Good morning everyone. Last week, I was looking at flights from San Francisco (SFO) to Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia (PPT) and found out that there is a nonstop flight offered by FrenchBee. They are somewhat like WOW Air (no frills), but they have flights from Papeete (PPT) to San Francisco (SFO) to Paris Orly (ORY) and to a few other international destinations. I saw a few flights for around $300 one way, nonstop in economy, but I was looking at premium economy seats for a few hundred dollars more. On the FrenchBee website, the total price was $864.40. I wanted to compare flight prices on SkyScanner and Momondo to see if there were any cheaper options. What I found is that there are several many different prices for the same exact flight, it just depends what website you use to book the flight. Here is my journey to find the cheapest flight.
On the FrenchBee website, the total price is $864.40, with $716 as the base fare and $148.40 as the taxes.
I then went over to SkyScanner and searched for the same flight. FrenchBee and Air Caraibes are related somehow, but I am not quite sure of the relationship. But strangely, booking an Air Caraibes flight operated by FrenchBee was a few dollars cheaper than booking directly on FrenchBee. I decided to look a little deeper.
The $851 price was showing up on Travel2Be and Travelgenio. Since I have never heard of either of these online travel agencies (OTAs), I decided to check out Travel2Be since it had a better feedback score.
Clicking from SkyScanner to Travel2Be shows the price should be $850.67…
But when I land on the Travel2Be search results, the price is listed as $884.26.
By going through the booking process, I found out that the taxes were the same ($148.40) as FrenchBee’s, but the base fair was $735.86 instead of FrenchBee’s $716.
I opened a new tab and searched Momondo for the same FrenchBee flight. On here, it shows the FrenchBee flight booked through Priceline was $865, but…
When I got to Priceline, the price was $886.
By going through the booking process, I found out that the taxes were the same ($148.40) as FrenchBee’s, but the base fair was $737 instead of FrenchBee’s $716.
So what did I learn during this process? I learned that the price of a flight can vary by a few dollars based on the website you use to book the flight. Some OTAs show up on online shopping portals (like Ebates) and you can earn a few bucks booking a flight (between $2-$5 on most flights). But if the price was the same everywhere, I would recommend booking directly with the operating airline since it would be much simpler to work with them if there are any changes to the reservation.
If you have any questions about SkyScanner or Momondo, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!