December 21, 2017   Air France , Delta , England , flight review , France , How we did it , London , Paris , Travel , travel tips , USA , 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.

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.

$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.

Same itinerary as Google Flights

You can’t book through the ITA Matrix, but you can sometimes use the data on BookWithMatrix.com.

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.

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!