today I pricing out an itinerary on AA.com and, per my usual practice, I checked Kayak to see if there were cheaper options available. I found the EXACT same itinerary, though booked as a codeshare with Finnair, for 1/3 the price. I called AA to see if there was a mistake and went through the process both with an agent on the Exec Platinum desk and the website support team and was told that they couldn’t get anywhere near that price.
I then asked if there was downside and was told that I wouldn’t be able to use eVIP upgrades, but would still have all the advantages of status.
Can anyone think of a downside I’m not considering? The price difference is huge.
Never done this myself, but that is a big difference. You might call FinnAir just to see what they say about it. Only downside I can think of is seat choice, you will probably be lower on the list for that.
Can you book the fare on Finnair’s website? If that is the case I don’t see why not. I would never go through Kayak. If something goes wrong you have to deal with them and not the airline. PITA
During IROPS (irregular operations), AA will take care of you if there are any issues, if the ticket was purchased from AA.
Calling Kayak, or any other ticket agency will put you at a disadvantage, since AA will deny knowing you (so to speak).
I don’t want to take away from the OP, but I don’t understand why an airline wouldn’t be helpful to you if you have a ticket to fly on their airline. It shouldn’t matter where the ticket was purchased from.
If there was a problem issuing the ticket or with the billing that’s one thing, but if the problem that occurs has to do with the airline itself (delayed flight, cancelled flights, etc.) then it should be handled by the airline no matter where the ticket was purchased.
You misunderstood. The airline will take care of you if there are issues like you mentioned. However if something happens that is not the airlines fault, you miss a flight. You want to change your ticket, there is a wrong name on the ticket etc. You have to deal with Kayak, you cannot deal directly with the airline like you could if you purchased the ticket from them. A lot of times it is not a big deal but the Interweb is full of horror stories from people who purchased through travel websites.
finnair might have different inventory and therefore pricing differently than AA’s inventory. it happens. you read about booking various codeshares from different parts of the world and getting different results.
BA, AA, IB, and AY are all on a Transatlantic Joint Venture agreement, meaning their flights are always going to be the same price for the same fare class on the same routing, no matter who markets/operates the flight. But if the pure BA flights sell out all their O-class (cheapest BA Economy class), but Finnair still has some of their allotment of O-class unsold, the same flight is going to be cheaper on Finnair.
There are a few factors to take into consideration when booking codeshares over pure flights. Sometimes you can’t do free seat selection before checkin, or sometimes you can’t even do online checkin at all. Also, if you run into a schedule change or flight delay, when you’re on a codeshare flight, the two airlines involved don’t always agree on whose responsibility it is to fix it or reroute you, making that process more difficult and time consuming. If the price is the same, always book the pure flights over the codeshare, but if there’s a significant price difference, you’ve just got to weigh those factors against the price.
Don’t know when that was from, but it certainly wasn’t true yesterday. The same itinerary, priced on AA online and again by AA Executive Platinum desk agents by phone on exactly the same flights in exactly the same seats (it turned out) was more than twice as much as if I bought it as a Finnair ticket. No one knew why, but said they couldn’t do anything about it, and I should book the cheapest.
I tried booking it on Finnair directly, but maybe because of their exchange rate (??), it turned out to be more expensive by a decent amount on their site than on Kayak.
I booked on Kayak then called AA. They see the ticket, they got me preferred seats, they told me not to worry about anything, there would be no issues that they could foresee, even if there were schedule changes or delays. The flights show up on my AA dashboard, my Known Traveler ID is linked. They said it’s exactly the same to them as if I’d purchased from Finnair directly. Except that I can’t use eVIP upgrades, which I knew.
I am sure that, had there been an issue with the booking itself, I would have had to deal with Kayak, but I checked carefully and AA confirmed all details. It’s very unlikely I’d need to make any changes, and you’re usually screwed if you need to change anyway, so I’m not particularly worried.