Using Search Engines to buying from airlines

If you are seeing multiple airlines listed for the same flight, its one of two things. Either the flight is actually two or more connecting flights, involving more than 1 airline, or the flight is a code share amongst airline alliance partners. In other words, the flight is offered by more than one airline but is actually flown only by one of them (on Google flights, you will usually see "operated by....).

And for whatever reason, the prices for the same seat category may be different for each airline. Given dynamic pricing algorithms, which can mean prices fluctuating hourly or even more often, it's not surprising you haven't seen identical prices on the airline website.

On code shares, I will check out the prices on each site to see if there's a significant price difference. But all things being (relatively) equal, I will usually book with the airline actually operating the flight. Makes it easier if you have to deal with any difficulties.

In the case of a flight with multiple carriers, you may need to go to the European based carrier to see that price.

For example, Delta is affiliated with Air France, if you see an itinerary that uses both, check both Delta and Air France. If you book on Air France, there is a good chance at least one flight will be on Delta metal. Same if you are booking Delta to a smaller city in Europe, the last leg(s) will be on Air France (or KLM).

Generally you should be able to find the flight and a comparable price by matching flight info. There were at one time consolidators that would reserve blocks of tickets at a discount, and sell at an attractive price, but I have not used one of those in ages. They were handy if you needed to mix airlines, we once flew KLM over to Amsterdam and American Airlines back from Manchester, at a deep discount over either carrier.

The first thing to remember is that the price you see initially is almost always the basic economy price. On Google Flights there's no way to see the standard economy price, so you'll need to go to the airline's site. Expedia exposes the standard economy and refundable prices when you open the details.

Multiple airlines sometimes indicates that the itinerary is the result of an interline agreement between airlines, which is less formal than a codeshare. You won't see those on an airline site - you would need to use either an online [Expedia] or physical travel agent to write those tickets.

Many of the cheap prices you see on Google Flights are from entities that will pay Google if you click on their link - some may be legit, others may not.

matrix.itasoftware.com is a more detailed way to search for airfares. It allows
you to specify a lot of parameters (e.g, # of stops, airline alliance, class of service,
where you do/don't want to connect) that can help limit your search. It also allows
you to show fares by airline, which can reduce the # of outputs you get all at once
and try to make some sense of it all.

Having said that, I believe it still uses the Google flight fare engine, so caveat emptor.
I have seen, for instance, that it sometime has trouble differentiating between premium
economy and business class.

You cannot buy tickets through this interface (which may be an advantage), but you can
see detailed fare classes which some of the more consumer-oriented sites may not
display.

So I was able to trace a fare from Google Flights directly to the airlines website, and even matched flight numbers and times. Expedia, on the other hand was about $50 cheaper, and although I could match times, flight numbers did not match.

Google Flights gives you the direct airline links for the flights it finds. Don't understand the problem.

I would believe schedule and pricing on the airline’s site.

I think that you're rapidly approaching the point at which you need to provide
specifics if you are really looking for additional assistance. One particular
search does not imply a precedent, but it may help others figure out if you
have a valid concern vs a cockpit error.

I appreciate all the responses, but to clarify. I've been flying seriously for about 15 years, with 5 trips to Europe so far, twice yearly to Mexico, throughout Canada and the US. I live in British Columbia, Canada in a small community, with the nearest airport Kelowna, BC or Spokane, Washington. (both about 4 hour drives away). Whenever I would start looking at flights, I would hit Expedia, kayak, momondo, itamatrix or whatever flavour of the day search engine is popular. Rarely would I find any direct flight, so multiple airlines were the norm for me. I would find some decent price on Expedia, for example, and go to the airline noted. The price on Expedia would always be less, sometimes substanially. A recent example was flying from Kelowna to Los Cabos last month (Nov 23). Expedia was $150 cheaper than West jet for the exact same flight, so I went with them. I would have liked to book directly with Westjet, but money won out. The other searches would direct me to different booking sites (kiwi, booking.com) and I never felt comfortable with them. Note that most of my experience were pre-Covid, so maybe that had something to do with it. I've since started using Google Flights and the results are in line with airline site. (However, in my limited testing, Expedia was still coming out cheaper)

I've been following this forum for all this time, and kept seeing comments about using the search engines and then booking with airlines. I've never understood how this works and in my experience, the airline sites were always more. I thought I was missing something, hence the reason for my posting. I gather from the comments here that my experiences are unique.

in my not-extensive experience, the price difference usually turns out to be that the cheaper quoted price didn't include taxes & fees or something like that. In the example you gave
"A recent example was flying from Kelowna to Los Cabos last month (Nov 23). Expedia was $150 cheaper than West jet for the exact same flight, so I went with them. I would have liked to book directly with Westjet, but money won out."
I would have been curious to contact West jet and say that you would prefer to book with them directly but that Expedia offers the same flight for $150 less, can they explain and help you. I realize that it is probably too late now for that trip but in the future it might be helpful to you and the rest of us to hear what the airline says for future reference.

Highlighting and seconding a portion of markcw's reply above:

"Multiple airlines sometimes indicates that the itinerary is the result of an interline agreement...."

I'm surprised this isn't more commonly known. For instance, Expedia will combine one leg on American with a leg on United. and sell that combination as one ticket. That combination would never appear on either the American or United website, but is a completely valid ticket, often significantly cheaper than anything available on airline websites. I've used / flown this type of ticket several times and it has worked fine. Not my first choice; but if it is significantly cheaper than alternatives and is with known / reputable airlines and travel site (e.g. Expedia), I go with it and haven't had any issues.

Happy travels!

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/nyt-article-about-travel-mistakes-third-party-flight-vendors

As the conversation moves to third-party flight vendors......

Good luck!

Itamatrix is owned by google and powers Google Flights

Warren, We just finished booking flights thru Canada: searching with Google flights , and then booking directly with the airline. Yup, there were options where you could get the same flight's cheaper using Expedia, but we got "shafted" one time using a third party option...,.so never again! Read the NY Times article!

If you are a gambler, and have good trip insurance, buy your flights using these booking services. Yes, they do some dissimilar airline packaging options, that are pretty cheap, but try and change one leg when you get a notice that the other has changed.

For our latest trip we booked our last leg/flight ourselves, saving $500. But when you book separate flights you need to ensure that you have plenty of time between flights to cover delays, etc.

Cheers!