come up with a 230 option using Thomas Cook on the outbound and the same Travel Service/Smartwings flight on the inbound.

[Carajillo2Sugar]

MrMichael – based on current availability, the best I can see is £92 + taxes on the QS flight numbers.

Great fare but the problem is the taxes are £169.26 per person (most of which is comprised of a very hefty fuel surcharge).

1. QS 1097 J 20AUG LGWPRG HS4 1420 1710
2. QS 1184 W 20AUG PRGBOJ HS4 1830 2135
3. QS 1181 W 27AUG BOJPRG HS4 0910 1025
4. QS 1096 J 27AUG PRGLGW HS4 1230 1335

PSGR QUOTE BASIS FARE TAXES TOTAL
FQG 1 JQS+ GBP 92.00 169.26 261.26

If it were available, the lowest applicable price would be GBP196.26 inc.taxes so maybe ITA is seeing a bit of ‘ghost’ availability?

Edited to add: That said, for a round-trip of almost 3000 miles, the £261.26 price is very reasonable.

[conshaldow]

I’ve had a quick look but finding exact same availability as C2S.

I also think the ghost availability theory is in play here also.

So many times you can check websites such as skyscanner etc and the website they are getting the fares from have not been updated and don’t show live costings/availability. A really pain in the &*#* if I do say so myself.

[FaroFlyer]

I had a similar experience with ITA earlier this year. Normally I do exactly as rferguson does, and usually it works.

Earlier in the year I saw an excellent CX Business class fare on ITA from LIS>HKG. I tried many websites, including CX, then remembered what we used to do 10 years ago, and I telephoned a travel agent. I gave them the exact ITA routing, dates and class and, Hey presto, the agent booked it.

I had to pay a travel agent fee and credit card surcharge, but it was worth it.

[Author]

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