The following example was the result of a search at one moment in time when market conditions dictated these prices and sales. Do not expect to find them in your search. They are merely examples of airline special offers at work.
Let's say you want to go from Atlanta to Cancun for a little relaxation. Checking one of the airfare search engines, an airfare range pops up between $434-$464 USD. That assumes a three-week advance purchase with no refunds.
Next stop: Aeromexico's Faresavers page on the Internet, where a round trip fare to Cancun from Atlanta was about half the search engine price: $219 USD. These too were non-refundable, and the fine print said up to $80 USD in taxes wasn't included. So what? Even at $299, the savings over the search engine price was significant.
Here's another: Madrid-Lisbon One-Way was available at $65 USD on Iberia Airlines "offer page" while Uniglobe.com/Portugalia had it at $182.
Remember that these are "snapshots" and not necessarily what you would find five days or five minutes later. Your results definitely will vary.
To illustrate that disclaimer, consider an example from within the U.S.: a round trip ticket from Los Angeles to Omaha with Saturday overnight stay. A search on U.S. Air and America West turns up a fare of $345 USD. The same search engine that displayed the higher Cancun fares produces $195 USD for this trip!
What happened?
The difference is this: on the Cancun trip, a "special offers" page was used at the airline site. On the Omaha itinerary, a simple airline inquiry about the trip was entered.
The lesson is simple. Don't waste much time searching airline sites unless you're looking at their best offers--but their special offers pages should be consulted before the search engines.
More information: What to look for in special offers from airlines.
