Welcome to the Beginner Case for ITA Matrix

If you are already familiar with the basics of ITA Matrix, I encourage you to please read my ITA Matrix Intermediate Case and ITA Matrix Expert Case to learn more tips and tricks.  I will cover the following topics in this post:

• What is ITA Matrix?
• Round Trip Los Angeles to New York City for Halloween
• Purchase the Ticket Online
• Want to learn more about ITA Matrix?

 

What is ITA Matrix?

ITA Matrix is owned by Google and is the most helpful way to look up flights.  ITA Matrix is very similar to other online travel agencies (OTAs) but does not allow you to purchase tickets directly through the site.  Before I look anywhere else, I go to ITA Matrix and do a search.  If your search box looks differently, click on simple search options at the bottom to change from the advanced search options.

 

Round Trip Los Angeles to New York City for Halloween

Let’s assume you live near Los Angeles and want to fly to New York City for Halloween.  You decide that you want to leave Los Angeles on Wednesday, Oct 30, and return home from New York City on Sunday, November 3.

Let’s assume you hate connections and want to fly nonstop between LAX and JFK.  There are a few ways to do this.  First, you can click the “nonstop” link under the “all flights” link.  It may look like nothing changed, but below Flight 1, there is a message that says “only nonstop.”

Alternatively, you can click the STOPS button and select only “nonstop flights.”  If your screen does not look like mine, make sure to select Individual Flights, not Complete Trips.

Do you hate red eye flights?  Get rid of them! Click the ADVISORY button and un-check “overnight flights.”  Under Flight 1, you will notice “only nonstop flights with no advisories.”

Be default, ITA Matrix sorts all flights be cheapest round trip price and shortest duration, departing earliest. Therefore, if you are on a budget, you would want to look at only the cheapest prices.  At this time, there are 12 flights that are $342.  To look at only those flights, click on the PRICE button and drag the slider close to $342.  As you can see, now I am only looking at “nonstop flights, with no advisories, that cost less than $345.”

Which airline do you pick?  That depends.  Do you have any elite status with any airline?  Do you have a co-branded airline credit card (like Citi AAdvantage Card or Chase United Card)? If not, we will look at all the options below.  Since all flights cost the same amount ($342), are about the same length in flying time (5 hours and 30 minutes), I will sort by departure time. Click the DEPART button and click “Sort By Departure Time.”

Now the flights are sorted by departure time: earliest at the top, latest at the bottom.  So it all depends on what type of person you are.  Are you an early bird who doesn’t mind leaving LAX at 6am?  Or would you like to sleep in and get to New York after midnight?  After all, New York is the city that never sleeps…

If you are like me, neither a morning person nor a night owl, I will ignore flights that leave before 8AM and the flights that land after 9PM.  By un-checking boxes in the DEPART and ARRIVE column, I have narrowed my choices down to 3 flights.  As you can see, I am only looking at “nonstop flights, with no travel advisories, that cost less than $345, that don’t leave before 8am, and don’t arrive after 9PM.”  Make sure to un-check early morning flights because that includes flights that land after midnight.

STOP, DO NOT PICK A FLIGHT!  Instead of picking one of those three flights, I would rather look at my return flight choices.  The reason is, if I select an American flight going to New York City, when I search for my return flight, it will only show me American flights.  So instead, I click on Flight 2 at the top of the page to look at return flights.

What do you know?  Only 3 flights available coming home and they are all United flights.

If I had selected an American flight coming home from New York City, I would only be offered American flights coming home.  The price increases from $342 to $371 if I searched only for American flights.

Anyways, back to my 3 United flights coming home.

This is actually an easy decision for me.  Since I have work on Monday, I don’t want to take the last flight that lands at LAX at 11:55PM.  Sundays in New York City are so beautiful that I don’t want to leave at 8:30AM.  So my choice is easy.  I want the “Goldilocks” flight in the middle that leaves at 6PM and lands at LAX at 9:34PM.

After I select that flight, I am brought back to my outbound flight (LAX-JFK).  To make my choices easier, I am only looking at United flights and have 2 to chose from.

This is actually a tough decision because I could chose either flight.  For me, I want to spend the most time in New York with my friends, so I select the first flight that leaves at 8:30AM and lands at 4:58PM.

Now my perfect flight is complete.  I love how ITA Matrix breaks down the flight cost into taxes and fees so you can see how much the actual flight costs.

 

Purchase the Ticket Online

From here, I would go to United.com, enter my departure city (LAX), my arrival city (JFK), departure date (10/30/2013), my arrival date (11/3/2013), check Nonstop Flights Only, and press the search button.

Select the same flights on United.com that I chose in ITA Matrix.

Verify that the prices are the same.  ITA Matrix always rounds up to the next dollar, that’s why there is a slight difference between $342 and $341.80.  If everything looks good, I purchase the ticket.

 

Want to learn more about ITA Matrix?

Now that you’ve mastered the basics of ITA Matrix, read my ITA Matrix Intermediate Case and ITA Matrix Expert Case.