FAQ: How to Book the Airfare of the Day? - LoyaltyLobby
Lately, several LoyaltyLobby readers have sent us emails with (almost identical) questions on where to find or how book the airfares we feature on our Airfare of the Day section.
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READER'S QUEStion
Hi Loyalty Lobby,
I am trying to purchase the flight path you highlighted 4 days ago on the following page from Madrid to Shanghai in business class at from 1,531€:
Airfare of the Day -Business Class- CHINA EASTERN Madrid to Shanghai from 1,531€
For your reference, I have also screenshotted the summary from the page below.
However, when I follow the instructions via eDreams, I cannot seem to find the flights mentioned. Could you please kindly assist me with this?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Best regards,
Julien
I will take Julien's question as a case study to build a small tutorial on how to look for our AFotD's availability (or any other airfare FWIW), which will facilitate the booking process.
The keyword here is Availability: the fact that an airfare is published (as in uploaded to selling platforms as Amadeus or Sabre) does not necessarily means that it is available during its validity period, as availability for these (usually promotional or discounted) fares is capacity-controlled.
So, how to check for the airfare's availability and then book it? It is relatively simple if you follow these steps:
1. check the airfare's relevant info
All the information you need to check the airfare's availability is summarized in our daily post. You will need to know:
- Fare basis: the combination of letters and numbers that form the airfare identificacion code. In our post you will find it in the blue box on top of the airfare information.
For this case, the fare basis is IS5XOBNE.
- Date restrictions: check the travel, seasonal or reservation/ticketing restrictions that may constrain the possible travel dates available.
For this case, there are no travel restrictions applicable, but the fare requires a 60-days advance reservation, which means that the first possible availability we will find will be for September 2023 departures. - Sales restrictions: check the booking window or end-of-sale dates, if any.
2. USE THE MATRIX
Matrix by ItaSoftware is a legacy website where you can access a very powerful airfare search engine. Originally an independent tech start-up from MIT, they were aquired by Google who used their technology to power their flight search engine (as most online travel agencies do too!).
The main advantage of Matrix is that it allows you to easily perform Pro level searchs, travel agent style. For our case, this is how our fare should look like:
Please notice the advanced controls I used:
- Routing Codes: MU+
This command restricts the search to a specific airline using its IATA code. In our example, China Eastern's code, MU, is used followed by a + sign, denoting we're searching either for nonstop or connecting flights. Using the airline code withouth the following + sign will return only nonstop options. In case of a combination of airlines, you should list them one after the other (for example use AF,KL+ to search for direct or connecting flights both on Air France and KLM). - Extension Codes: F MU..IS5XOBN
This command uses the airline code and the fare basis to restrict the search to that specific fare, in our case the availability on China Eastern's (MU) fare IS5XOBN.
You can perform a calendar search ("See calendar of lowest fares" option), by giving a travel start date and a duration range (in days), and the matrix will search for departures on the 30 days following the start date provided.
Don't forget to select the cabin you're searching for and the currency you want the prices to be displayed on!
Once performed the search you get a calendar with the departure dates available on that fare on the specified date range. In our case, the availability for September 2023 is low!
And from the calendar, you can then retrieve specific departure/return date combinations that work for the searched airfare:
Once you have established there is availability for a specific date set, it should be easy to go to an online travel agency and search for the specific dates found through Matrix. I went back to eDreams and searched for MAD-PVG for Sept. 12 to 18 and China Eastern's business class fare was the first result of the search:
3. BE FLEXIBLE
My advice is to be flexible in terms of dates when searching for these fares' availability, as you may find no available seats for specific dates. Be ready to move dates around to search for the best deal!
CONCLUSION
Matrix is a powerfool tool not only for checking fare availability but also for fare search/low price comparison purposes. It isn't difficult to use, just get used with the commands available (check the website's help for examples!)
I hope this post helps you take better advantage of the airfares we feature! And good luck with your fare hunt!
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