Huge price difference - US vs AU sites

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kpro

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I'm seeing a big price difference when trying to book a domestic F flight on American between the AU and US sites.

For example, searching for a New York to Washington DC round trip brings up outbound flights at $293US, or $602.70AU. Even given the current exchange rates, that's more then $200AU difference!
EDIT - It's even greater then a initially thought. The US site is pricing $293US as the round trip, but the AU Site has $602.70AU as the one-way price. Making the round trip $1200AU, or more then $800AU difference.

Australian site - https://postimg.org/image/vhutl6lx3/
USA site - https://postimg.org/image/mwod6ktcd/

Now I can see the AU website only wants to offer me instant upgrade or flexible F fares, so I assume this is why there's a price difference. I can't seem to find a way to price the cheaper F fare though. Attempting to book using the US site does not work either, as it requires me to use a US credit card. Specifying an Australian card kicks me back out to the country selection. I don't recall ever having this issue previously, so maybe it's something new. Anyone have any thoughts, or have I missed something obvious here?
 
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Have you got access to a VPN? I've always used that to book AA in the US and used an Australian cc but haven't done that in the last few months so maybe it's changed
 
Don't quite see how a VPN would help here. I can access the US site just fine, just that the payment screen only seems to let you go ahead if you have a US credit card. Here's what happens when attempting to update the billing country to Australia.

https://postimg.org/image/n99wz2xhv/
 
Don't upgrade the billing country. Just put your address as El Segundo (search for it on AFF).

I used this trick several times for my travel in Oct 2016 and didn't have any issues whatsoever.
 
Either do what Hvr says, personally I use a US based family members address. The other think is a good TA here will be able to get you the US price (and can even beat the AA . com price occasionally) and you get to pay in AUD with no FX fees.

PM me if you want the email of a TA that several AFFers use.
 
I ran into the problem of the country changing due to credit card a few months ago, easily fixed by simply holding the flights then paying after you receive the held flights email. Refer to this thread:

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....oking-on-aa-us-website-77369.html#post1486488

On several recent bookings for the AU vs US website I found no difference in pricing, I checked both Aa.com and American Airlines.com.au and used a VPN, no difference in cost for simple flights in economy. What I did find was significant savings by booking individual legs for 4 flights, eg. AUD 591 for seperate flights vs AUD 892 for multi city.

Edit: Added link
 
Prices can and do vary - it is always worth checking.

Two weeks ago I booked a fare for US$88 where the Australian portal was asking AU$224 for the same seat.

In recent months I have found myself being redirected to the Australia (Amadeus) sites despite having selected a different country.

I get around that by using "Private Browsing" and El Segundo for smaller bookings.

I use a TA for larger bookings.

This TA can save significant +++ with AA bookings by issuing tickets "in conjunction" with my international travel tickets to/from the USA. They do charge a small fee but that cost is more than offset by the savings on larger routings.
 
I book on the AA US website by entering my Australian address details and by adding a 0 as my first number of postcode - just so happens to be a valid US zip code.
 
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I booked return AA flights after #1 son found me a satisfactory status run LAS-DCA-LAX using the link in the ITAMatrix website to the priceline.com website. They happily took my AU cc and address, and I logged into AAdvantage and selected seats etc. All good.

The only challenge I found was trying to print a new e-ticket after AA changed my flights to go via PHX instead of DFW. I found a link on FT which takes you to the print eticket page (a page that's not linked from the AA website).
 
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I was looking for Delta Comfort+ BUF-LAX flights a while back and googleflights found me a great deal, but without naming site. Looked on priceline and that had the deal. However when clicked through the cheap deal became unavailable. Assumed it was just a 'bait and switch' but now wondering whether being on an Australian computer was the problem-any insights?
 
AV8 said:
I book on the AA US website by entering my Australian address details and by adding a 0 as my first number of postcode - just so happens to be a valid US zip code.
Click to expand...

I don't recall having to do that last year but my memory could be faulty.

If I did, I probably would have used 90210 :cool:
 
Always booked through the US site, with Australian address and CC

I also clean my browser cache between queries just in case
 
Hvr said:
Don't upgrade the billing country. Just put your address as El Segundo (search for it on AFF).

I used this trick several times for my travel in Oct 2016 and didn't have any issues whatsoever.
Click to expand...


Thanks - Using "El Segundo" as the city worked! Interestingly enough, using that as a search term brings up several previous similar threads. Wouldn't have been able to know what to search for without the prompt.
 
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I understand the concept of El Segundo but am intrigued as to why that particular suburb (sorry if I'm being dense)
 
andye said:
I understand the concept of El Segundo but am intrigued as to why that particular suburb (sorry if I'm being dense)
Click to expand...
stoneman said:
I've often wondered that too!
Click to expand...
It's a place near LAX ... From where many start their KUPPY/YUPPY MR's ...

... also (for some) easier to remember as that was the racing name given to a rather successful thoroughbred horse.
 
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