Hello! My hubby and I booked flights yesterday thru Expedia for our October trip. We are flying from Chicago to Florence, then home from Rome to Chicago. We booked them for $953 for both of us! We have the confirmations, etc, but are in disbelief with the price for both of us to fly there and back for $1000. Is this really possible????
Thanks for any input you might have! We are thrilled if this is all legit!
You have probably booked a basic fare. You will need to pay extra to check luggage and get an advance seat assignment.
What are the airlines? You can call them to get their confirmation numbers.
That’s an excellent fare.
That is an excellent fare. I agree with Wendy that you have probably booked a basic economy fare.
Be aware that the major downside of booking with Expedia is that you generally need to deal with Expedia if you experience any kind of schedule change or irregular operations (major delays/cancellations/etc.), which can be a frustrating experience, and there can be extra fees charged by the agency (i.e. Expedia) if you need to make changes to your ticket. If you call the airline they will generally punt you back to Expedia because they are the channel you bought the ticket through.
Otherwise, though, assuming everything goes according to plan, and you are aware of any limitations on the tickets have bought (most likely paid seat selection and paid checked luggage), then you're good to go!
ITA Matrix is showing lots of flight combinations on United/Swiss, Chicago to Florence (plane change in Zurich) and Rome back to Chicago, for $412 per person in Economy in October. So it is legitimate; just make sure you understand the restrictions on the fare.
Is this a "Franken-ticket", separate tickets stitched together from separate parts on different airlines? If so, be very aware of your connection times - find out what happens if one flight is late, and you miss your connection.
Each airline has its own nomenclature and rules governing its fare classes. Here are some caveats that may apply regarding “basic economy” or whatever it’s called. No changes are allowed, not even with a fee. No seat choice is permitted. You are assigned a seat at the airport. The implication is that you will likely get a middle seat (imo, hell in the sky for transatlantic travel) and are not guaranteed a seat with your travel mate(s). No checked baggage is permitted, not even for a fee.
I recently got a view of the implications when a friend, due to miscommunication with future house guest, needed to change a basic economy flight. She simply lost the cost of the ticket. Way more than the difference between basic and regular economy. I hope things work out for you.
Why second guess?
My wife and I flew round trip to
Paris in Sept for 450 this fall
Zurich in March for 500 this spring
etc.
But we keep looking for good deals. You found one.
If you bought through Expedia, it is legitimate. No worries.
I wish you had not bought through a third-party but instead through the airlines directly for the reasons others have explained above regarding delays and cancellations of flights which can certainly happen. Verify Expedia has a 24 hour customer service office you can contact overseas if need be.
With basic economy, the overhead compartments are not available to you so you need to pack so tightly, your bag fits under the seat in front of you. Of course, there goes any legroom you might need.
You may have gotten economy seats and not necessarily basic economy. Read the ticket information from your confirmation to see precisely which you have.
What is the exact itinerary (and which airlines) from Chicago to Florence and from Rome to Chicago?
Thank you everyone for your input! We did try to utilize advice and sites that I read about on here, but had trouble with Kayak and being directed to a place starting with a "Y" for booking. It made us nervous so we Googled it and stopped with that. I did initially use Google flights to narrow things down, found some flights, then booking options were given.
From ORD to FLR is Lufthansa and could be booked through United....so I went to United site, but couldn't book the return flight. The separate flight thru United was not the price given on Google or Expedia. My hubby and I spent probably 3 solid hours, both of us searching, Googling, etc, to try and make some sense out of it. You have probably figured out we have not booked international flights before.
After looking on Priceline, Kayak, Expedia, we ended up with the flights we have: Lufthansa, ORD to Munich to FLR. Home is Swiss Air FCO thru Zurich to ORD.
We did do an online chat with Expedia afterwards because we were skeptical of the prices and if the itinerary was correct and included us both. It does. The Expedia guy gave us contact info for the airlines for us to contact if we want to try and get seat assignments.
To one comment above, I DID see listings of supposed flights where the connecting flight left before arrival to the airport! That really was concerning and made us suspicious of the whole thing.
I have a couple more hours in which I can cancel the whole thing......from everything above I think we are willing to take the risk for what we consider to be at least half of what we expected to pay.
Any more thoughts? Thank you all so much!
Congratulations on your scoring a cheap airfare. You might want to go ahead and figure out all the terms and conditions. Hopefully you can also find decent accommodations for a fair price.
My wife's hobby is finding budget travel, and it allows us to go twice as often as we usually would. For her, that's 3x this year.
Berlin is the last major European city we've not visited, and we've booked tickets for a little less than you on British Airways non-stop from Nashville to LHR--with easy connections to Berlin.
And as you can tell from the above comments, be careful on who you book flights on. And as they're now saying, "Remember Thomas Cook."
I prefer to book directly with the airlines, but 2 years ago I booked through Expedia. Delta had a great sale on their flights to Europe, but they had raised the price by the time that I found out about it(from a poster on this site). Expedia still showed the sale prices, so I booked through them. The price for Sept., was $444.00 for Minneapolis to Berlin, and from Bucharest to Minneapolis! It was not basic economy, and I was able to go on Delta's site and select our seats. I know of the problems that can arise from not booking directly through the airlines, but for that price I was willing to risk it. Fortunately, I didn't have any problems with the flights.
If you are not super tall or anxious (i.e., needing a seat assignment) and especially if you do carry-on anyway, basic fares are no biggie.
Be sure to download all the apps onto your phone so you can easily organize all your boarding passes and such.
Thank you, all. We are keeping the flights and will pursue seat assignments, etc. Since we are proceeding I will be posting for other help with accommodations, etc, as we go along!
I have taken many economy flights booked with Expedia and Travelocity, and have absolutely never heard of, or experienced, that "the overhead compartment is not available to you."
What???
Simply not true.
Do you think that those harried and busy flight attendants on board have the first clue who you booked with, never mind the other 300 people boarding?!
What is true is that it's difficult to pre book a seat in advance.
You'll have to wait till 24 hours pre flight to do that online.
I think you got great prices, and shouldn't worry.
Have you bought travel cancellation and trip interruption insurance?
That might give you more peace of mind.
Also: keep checking the status of your flights every few weeks from now on, and more frequently from September.
Have a great trip, and remember that a less then comfy flight is only one nights bad sleep....then you are on holiday!
My sister was able to get a ticket for half price ($400 instead of $800) by booking it with Expedia instead of Delta. It worked out fine. She got the Expedia and Delta booking code (often called PNR - the six character code for the booking), and with these she was able to select seats and book special meals.
Do check the restrictions on your particular ticket type. They are all different these days. Whether or not you have to pay for seat selection, how many bags you can carry on (and what size and weight), how many bags you can check for free, how much additional checked bags cost - all of these things have MUCH more variation than they did in the past.
To the poster above, there are domestic tickets within the US on some airlines that do indeed prohibit you from using the overhead bins (personal item under the seat is OK, or you can pay to check other bags). Enforcement is, of course another matter, but since these passengers also board last in their own special group, it's easy for gate agents to make sure you don't have anything too large to fit under your seat.
However, I'm not sure if the "basic economy" tickets on international flights have that particular baggage restriction.
We've done the Lufthansa and Swiss connections at Munich and Zurich many times and they are among the easiest connections. Twice they even held the US flight when our incoming Italian flight was weather delayed. You will probably see there's a weight restriction for your carry-on with a basic ticket. A couple of times (only) we have seen them stop people at the gate for that and make them check the bag - but they didn't have to pay at the gate. Apparently it's most likely to happen for folks using a wheeled carry-on.
