ITA matrix - booking the flights?

Crispy_Ambulance

Ahh, the currency exchange could explain why I can't find those prices! Where did you find the £2963 flights?

Thanks so much for looking!

callum9999

Crispy_Ambulance wrote: »

Ahh, the currency exchange could explain why I can't find those prices! Where did you find the £2963 flights?

Thanks so much for looking!

You may have missed my edit, but they are available at £2764.80 at ebookers.com. I believe it will also give you a £27 credit to use on hotels.

Crispy_Ambulance

That's great, really appreciate the help. The whole flight search has been driving me insane. I'm not getting much change from £950 each flying from Manchester so even with getting to Dublin and staying over, we'll make a decent saving. Plus clearing immigration before we go makes the connections a little easier.

callum9999

Crispy_Ambulance wrote: »

That's great, really appreciate the help. The whole flight search has been driving me insane. I'm not getting much change from £950 each flying from Manchester so even with getting to Dublin and staying over, we'll make a decent saving. Plus clearing immigration before we go makes the connections a little easier.

No problem. They now appear to have disappeared from my screen though so if you can't find them make another post and I'll look again. Unless the reason it's gone is you've started booking already!

Roger1

Crispy_Ambulance wrote: »

Tried Trailfinders - they'd never heard of the ITA Matrix and spoke to me like I was a bit of an idiot. Also told me that if I try to book flights from Dublin to the USA at a lower price then I wouldn't be able to as I'm not Irish and those fares are for Irish people only!

What utter rubbish! If Trailfinders told you that, they are either mistaken or don't want to do business with you.

Of course you can buy travel starting in Dublin! Or Amsterdam, or Vienna, or Lisbon or elsewhere. I've done this several times for travel starting in those cities.

What you can't do is buy a ticket starting in Dublin via London to a final destination and not use the first Dublin-London sector. The rest of the reservation would be cancelled.

I've found that a simple reservation for BA can often be booked online at ba.com and a more complicated reservation can be made with BA on the phone. In this case, give them the EXACT routeing with flight numbers and booking classes for each sector, as found with ITA. This way, you can pay in sterling so won't have to pay a credit card currency surcharge. You may have to pay a £5 p.p. charge for booking by phone if the itinerary could have been booked online.

callum9999

Roger1 wrote: »

What utter rubbish! If Trailfinders told you that, they are either mistaken or don't want to do business with you.

Of course you can buy travel starting in Dublin! Or Amsterdam, or Vienna, or Lisbon or elsewhere. I've done this several times for travel starting in those cities.

What you can't do is buy a ticket starting in Dublin via London to a final destination and not use the first Dublin-London sector. The rest of the reservation would be cancelled.

I've found that a simple reservation for BA can often be booked online at ba.com and a more complicated reservation can be made with BA on the phone. In this case, give them the EXACT routeing with flight numbers and booking classes for each sector, as found with ITA. This way, you can pay in sterling so won't have to pay a credit card currency surcharge. You may have to pay a £5 p.p. charge for booking by phone if the itinerary could have been booked online.

I'd imagine it was a case of whoever they spoke to at Trailfinders not knowing how to change the point of sale of the system, therefore assuming you'd have to be physically present in Ireland to purchase a fare if the sales city is Dublin. I can't believe a travel agent would ever think only Irish people are allowed to book fares starting from Ireland!

Though something similar does happen in South America. If you manage to book a discounted fare despite not being a resident, you run the risk of being asked for something ridiculous like $200 at the airport or get your ticket cancelled!

Crispy_Ambulance

callum9999 wrote: »

I'd imagine it was a case of whoever they spoke to at Trailfinders not knowing how to change the point of sale of the system, therefore assuming you'd have to be physically present in Ireland to purchase a fare if the sales city is Dublin. I can't believe a travel agent would ever think only Irish people are allowed to book fares starting from Ireland!

Though something similar does happen in South America. If you manage to book a discounted fare despite not being a resident, you run the risk of being asked for something ridiculous like $200 at the airport or get your ticket cancelled!

I'm not sure to be honest - they guy I spoke to told me that I couldn't buy the ticket with a UK credit card and that any discounted fare starting in Ireland was impossible for me to buy from the UK. Maybe he was new??

I keep finding fares on ebooker but when I go to book them, they have mysteriously vanished. I don't know if the systems are working on live data? If I put the kids in as "Youths" on Kayak, it gives me a good price but it has only searched on child prices so I can't book them.

I'm also not sure whether or not to wait and see what the sales are like at Christmas? This is the worst part of trying to book a holiday!

sentosa

Crispy_Ambulance wrote: »

I'm not sure to be honest - they guy I spoke to told me that I couldn't buy the ticket with a UK credit card and that any discounted fare starting in Ireland was impossible for me to buy from the UK. Maybe he was new??

Hello OP,
I live in Northern Ireland which is part of the UK and use Trailfinders to book all my flights from Dublin. We have made big savings by going to Dublin and flying to London to pick up long haul flights.
I am looking for flights to Japan and Malaysia next year and am keeping my eye on things, but I think there should be a sale around Christmas time, not sure about flights to America .

It used to be that you could only book Dublin flights from the Belfast branch, but they had a policy change at the beginning of the year and I booked flights to Venice from Dublin through the London branch.

You do have to pay in Euros ,so, hope you have a Clarity Card, otherwise your card issuer will charge you.
Trailfinders do not charge to use a credit card to pay.

There is an excellent bus service directly from Belfast to Dublin airport that is £16 return if you prebook.

Heliflyguy

sentosa wrote: »

You do have to pay in Euros ,so, hope you have a Clarity Card, otherwise your card issuer will charge you.

Interesting, they must still book and issue the ticket in Ireland if that's the case otherwise it would be in GBP.

The outbound fare basis in the OP's post is the lowest published fare I can see on EI so nothing special and could be booked and issued in the UK, cant seem to find the return fare though.

Wonder why they want to issue this route in Ireland as I can see no sales restrictions in the fare rules to sell in the UK.

Murphy_The_Cat

Crispy_Ambulance wrote: »

I'm also not sure whether or not to wait and see what the sales are like at Christmas? This is the worst part of trying to book a holiday!

hello Crispy

from my own experience, for each of the last 5 years, the optimun time for me to book my flights for my American family holidays has been in the period between Christmas and New Year.

For the flights that I've booked, they have always been dearer outside of the 'sale' period.

IIRC, they type of flights that we both book are fairly similar.