December 21, 2017
Air France
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Delta
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England
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flight review
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France
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How we did it
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London
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Paris
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Travel
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travel tips
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USA
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Virgin
We saved $50 with codeshares. You can, too.
We were planning an international trip and searched for flight options. I encountered a frustrating problem, but ultimately a few extra ...
We were planning an international trip and searched for flight options. I encountered a frustrating problem, but ultimately a few extra steps saved me $50 per ticket and even more in other cases.
We were looking to travel from New York to either London or Paris and then back from the opposite city. I started the search on Google Flights and found it was cheaper to go to London first then on to Paris.
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Google Flights - $485 on Delta |
For the purposes of this example, I picked two random dates to showcase. Google Flights shows the trip could cost $435 around the Easter holiday, but after selecting the flights at this price it appears only available by calling Virgin Atlantic, which tacks on a surcharge for booking on the phone. Google then offers a click through to Delta for $485.
Instead I went to ITA Matrix, also a Google-owned platform, and inputed my same search parameters. It came back with many more flight options than Google Flights, including some departing from JFK instead of EWR.
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$435 flights from EWR and JFK on ITA Matrix |
I selected the EWR option to keep things consistent. Notice for the return the same flight is listed as a Delta codeshare and not Air France as appeared on Google Flights.
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Same itinerary as Google Flights |
You can’t book through the ITA Matrix, but you can sometimes use the data on
BookWithMatrix.com.
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Book with Matrix searching with ITA Matrix data |
It then sees the Delta codeshare and gives you the option to buy directly through Delta even though Delta doesn’t operate a single flight in this itinerary.
The end result…$434.46, $50 cheaper than Google Flights linked to for the same exact flights.
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Same flights on Delta.com, but $50 cheaper |
I find this works better with international travel than domestic since there are fewer domestic codesharing itineraries. I also found it works better with SkyTeam flights than with Oneworld. Good luck!