STA Travel price beater - is it really true?

nickyboy6

I recently found a cheap flight with an online agent to Colombo (Sri Lanka) for £308 with Kuwait Airlines. Given that I have always booked with STA and that I would prefer to deal with a large, trusted company, I rang STA and asked them if they could match the deal (I'd already been through their website and seen that the same flight was considerably more).

Their price match promise states that they will match the price of any flight you find, or pay you £1000 (can't post a link as I'm new but its on the STA website and I've C&P it at the end of the message)

They rang me back 24hrs later to tell me that they could match the price so I happily paid up. However when the receipt came through, it turned out that they had bought the flight for just over £500 through their agents and simply applied a discount of £200 so the final cost to me was the same as that I found elsewhere.

Now surely this is a perfect example of where they should be paying out the £1000? They couldn't match the original quote of £308 so they simply bought the flight elsewhere and sold it to me at a loss. If this is the everyday practice, I do not see how they would ever actually payout the £1000. They would simply sell every flight at a loss.

Am I being stupid or does this seem grossly out of order? Maybe I'm naive but I think that I should surely have qualified for the £1k.

I would be very interested to hear what other MoneySavers have to say.

Thanks!

(and apologies if this is in the wrong place etc).

How it works...

1. You find an Economy class scheduled carriers*** airfare that is available to the UK general public* from another high street travel agent, on-line travel agent** or travel agent call centre to any destination.
2. Before booking the airfare you obtain a printed confirmation of the competitor travel agent’s airfare quote on headed paper, or equivalent (i.e. print out of web page), with airfare price, booking conditions, travel dates, number of passengers, airline and date of quote clearly shown. The guarantee is against the competitors initial quote only. We will not enter into an ongoing negotiation on price after the first quote is bettered.
3. Visit a STA Travel shop or call the STA Travel Call Centre on the same day you received the quote. Email requests cannot be accepted unless following a phone or shop visit enquiry.
4. Show STA Travel staff the printed confirmation of the airfare quotes. For telephone enquiries you can fax or email the quote to your travel consultant following your phone call.
5. STA Travel will check the quote for availability and booking conditions that same day.
6. Where we believe there to be an erroneous fare displayed by a competitor or the fare displayed is no longer available to book we have a 24 hour period to investigate the pricing. If at this point we prove the fare to be incorrect/unavailable the price beat guarantee will apply to the new fare.
7. If STA Travel is able to confirm that airfare is still available to be booked as per the itinerary quoted, we will not only match the airfare but BEAT IT!
8. The price match will only be calculated after the application of any STA Travel discounts, offers or vouchers in place at the time (for example, if there was a money off offer this would be applied and the resulting fare would be used to calculate the price match).
9. Price guarantee can only be applied to airlines STA Travel can sell.
10. If STA Travel cannot beat the fare we will pay you £1,000.†

*Fares available to the General public are deemed as fares available to an audience not registered to a competitor subscription or membership. STA Travel will not be able to beat airfares offered to closed subscriber or membership groups. All fares must be in UK pounds.
**Excludes fares offered directly by an airline.
***Applies to scheduled airlines only (not Charters or Low Cost Airlines) and for travel originating in the UK.
† Any payment will be made by cheque.

lfc321

I don't follow your logic: they promised to beat the price you found elsewhere and - unlike many other companies who hedge those promises around with all sorts of T&Cs - they were as good as their word. They beat the price even though this meant them losing money. They kept their promise.

Where they bought the flight from and how much they paid for it is none of your concern. They made you a promise and kept it. You should be delighted.

nickyboy6

Thanks for the reply.

Don't get me wrong, I am delighted with the fact they matched the price. I was just surprised to see them making a loss on the deal. Technically they couldn't match the price I found and so they had to take a hit.

What I don't understand is if they are prepared to make a loss everytime they match the price, then when (if ever) will they actually pay out the £1000?

richardw

nickyboy6 wrote: »

when (if ever) will they actually pay out the £1000?

Perhaps, when the price difference is £1000.01 or greater.

nickyboy6

Which I suppose happens very rarely, hence the genius behind the idea!

Right, well my mission today is to find a flight that is over £1k cheaper than on STAs website.

Wish me luck!

Moonchild

nickyboy6 wrote: »

They rang me back 24hrs later to tell me that they could match the price so I happily paid up. However when the receipt came through, it turned out that they had bought the flight for just over £500 through their agents and simply applied a discount of £200 so the final cost to me was the same as that I found elsewhere.

On what basis are you making this deduction? I think you are making 2+2=5.

The e-ticket receipt (which i'm presuming you are talking about) will show either a published fare or sometimes just 'IT'. If it shows the published fare as over £500 that means not a jot. STA will have used their own nett fare with Sri Lankan which will be substantially cheaper than the equivalent published fare, but is confidential. Therefore the e-ticket figure defaults to the published fare (which is a public fare so not confidential), but does not at all represent what STA paid for it.

I doubt very much they have made a loss on your fare.

You have just bought a very, very cheap fare from a very good company. I would leave it at that, as the rest is down to you not understanding the way air tickets work.

lfc321

nickyboy6 wrote: »

Which I suppose happens very rarely, hence the genius behind the idea!

Right, well my mission today is to find a flight that is over £1k cheaper than on STAs website.

Wish me luck!

You will never find such a big discrepancy on an economy class fare (the T&Cs say it has to be economy). Even a RTW in economy only comes in at £1500-1800, so you would never get close to finding a fare over £1000 less than STA's best price.

Having said that, they won't be able to sustain making even a £200 loss on each flight too often. They must be quite confident that they will rarely be undercut. Which shows that you did well.

Moonchild

nickyboy6 wrote: »

Which I suppose happens very rarely, hence the genius behind the idea!

Right, well my mission today is to find a flight that is over £1k cheaper than on STAs website.

Wish me luck!

Which is very unlikely at STA work with all major airlines, and you would never get a differential that high. i.e expedia might have a special thats £20 cheaper on Emirates, but not £1000.

Your best best is to look at a smaller carrier that STA don't work with. For example Yemen Yemenia, Saudia Arabian Airlines etc (just guesses), but then, you'd need a premium fare, probably first class, or similar.

So, how about a first class ticket on Yemen Yemenia to the furthest point from the UK - possibly Jakarta?

If this for example cost £3000, I doubt STA will be able to match it, so once you have bought it, there is a good chance STA will have to honour the £1000.

So, congratulations you have your £1000 from STA, and a £3000 first class return to Jakarta! Have fun

lfc321

Moonchild wrote: »

Your best best is to look at a smaller carrier that STA don't work with. For example Yemen Yemenia, Saudia Arabian Airlines etc (just guesses), but then, you'd need a premium fare, probably first class, or similar.

So, how about a first class ticket on Yemen Yemenia to the furthest point from the UK - possibly Jakarta?

If this for example cost £3000, I doubt STA will be able to match it, so once you have bought it, there is a good chance STA will have to honour the £1000.

So, congratulations you have your £1000 from STA, and a £3000 first class return to Jakarta! Have fun

Won't work - the T&Cs specifically state (1) only economy, and (9) only airlines STA sell.