The problem with Explorer is that it is showing lowest prices which somebody found some hours or even days ago, and most of these cached prices are gone when you are trying to validate them but sometimes you could get lucky ;)
It is like a multiplied problem of metasearch stale/cached prices, also some OTAs seems to show stale prices on purpose to play the bait and switch game...
Yeah, I've noticed the caching problem a few times, though all of the prices I listed were actual prices I sent friends who purchased or I validated by following the process to the actual fare page. Though sometimes the really cheap fares are with budget airlines who upsell for carry-on and checked baggage lifting the price.
There were a few too good to be true Air Canada prices (sub $400 to India) I saw a few weeks ago, but those didn't exist once checked.
I've been able to convince friends to purchase tickets who would otherwise not have traveled by posting the fare to Facebook. Chicago seems to be a popular one my friends want to go, and they end up being convinced when they see a sub $100 RT ticket from California.
Skypicker looks like a promising tool. At Flystein we use multiple internal and 3d party tools as there is no silver bullet which covers everything, plus there is nothing so far which could completely replace a human brain and common sense :)
At Flystein we ask a link OR a screenshot in case of Beat My Price so there is no problem here. Also you could just specify some realistic budget in the text description with Build My Trip option and you are very welcome to try our services :) Cheers!
Hi! Flystein is not yet another meta-search like Kayak or some travel agency.
It is human expert powered service which helps you to save on flights.
Flystein experts use hundreds sites, professional tools and special saving strategies(article just mention only few of them) and are interested only to save as much as possible and make clients happy, so happy clients would recommend Flystein to friends or blog about it ;) For BeatMyPrice trip requests the small fee is paid only when you get real savings, in opposite case the card authorization is promptly removed.
The service works best for any flights which cost more than lets say 500$ total.
For a simple trip just use your favorite metasearch like Kayak first and then submit results to Flystein as Price to Beat. If Flystein experts cant find you the real savings - your request would be completely free and you will be sure you got the best price already.
For more complex trips - go with Build A Trip and save tons of time and money.
Good catch!
The screenshot does not show NYC->SFO link but it is included in calculation as +200 (609+557+577+200 = 1943)
It was addressed in a separate message, nothing special - just a Virgin flight. We usually recommend Virgin and JetBlue for domestic flights if there is no big price difference with other carriers.
