We offer air booking as a convenience and recommend that you review these tips on getting the best airline price.
The airline industry is not a logical industry.
On any given airplane with 132 seats, you can have 132 passengers that all pay something slightly different with very wide swings in the hundreds of dollars for domestic flights and thousands of dollars for international.
We expect fares to be different from cabin to cabin (first class, business class, economy plus, economy), but even within those cabins, there are many different prices depending on:
- The location of your seat (exit rows and windows and aisles) being more expensive
- The date that you purchased the ticket (21 days+ being the cheapest, 14 days+ being more expensive, 7+ days being even more expensive and last minute being the most expensive)
- The channel (site) where you purchased the ticket (Frequent Flyers purchasing on the airline platform being the lowest fares and 3rd party online platforms being the highest)
Also be aware that while for many years, airline tickets included pre-assigned seats, a checked bag and more, now many carriers charge à la carte for every item. So what appears to be a low price of $50 for a flight on Spirit or Frontier, may end up being $150 one way by the time you add in all the extras - in fact taking them from "low cost airline" status to equivalent to American, Delta and United.
So be careful to do true apples to apples comparison - same day, same flight, same cabin, same bundled services. Also be aware that not all sites price the trip round trip, so the fare you see may be one way and the return flight may have a different price.
On TravelingToGive, we show round trip and if the return fare is more, you'll just see the incremental fare amount.
There is no industry commitment for pricing parity (read: rationale behavior) like there is in the hotel industry.
Several of our executives spent more than 20 years in the global travel distribution system business (the systems that handle most retail travel sales in the world) and we can assure you that there are literally 1 million fare changes a day in the systems that power the online platforms.
As a result, while we offer air on our system as a convenience for you and a significant part of the time our flights will be at parity or even cheaper than you can find on other major sites, we can't promise that there won't be a time where a flight will be cheaper, particularly on the airline's own site.
Bottom line is this. Do not be dismayed if you find a lower price on the airline's own site. Since the financial benefit (royalty + donation) is very low on air, we simply recommend that you book your air wherever you find the best price.
On lodging, we guarantee that will be us and we put our money where our mouth is.