She does not know yet, but my wife is the subject of a Loyalty Traveler airline ticketing experiment. If her trip to London goes wrong, I’ll blame Momondo and their ridiculously lower ticket prices found in meta-searches of online travel agency discount fares.
I like experiments. Those of us who collect points and miles tend to be the experimental type.
I booked a round trip ticket for myself yesterday on United.com, flying San Francisco to London for $691 round trip and I applied my $400 United travel credit earned in July. I gave up my seat on a United flight from London to Los Angeles in July for a next day flight directly to San Francisco, hotel room at Radisson Edwardian LHR and $400 travel credit. My ticket to London yesterday cost $291 with the discount.
Momondo.com meta-search OTA Discount Tickets
The exact same nonstop flights I booked on United Airlines for $691 round trip were only $601 round trip, nearly 15% less, through online travel agency TravelMerry.com found on Momondo.com. This year, I have posted many low fares on Loyalty Traveler found on Travelmerry.com. These ticket purchases for London looked like a good opportunity to grab first-hand experience on what it means to book a discount international ticket found through Momondo.com from an OTA like TravelMerry.com.
Seeing the opportunity to make a valid comparison between booking avenues, I booked my ticket on United.com and used my $400 credit for a $291 ticket. I booked Kelley’s ticket for $90 less ($601) on TravelMerry.com with same flights and adjacent seat assignments.
After making Kelley’s London ticket purchase I waited for a TravelMerry.com confirmation email. The first email I received within about ten minutes directed me to call TravelMerry.com. On the phone I was asked my relationship to the person flying. Kelley and I have different last names and her ticket purchase was on my credit card. I verified all my details and her details with the TravelMerry.com representative. An hour after I made the purchase, the TravelMerry reservation confirmation email arrived with a United reservation booking code for her ticket. I immediately went to united.com and booked her seat assignments beside me for the flight to London and back. While the ticket prices are not especially low, the deal here is our winter flight to London has a scheduled return to San Francisco in August. We picked up a cheap tickets on Norwegian for flights back to California in winter. London Gatwick LGW to Oakland or Los Angeles is as low as $195 one-way.Â
Her ticket on united.com shows United Economy K class, however, her ticket receipt on united.com only shows taxes for fare paid. Total ticket price is listed as BULK USD. This indicates this ticket might be ineligible for earning any miles in any frequent flyer program.
How would United Mileage Plus even determine miles without a fare basis dollar amount to calculate 5 miles x $1?
My ticket fare basis = $486 x 5 = 2,430 redeemable miles in United Mileage Plus. Is a $90 ticket discount a good trade-off in lieu of earning 2,430 United Mileage Plus miles?
In February 2017 the answer will be revealed for how many miles, if any, Kelley earns on her Momondo.com OTA discount ticket to Europe?
Cheap Aegean flights lead to Greece and beyond
I am crediting my United SFO-LHR flights to Aegean Miles+Bonus frequent flyer program.
The other aspect of my 72 hours trip planning was setting up flight plans for my 2016-2017 objective for attaining Aegean Miles+Bonus Gold elite for Star Alliance lounge benefits and other perks. That is the topic of my next segment and how picking up Aegean flight segments for flights around Europe is far cheaper than I imagined.
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