How You Can Use Momondo To Save Money On Flights

Momondo links to some VERY shady online travel agencies, and there needs to be many warnings for passengers who need to ever make changes/cancellations for bookings through them.

The agency fees on top of airlines and extremely poor/unreachable service makes it very risky vs booking through more reputable OTAs or directly with airlines! If you thought Expedia service was poor, you haven't seen ChinaTravelDepot, TravelUp, Egenio, etc...

Buyer beware!

This piece talks a lot about saving money through Momondo, but what about actually booking at one of those discount "agencies" and getting support from them when there is a schedule change or delay? I haven't heard any positive stories... but please do share.

Recently took advantage of a deal found for LAX-MAD during Summer 2018 holiday period. Google flights would price it for $468 but Momondo was able to link it to another OTA for $450. Ticket was able to be issued but thats when the headache begun.

PNR issued cannot be linked to my AA account, only by logging out and doing a manual search can the trip be brought up. Attempts to save my KTN and US immigration details doesnt seem to work. Ended up having to call AA and the issue was because the OTA was from another country, they had an issue linking up different databases. It had to be a manual entry done by the agent.

So to save the $18 vs booking it direct at AA.com or Iberia.com,,,,, I would just swallow the $18 and not have to spend 1hr on the phone while they sort it out.

I've heard far too many horror stories about lesser known Online Travel Agencies to even think about using those links. From what I've read, if there are no flight changes then things will probably be okay, most of the time. But if you ever need to contact these 3rd tier OTA's then prepare for a lot of frustration.

Lucky: I am sure you are aware that Google purchased Matrix ITA Software some time ago.
"ITA Software is a travel industry software division of Google, formerly an independent company, in Cambridge, Massachusetts."
Google flights simply has an added interface on top of the Matrix engine and many other sites (like Orbitz, Student Universe) are customers of Google ITA Software as well. They just add interface, filters etc.

I’ve looked up prices on momondo but never booked with their linked OTA sites. As others suggested sine sites are pretty shady looking and online search of those sites only makes the outlook grimmer. Unless I’m saving HINDREDS of $$ it will be hard to book through those OTA sites, not to mention losing 5x points on Amex plat booking directly with airline.

For the current (as of Dec 27) BA F sale, using Momondo would have saved me £150. However, the fare rules were very different. BA says refunds cost £150, while on Momondo the generic fare rules clearly stated the flight was 100% non refundable. The price was better but the better flexibility sent me back to BA.

There was no way (that I could find) to see the ‘actual’ fare rules, just the generic ‘you can do nothing’ rules that Momondo (and the OTA they sent me to) showed.

Be careful if you use these guys

There is a long thread about Fareboom on Tripadvisor that has been running for many years.

Problems include very slow customer service, change fees that are higher than what the airlines charge and finally prices that seems to go up during the booking process.

And frankly a lot of OTA's that sites like Momondo link to are even more shady.

I find www.skyscanner.com to still be the best...both in terms of price AND functionality. Their search to everywhere Is pretty good… Especially when looking to piece together a cheap flight multi city

My only experience with Fareboom was positive. Saved hundreds $ on a fare from Yul to Mel with no discrepancies once booked. Updates are drectly from fareboom indicating any changes in itinerary. Do agree the change fee is higher but savings are ligit in our experience. Booking is linked to united website and seat selection is made through United website. This is a consolidator and a higher change fee is expected in exchange for the low fare received. Would use again

dude.. stop hawking shady websites... one of the most honest and best place to find cheapest fares is www.skiplagged.com... it gives direct links.. book it with the airline itself... there are dime and dozen websites like momondo.. don`t know whether you get referral fee. but thats ur biz... infact skiplagged gives fares way lower than momondo... airlines are suing skiplagged to shut it down because they are not able to fleece customers any more

momondo is good BTW, but everything depends what OTA is offering ticket. If there's Opodo or eDreams, they are trusted agencyes. So everything depends of it.
Booked many times thru momondo and kayak, but longhaul tickets allways directly.

Guys. It’s YMMV. This is a game we play and obviously there are risks involved when you try to “travel hack”.

Here are my experiences with momondo.

1. It may pay to run the search several times changing your country each time. I found a last minute emergency one way fare from EZE-MAD for my sister for €1288.30 = $1525 on the Italian version of momondo as opposed to $1618 if booked directly from the airline. The US version of momondo priced out at $1560.

2. It pays to know whether the travel agency you pick charges you directly, or routes your card information to the airline for them to charge you, if you’re using an American Express to make the purchase (category bonus!!). I got burnt once when I found a QR business class flight for $60 cheaper but lost out on Amex 5x airfare cuz the travel agency charged the card directly.

I have some data points as to #2, but Lucky, I think it would be great if you could compile all these data points into a blog post.

i forgot to mention that booking thru OTA makes sense only if you use Visa Credit card, otherwise it makes no sense..

@sean:

Skiplagged doesn’t work for everyone.

1. It’s best used for segments of competitive routes (as airlines of different hubs compete on the same routes).

2. You can NOT check bags.

3. You should NOT enter your FF#, meaning you won’t earn miles for your flight.

4. If the airline re-routes you through a different airport (happens 2-4% of the time), you may be out of luck.

@aivar

Some of the OTAs on momondo participate in a sneaky thing called dynamic currency conversion if you use visa/master. Something to be aware of.

@sean
Lucky explicitly states he uses momondo to find cheap premium fares, and your suggestion is to use skiplagged instead, which has no filters for premium fare? Talk about a lack of awareness for solving problems.

Wow, thank you Lucky

My best friend recommended Momondo to me last year
I added it to my iPad favorites but never used it

Today I found RT Lufthansa and Swiss Biz class from MSP to Prague next Sept for $2714

It’s $3500 to $4000+ on Google flights

Might be worth a try, even if there are restrictions
Restrictions don’t bother me anyway as my job leaves me no room to make changes anyway

What are folks' experiences with earning mileage credit from airlines when booking through these Momondo OTAs? PQMs? PQDs? Base miles? Anything?

Yeah I'd be concerned about those shady travel agencies myself. I rarely change my flights because I don't like paying the (usually $100+) fee but I'd still be extremely wary of some OTA out of China, savings notwithstanding. Perhaps a database of the more reputable ota's it links to would be useful.

LOL at using some of those OTA. Even the big ones in Europe like edreams are suspect at best and bald face liars at worst.

When searching for cheap airline tickets in any class of travel, my go to site is Skyscanner.net . Out of curiosity I compared prices for same dates on same routes in economy, business and first, and although the differences were small, Skyscanner almost always turned out slightly cheaper. I recommend skyscanner highly.

+1 and a cleaner ui and better search. Try it @lucky

This articel is were u lost me. Bye!

@Evan

When it comes to economy bookings, you'll be lucky to get any miles. Most tickets are booked in classes that won't allow you to earn miles. Just a few weeks ago I searched for a flight from Lisbon to Auckland, flights can't get much longer than this one, and I would get exactly zero miles with the cheapest option available, since everything was booked in L class with Lufthansa. Of course, I'm not saying that this happens every single time.

Momondo seems super shady to me. I've checked it a lot, but not gonna book with 'em.

I have booked twice with lesser know otas and it was a bad experience both times. Both cheapoair and and lastiminute.com double charged my credit card and it was a pain to contest the charges and get refunded. Lastminute.com was extremely sneaky, one charge was from lastminute and one directly from the airlines. Beware (and avoid) !!

I always use KAŸAK and you should do the same Lucky.

KAYAK is where its at.

But NEVER book through OTAs, always through airline directly. Always.

Sometimes momondo fares are not purchasable.

hi, google flight, Kayak, Momondo all have same shortcoming: they show prices and that's it. most people however collect miles in one or the other loyalty programme, so it's important to know booking class.

i didn'find t anyone showing this in my opinion vital info except expedia.com, but for whatever reason only for economy. business just shows "business", of not help

if anyone knows engine showing class also in business i wud appreciate info...