flightcentre.ca prices artificially lowered grrr

[pluto]

I have been pricing out a flight from Toronto to Italy for the second week of April, seemed Flight Centre had everyone beat by almost $200 a ticket, even for the same flight, including taxes.

Turns out when you get through to the 'booking' page they tell you the fare is no longer available due to changing availability. They've been advertising the same fare on their search results page for the past 2 days!

I called the local office and they said that happens a lot, and you always have to get through to the booking page to see the real price.

Isn't this a form of false advertisement?

[Kayne]

Flight centre has to be the worst for this stuff, I cannot stand there advertising. I love the $199 to vegas and then $300 in taxes lol.

[Shaner]

Instead of complaining about them, just refuse to use their services ever again. Even if they are slightly cheaper, just don't use them. If customers practiced this, companies would be terrified to upset us and would do everything they could to satisfy us. Instead, companies pretty much hold us hostage because they know if they have the lowest price, we'll come crawling back.

[bingofuel]

I think it's sleazy at best, but they're hardly alone. If it isn't "changing availability", there's always unadvertised taxes, surcharges, security fee, booking fees, service fees, etc that jack up the price. There is some movement in the legislature pushing for full price disclosure, so let's hope it gets through!

[GemInite]

I don't recall a time where I've ever found a flight being cheaper through flight centre

[dougg]

Every 2 months or so I visit a location in Europe and have been a regular Flight centre customer. This "Due to changing availability, the fare you selected is no longer available" scam has been going on for at least 6 months. It has occurred on every variation that I have tried (probably at least 100 attempts spread over that period). The only variable seems to be whether the hike will be $100, $200, $300 or more. They should be prosecuted for deceptive trading. Move your business elsewhere.

[dougg]

After noting the flight centre scan, I visited some other bucket shop sites. Redtag are also playing the same game. Interestingly both flight centre and redtag are "powered by softvoyage".

[highvelocity]

Other than the false prices, are they a reputable company?
I can get $150 off using my SPC for a Contiki tour through Flight Centre.. looks really appealing! Although I plan on actually going to their booths instead of online.

[Flyerman]

Flightcentre is reputable. However, many companies discount Contiki tours now. Just Google "Contiki"

[myapartment]

Avoid these idiots at all costs. I booked a ticket with them last October, flew to my destination, on the return trip my ticket got mysteriously cancelled by them when I got to the airport. So I phoned them up and asked them whats going on, they told me to go book another ticket and they will re-imburse me because of a "employee error" when booking my ticket. I was like fine, booked a ticket out of my own money $768 USD back to YYZ. This has gone to small claims court, and my court date is next week.

Bascially I want my money back for the origional plane ticket and the $768US i had to fork out to get back home.

[redbimmer]

I know plenty of people who have used them without problem. However I don't patronize businesses that practice deceptive marketing. If you don't vote with your dollar, businesses have no incentive to change their practices and honest companies get pushed out of the market. Personally I think Expedia.ca is one of the best online sites for travel. The price that's quoted is always the price you pay in the end, and they tend to find flights that aren't available with other sites.

[darren420]

I was trying to book a flight to Beijing, I first checked aircanada.com, they had flights on sale til March 07. I checked with Flightcentre.ca and the flight is somewhat cheaper that what is advertised on aircanada.com. But you know online, it had to be credit card so I went to a flight centre sales office. Big mistake! The $1089 flight advertised on aircanada.com is $1078 on flightcentre, but lo and behold, the travel consultant slapped me with a $1176 price tag for that flight that was "allegedly" only $1078 on their OWN website. And like all of you already knew, the travel "con"sultant said it's due to "changing availability". Well ain't that convenient! And guess what? I checked with aircanada.c and they still have it for $1089. It's been 2 weeks and the March 07 deadline has already passed and the price is still that. So what's up with those at Flight Centre? :?:

Oh well, if you guys wanted to pay more than you should, you should definitely see Flight Centre.

[cmyden]

After noting the flight centre scan, I visited some other bucket shop sites. Redtag are also playing the same game. Interestingly both flight centre and redtag are "powered by softvoyage".

Bingo. All Canadian travel sites get their data from the same place, the SoftVoyage database.

You'll find the problem that the OP has with every Canadian travel site.

For flights alone, you really should just be using Kayak.

[IceBlueShoes]

I've had no problem with them.
I always research my own flights and then get them to match it/find it for me.

The no tax in fee is an industry thing. Always add $300-400 for flights for the tax. The only flights I've seen that have tax included are those out of Quebec. I'd think it's a provincial legislation thing.

But ya it sucks. Give me the total pre-tax price. Grr...:mad:

[wirebound]

Bingo. All Canadian travel sites get their data from the same place, the SoftVoyage database.

You'll find the problem that the OP has with every Canadian travel site.

For flights alone, you really should just be using Kayak.

yup, its just a software issue, it annoys them as well since they have all of these people complaining about it when they call them.... they should just change their system and the problem would disappear. It also seems to depend on the airline. AC seems to work fine for me but KLM doesn't.

[magnodrome]

They did not falsely advertised their price, becasue that advertised their prices by saying, as an example:

London from $149 + tax $396 (in small letters).

That means you just need to read the fine print.

[D582]

Airfare pricing is all based on booking classes and fare rules. The pricing they advertise is probably for the cheapest booking class with the most restrictive fare basis code. However it does not reflect real-time seat inventory

[Jaytee]

Wow. Good luck.



Avoid these idiots at all costs. I booked a ticket with them last October, flew to my destination, on the return trip my ticket got mysteriously cancelled by them when I got to the airport. So I phoned them up and asked them whats going on, they told me to go book another ticket and they will re-imburse me because of a "employee error" when booking my ticket. I was like fine, booked a ticket out of my own money $768 USD back to YYZ. This has gone to small claims court, and my court date is next week.

Bascially I want my money back for the origional plane ticket and the $768US i had to fork out to get back home.

[dawgbone]

yup, its just a software issue, it annoys them as well since they have all of these people complaining about it when they call them.... they should just change their system and the problem would disappear. It also seems to depend on the airline. AC seems to work fine for me but KLM doesn't.

Change them to who?

The problem is, softvoyage has the Canadian Travel Industry by the short ones. There is no other company that has the information that they do.

Comtec is trying to get into Canada but there are 2 issues:

1. They don't have access to all the Canadian content (tourops, consolidators, charters, etc).

2. They aren't established with anyone yet, so getting their foot in the door is hard (basically they need a high end softvoyage client to jump ship).

In terms of advertised specials being no longer available, there are 2 issues.

1. Agency made specials (like you'd find on their homepage) are 100% controlled by the travel agency. What that means is they create the special based on a search through softvoyage and it in turn generates an advertising xml file (which the agency then uses to display the special).

Generally if an ad is no longer available, softvoyage deletes the xml file. If the travel agency programs it properly, that ad should disappear within a couple of hours (they may only update their site every few hours). If they don't (i.e. they don't update) then it could be longer. However, when I say softvoyage usually deletes the xml file, usually isn't always. I've run into a couple of instances where an old ad hasn't been deleted for 2 days. When it comes to a special being no longer available, it's 50/50 who's responsible. If it's a few days though, that's the agency. All of this also pertains to a price going up or down as well.

2. Searched specials. Sometimes if you do a search you'll return a list of results. When you click on one it may say it's no longer available. That is a softvoyage issue (as they return a result set and the agencies just format it).




And to the OP, they were 100% right when they said your price is not guaranteed until you reach the booking page. Everything before that is in Softvoyage's caching system which gets updated at various times throughout the day. They do not contact the provider (air only or packages) until the last step. They do that to help ease online traffic demands (and if they didn't the system would basically be unusable).



If anyone has any questions regarding online agencies within Canada (or at least the process), PM me and I'll do my best to answer.

[iamnotamerican.com]

Personally I think Expedia.ca is one of the best online sites for travel. The price that's quoted is always the price you pay in the end, and they tend to find flights that aren't available with other sites.

Sorry, but even with Expedia I've had the price change a couple of times between when I got the quote and when I went ahead to finalise the purchase. It has a lot to do with how many seats are available at the time, and for which price point.

[zero_2003]

^You revived this post at such a nice timing.

I had an incident with the flightcentre.ca website this weekend while I was planning my Asia trip.

At first, my friends and I thought we found a few sweet deals through flightcentre.ca because the prices for multiple destinations in Asia (Hong Kong, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul) were insanely low.

- Tokyo: $741
- Hong Kong: $747
- Osaka: $710

It was when we hit the booking button that the errors started to pop up. We weren't able to book any of the flights.

I made a quick call to the representatives at flight centre and they confirmed that it was a price error (multiple prices errors). And then they had the nerves to ask me to book the next cheapest flight to Tokyo for $1800 (I went on Kayak.com and the cheapest flight for Tokyo shows $1660 for Air Canada).

:facepalm: flightcentre.ca

Here are a few screenshots of those super-duper deals:

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/1986/11985142.png
http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/3397/osakan.png
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/681/tokyoy.png

[Rant ends]

[at1212b]

Expedia I find is better given more up to date pricing, and they list the all in cost.