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First time posting here, apologies for potential mistakes in posting etiquette.

I had a weird situation regarding booking flights which I've never encountered before in my travel history.

I've a "tracked flight" in google flights from AMS to LAS, business for 1375Euro. See screenshot 1. I can still book this flight with AA, if I click on the link from the tracked flight in google (screenshot 2). The weird thing is, that this flight doesn't show up anywhere else I search. Obviously, I found the flight initially through google flights.

It's not visible on the AA search enginge, not with BA, not with Finnair, not in Google Flights, not in Matrix ITA...cant find the flight anywhere. I did all searches from the same machine, same IP, same country, etc.

My questions:

  1. How is it possible that there are flights which are not announced but still bookable?
  2. How can I find more of these types of flights?

Screenshot 1: Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2: Screenshot 2

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  • The fact that Google Flights asks you to call the airline to book is a bit unusual.
    – Xnero
    Jul 16, 2021 at 10:35
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    Airline ticketing is a black art which not even the airlines can predict most of the time, I doubt you are going to get a reasonable answer as a result…
    – user29788
    Jul 16, 2021 at 10:50
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    When you say that you can still book this flight, did you actually proceed with the complete booking process, or did you stop at the final confirmation page? It's totally possible, that the system would then reject your booking request, because the flight is full or similar situations.
    – dunni
    Jul 16, 2021 at 11:07

1 Answer 1

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I see plenty of options for these dats at around US$1600 on the American Airlines website.

This may be pilot error on your part: When you do the search make sure you select for Options/Airlines "All airlines" and not the default "American Airlines".

This being said, airline pricing & marketing is extremely complicated and not all fares are released to all sales channels equally and it's entirely possible that you can see a fare on Google or a code share partner that's not available on the website and vice versa.

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  • Thanks for the response! My question wasn't aimed at finding the fare, but more at why there is a difference. What you mention about "not all fares are released to all sales channels" seems to make sense to me. What I don't understand however, is why google search doesn't show it, but the bookmarked link does work? Regarding pilot error: I'm sure I have no filters set at all, except origin, destination, dates and class.
    – Database
    Jul 16, 2021 at 11:29
  • American airlines automatically sets this filter for you UNLESS you actively disable it. It's kind of stupid, but that's the way it is.
    – Hilmar
    Jul 16, 2021 at 12:24

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