ITA matrix booking with travel agent?

[Tortuga]

I am using the ITA matrix search engine and it is showing a good price for a one way ticket I would like to purchase. No tickets can be purchased on that site and it tells me to contact a travel agent with the booking code details to see if they can book the same ticket. Can someone please recommend or give me a heads up if these prices that ITA Matrix suggests are reasonable and likely to be found/provided by a travel agent? Do I just email a copy of the ticket details and ask if they can match it? Thanks for assistance.

I should also add when searching on Qantas and other flight search websites none are showing the price or ticket that ITA matrix provided.

 

[opusman]

ITA matrix (now google flights) is just showing published fares, so any IATA travel agent should be able to sell them I would expect (although agent fees may vary the underlying fare should be the same). Maybe just try Flight Centre in the first instance?

 

[serfty]

I am using the ITA matrix search engine and it is showing a good price for a one way ticket I would like to purchase. No tickets can be purchased on that site and it tells me to contact a travel agent with the booking code details to see if they can book the same ticket. Can someone please recommend or give me a heads up if these prices that ITA Matrix suggests are reasonable and likely to be found/provided by a travel agent? Do I just email a copy of the ticket details and ask if they can match it? Thanks for assistance. ...

See here: ITA-Purchase Fares on Orbitz/Delta/United Userscript - FlyerTalk Forums

...
I should also add when searching on Qantas and other flight search websites none are showing the price or ticket that ITA matrix provided.

Many airline websites sell fares that are not available for others to sell. Matrix shows what the airlines publish for general sale.

 

[Tortuga]

Thanks for the assistance. I installed the script and all the sites I tried showed different prices to the one ITA showed. I contacted Qantas and they just told me the same prices that I could see on their website. I searched this morning and a saver showed up on Qantas website but not the date I wanted - tried priceline and managed to find a cheap (although $30 more than ITA matrix) on a date that was good enough. It is crazy how much availability changes day to day. Is this all due to people cancelling or do they drip release saver tickets to different travel websites?

 

[serfty]

Matrix fare avalability is based on cached snapshots - it is not always fully up to date and availabilty may have changed in the last hour or so.

This can be very apparent in the days leading up to the flight.

Also OTA's can simetimes add their own fees.

One more thing - make sure you select to only show avaliable flights.

 

[Tortuga]

Matrix fare avalability is based on cached snapshots - it is not always fully up to date and availabilty may have changed in the last hour or so.

This can be very apparent in the days leading up to the flight.

Also OTA's can simetimes add their own fees.

One more thing - make sure you select to only show avaliable flights.

I just checked to make sure available seats was enabled. I booked a MEL>BUE for 17th March one-way with priceline and ITA matrix showed prices of $781USD for the 14th-18th March. Maybe I am doing something wrong but I still couldn't find that price for the date I originally wanted the 18th March which is why I ended up booking 17th with priceline. Qantas only showed that price available on the 14th.

 

[TonyHancock]

I used the American Express Platinum Travel peeps to book a fare I tracked down, thanks to FT, on ITA Matrix. I quoted exactly what I found to the Amex agent and he ticketed exactly at the pricing I found.

The trip was DUB-LCY-JFK-PHX-HNL-PHX-JFK-LCY-DUB. Part BA and including specifically BA1 and part AA/US to maximise cheap F fares for BA TP earn.