Discrepancy in pricing between ebookers.ie and ebookers.com

A

amgd28

Registered User
Messages
641
Hi All,
Just wanted to make people aware of the fact that effectively the same website in different domains will charge different prices.
I go the manila on business a couple of times a year. I needed to book a flight to manila. Was there earlier this year having booked through ebookers.ie, at a reasonable price of approx 1000euro.
So went to book again for a visit in august. Price quoted on ebookers.ie came to approx 1430. Thought this was dear so I shopped around.Couldn't find anything cheaper, so was about to book, but decided to check out ebookers.com before committing.
ebookers.com quoted in sterling, converted price was approx 1100! I booked it and booking was confirmed, and everything is in order.
Note it was for exactly the same flight, 330 euro of a difference.

So now you know - for flghts out of Ireland, ebookers.com is likely to be a cheaper bet than ebookers.ie!
 
Is this an example of the airline/travel website and tracking cookies issue discussed on AAM last week?
 
There was also a previous thread that showed that booking holidays through keycamp.co.uk was cheaper than going through keycamp.ie
 
Would the difference in price be something like different taxes being charged? Ebookers.ie presumes you are in Ireland and charges you Irish taxes while Ebookers.com presumes you are in the States and charges you American taxes?????
 
brodiebabe said:
Would the difference in price be something like different taxes being charged? Ebookers.ie presumes you are in Ireland and charges you Irish taxes while Ebookers.com presumes you are in the States and charges you American taxes?????
Click to expand...

It shouldn't be. Taxes are based on point of departure and transit airports.

Some countries (in Asia, mostly) have nationality based charges, but these are usually collected manually at the airport, so wouldn't appear in the quote.

Possibilities:
1. Point of Sale - EI/KL have set cheaper prices for UK passengers than for Irish passengers.
2. Currency conversion error. Airlines generally price published (IATA) fares in dollars (actually a thing called NUC (neutral units of currency) which have a 1:1 ratio with the dollar). It is up to the distribution portal to come up with an exchange rate - you may have got a bad one? (i.e. has not been updated/link to currency convertor down so default rate used?).

I see about €40 difference between ebookers.ie (more expensive €1209) and ebookers.co.uk (£786.10 = €1168.54) DUB-MNL return on 1 Aug/8 Aug. EI-KL both ways. What dates did you notice the difference on?

There are also many more airline options on .co.uk (although for this route they seem to be more expensive).
 
Sherman said:
Is this an example of the airline/travel website and tracking cookies issue discussed on AAM last week?
Click to expand...

No, having read that, I cleared all cookies and temp internet files, and went back to the ebookers.ie site. Same price displayed. I also tried from another PC. Same price
 
brodiebabe said:
Ebookers.ie presumes you are in Ireland and charges you Irish taxes while Ebookers.com presumes you are in the States and charges you American taxes?????
Click to expand...

Ebookers.com is uk registered. Prices in sterling, presumes you are in UK
 
yoganmahew said:
I see about €40 difference between ebookers.ie (more expensive €1209) and ebookers.co.uk (£786.10 = €1168.54) DUB-MNL return on 1 Aug/8 Aug. EI-KL both ways. What dates did you notice the difference on?
Click to expand...

Flying out on the 12th and back on the 19th
 
Had a similar issue recently between American Airlines.com and the .ie website. Difference was on the taxes even though flights were out of and in to Dublin.

I booked through the International site as was unaware of the Irish one. There was no option to put Ireland on my CC address so typed it in and left UK in the drop down menu. Payment went through and airline have the booking so all ok. Inadvertently saved about €40. You would wonder why though.
 
amgd28 said:
Flying out on the 12th and back on the 19th
Click to expand...
Just looked again on the dates you quote:
EI602 DUBAMS
KL803 AMSMNL
KL804 MNLAMS
EI611 AMSDUB

ebookers.ie:
€1254.37
fare €1073
tax €181.37

ebookers.co.uk
£868.10 = €1287.23
fare £747
tax £121.10 = €179.59

So ebookers.co.uk is more expensive this time!

This looks more and more like an exchange rates issue - so you always have to check both to see which site has the better rate!

Also bear in mind if there is a small difference with the .ie site being more expensive, use the .ie site as your credit card will probably charge a foreign currency transaction fee - my BoI mastercard charges 1.75%.
 

Interesting - I wonder why the irish site has come down so much - it is now closer to the level I would have expected when I started searching. Thediscrepancy that I encountered was real though, and I don't think could have been accounted for by currency fluctuations. The euro/sterling rate hasn't changed that dramatically since I booked a few weeks ago.....
We may never know!
 

Yes, but the airlines/travel agency websites use fares systems that have their own currency rates. These vary in their update frequency and their value for money. It may be that the ebookers.co.uk rate is updated more frequently to reflect dollar (NUC) rates that the ebookers.ie rate is. As EI and KL internally price fares in euro (their home currency - so the price on their own websites) with the currency movements against the dollar in recent weeks, they have to constantly update the dollar equivalent fare. But you are right, that would be a big difference to just be a bad exchange rate on the ebookers.ie website.
 
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