ITA Matrix searching

[Fruitcake]

I'm trying to search for flights between SYD - RAR - SYD and I cannot restrict the search to Virgin Australia (VA). Only the air New Zealand flights comes up. How do I get both airlines operating the route or just Virgin

The simplest way to get both is to use an asterisk (*) - ie 'zero or more flights' - as the advanced routing code for both outbound and inbound flights. Or specify 'VA+' (ie one or more flights on VA) if you just want VA marketed flights.

 

[Temporiser]

Thanks Fruitcake works well

 

[cfellows]

Any advise on how to book a result that matrix returns?

I'm trying to get an interesting fare out of the US back to Perth to save on baggage allowance. Flying AA in the first leg will give me two checked bags for free, but I would like to credit the rest of the flying to United(or any *A) for points towards *A gold. There is a fare I can see on matrix that starts with AA and then the rest of the fares are UA out of the US and QF into Perth.

Route is something like MAF-IAH/DFW - LAX - SYD/MEL - PER not picky on the route really, but price wise this is probably the cheapest I've seen.

How can these be booked without a travel agent? I can't see the fare on expedia or skyscanner and of course the united website doesn't list flights starting with rival carriers.

 

[Danger]

I'm not aware of another way other than a travel agent.

Be aware on the baggage allowance side, however. Technically, according to the most significant carrier rules, the baggage allowance for the carrier from LAX-SYD/MEL should apply to the whole journey. However, you may get lucky if you don't have to claim your bags in LAX (ie. if you're flying from MAF through to Australia without overnighting).

 

[cfellows]

Thanks I thought so

i did recently a similar flight with AA to ORD and then CX on the rest. But since this was entirely OW it may have been easier plus it was'not LAX which seems to have its own rules...

 

[Moopere]

How can these be booked without a travel agent? I can't see the fare on expedia or skyscanner and of course the united website doesn't list flights starting with rival carriers.

Mmm. The easiest thing would be to take copies of the matrix output to an agent and have them book it - however, I'm a bit concerned that you can't see the fare on places like expedia. Can you see the individual sectors at least on expedia? If you can't then I'm hazzard a guess that the fare exists (pricing wise) but that there is no availability for some reason ... this happens occasionally. If you have experflyer or similar access I'd look for bucket availability on the sectors first ... if there is some then you should almost certainly be able to book.

 

[A330]

How can these be booked without a travel agent? I can't see the fare on expedia or skyscanner and of course the united website doesn't list flights starting with rival carriers.

You can try using Hipmunk.com to search for the fare, as it allows the use of routing rules to force it to search for exactly what you want. e.g. MAF-IAH on AA then IAH-SFO on UA etc.
Have a read of Using Hipmunk to maximize mileage run bookings | Wandering Aramean to get an idea.

 

[cfellows]

Thank you everybody for the replies, I can see the fare appearing on expedia now so maybe just a bit of lag before, or perhaps it has now extra seats opened up

 

[PLANT]

I used ITA to find my flights in America and went to airline website to book direct. Is this the cheapest option?
I found the UA charged me $20 due to automatically converting to AU$.... Should II have checked the flight on Expedia for price to pay in US$?

 

[Moopere]

I used ITA to find my flights in America and went to airline website to book direct. Is this the cheapest option?
I found the UA charged me $20 due to automatically converting to AU$.... Should II have checked the flight on Expedia for price to pay in US$?

Depends - what was the 20$ charge for? Was it a surcharge for foreign currency? CC surcharge? Normal forex conversion? I will sometimes use an aggregator to avoid CC surcharges or pay using Amex if an airline won't accept Amex directly .. otherwise I tend towards using an airlines site directly and don't normally hit any weird fees for doing so.

 

[PLANT]

Which aggregator but if you do a dummy booking on UA.com.au it will be $20 more than UA.com.....

 

[serfty]

Which aggregator but if you do a dummy booking on UA.com.au it will be $20 more than UA.com.....

Well then , use UA.com ...

FWIW, I rarely find .AU airline Web site bookings cheaper than their US counterparts, even with 3% forex fees.

 

[PLANT]

As stated before I was not able to PAY via UA.com because it automatically deverted me to UA.com.au when I entered my Australian credit card, address and FF number.
Can you do a dummy booking to confirm?
I could se no way around booking without using UA.com.au...I rang them but they just confirmed you cannot pay via AU CC on UA.com

 

[cfellows]

I rang them but they just confirmed you cannot pay via AU CC on UA.com

Lies!

I have made several bookings with UA.com recently using an Australian CC. They COULD be diverting you because it checks your IP to see it is an AU one. All my bookings were made whilst I was in the USA. Unfortunately each time the booking doesn't go through, because it cannot authorise the AU CC correctly on the website. Each time I was required to call the UA ticketing office to have the tickets put through correctly, also each time even the phone girls had issues with the AU CC and had to go get managers to have it processed correctly.
But long story short, yes you can make bookings on UA.com with AU CC, but you might need to call the US phone bookings site to have it confirmed. Perhaps also they have a rule similar to the way Jetstar and i think SIA do their bookings where you are charged the currency of country the flight originates from. So when they see you are starting the flight from AU it diverts you to the .au site??

 

[PLANT]

Flight was from OMAHA to to Miami!
Complaint via phone and completed complaint form!
This aint over!!!!!

 

[Moopere]

Which aggregator but if you do a dummy booking on UA.com.au it will be $20 more than UA.com.....

Oh, I see - yes I have very occasionally hit this as well, with QF as I recall, bookings made on .au where more expensive than the same bookings made on .sg - expedia or travelocity or somesuch can sometimes get you past such foolishness and as I mentioned earlier will also often accept Amex and no surcharge either.

 

[Danger]

I've found a fare on the matrix that I want to book but I can't replicate it on AA.

Can anyone recommend a TA to do the job?

 

[albatross710]

are you looking for a TA in Perth or anywhere?

I can send you a TA rerferal that has done some ITA fares for me based on the email format that ITA website provide.

Pm me

 

[raleyoz]

I've found a fare on the matrix that I want to book but I can't replicate it on AA.

Can anyone recommend a TA to do the job?

Call AA and provide them the fare reference number, they then can locate it and book it. It does appear they can have difficulty locating special fares without this

 

[Danger]

Call AA and provide them the fare reference number, they then can locate it and book it. It does appear they can have difficulty locating special fares without this

What is the fare reference number? Is that the six character fare basis (that in my case is different inbound to the outbound)?