ITA Software

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Help with ITA Software's Fare Shopping Engine


Frequently Asked Questions
Specifying your search
	Round Trips
	One-Way and Multi-Segment Trips
Interpreting search results
	The Matrix Display
	Choosing whole trips
		Trip Lists
		Trip Details
	Choosing Flight-by-Flight
		Quick Tutorial
		Graphical version
Money-Saving Tips
The ITA Route Language

Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions:

What does your software do? Why is it different from a travel agent or another website?

Our software searches the public fares published by the airlines very thoroughly, and then presents the answers to you in a form that's easy to read and easy to reorganize, so that you can easily compare the features that are most important to you. We can find and organize more options than a traditional travel agent or travel web site. While we don't have any private fares and will not be able to list fares that are part of special deals negotiated by travel agents or travel websites, we can often beat these private fares with our solutions.
I found a better price somewhere else. Why would that be?

There are a few possible explanations:
- If you didn't do all of your searching at the same time, it's not a good comparison. The right way to compare two web sites, agents, airlines, or any other source of plane tickets is to try to find travel options for a specific trip on both of them at the same time. Both searching with the same criteria (same cities, same dates, same times) and performing the searches at the same time is important for making a fair comparison. Airlines change their fares many times a day, every day; and availability of airline seats changes every second as people buy tickets and cancel reservations. Also, a fare which can be used for traveling the next week might not be valid for travel the week after. So trying a search on a ticket you've already bought (or a trip you've already taken!) will not give you a good idea of how well the service can do.
- Cheaper fares you find on other websites may be private or negotiated fares to which ITA does not have access. These fares may well be better deals than what we can find for you.
- Your search criteria may have been different. If you didn't search using the same criteria, you'll get different answers. For example, if you specified a time range on our site but not on another, or if you specified different time ranges, you won't get the same answers.
- It may be a bug. If you got a higher price when you searched with us and you think it may be a bug, we'd like to hear about it. Please include when you did your search, what search terms you used (all of the things you selected or filled in to the Trip Planner, before you hit the "go" button), what your best result with us was, and any other websites you may have tried.

Can I plan international trips?

Yes, ITA Software provides full support for pricing international flights. To ensure the most accurate pricing, be sure to enter the name or code of your home city in the "Sales city" near the bottom of the trip request form (learn more about the importance of specifying a sales city here.
Do you have special fares, like web specials, business deals, or military specials? What about seniors' rates or infant rates?

Unfortunately we do not currently have access to special fares for military personnel, employees of certain companies, or "web specials". The reason is that these specials are usually negotiated between a particular travel agent and an airline, or between a particular company and its chosen travel agent or airline. The "web specials" are usually only for people who order their tickets through a particular web site or on an airline's own web site. Since ITA currently searches only the fares published by the airlines, you can book our solutions with any travel agent or directly with the airline. In addition, ITA's search engine applies the appropriate discounts for seniors and children passengers whenever they apply.
If your software says that a ticket at a particular price is available, can I be sure that I will actually be able to buy it?

ITA Software makes every effort to display fares as available only if we know they are available. We are dependent, however, on the information we get from the computer reservation systems, which in turn receive their availability information from the airlines. Accordingly, our software may show a ticket price that you will not be able to book. We believe that these instances will be rare, however.

Bugs/Problems:

I'm an AOL user. When I submit a query, I get the "please wait" page but I never get the query answers. Why?

Sometimes when AOL users try to access our site, they encounter a problem where the solutions to their searches never get displayed in their browser window. (Some AOL users never have this problem.) When this happens they get a "connection timed out" message or their browser just appears to stop at the "please wait" page without going any further. The workaround for this is to start AOL as you normally would, and then use another web browser (like Internet Explorer or Netscape) to access our site.

We realize this is not a very convenient thing to do, and we are working to find out what causes this error so that we can fix it. If you find out more about the problem, or find a workaround using AOL's browser, please contact us.

Filling out the Trip Request Form:

Where can I find a list of airport codes?

You don't actually need to know any three letter airport or city codes. Just type in the name of the city or airport you want to fly to or from. Add the state name (or abbreviation) if there might be confusion (for instance "Portland, Oregon" or "springfield, mo"). If you use a state abbreviation, though, don't put any periods in it. Periods may keep the abbreviation from being recognized. However, if you do know the airport code, you can use that instead (saves typing!).
What if I don't know the three-letter code of the airport I want to go to?

Please see the answer to question above.
How do I plan a trip where I fly to one airport and return from another?

You can plan a trip like this by clicking on the "Multi-Segment" tab at the top of the first page of the trip request form. For instance, to plan a trip where you want to fly from Chicago to Orlando, drive to Miami, and return to Chicago from Miami, you would enter the following:
```
    SEGMENT 1
        From: chicago
        To: orlando

    SEGMENT 2
        From: miami
        To: chicago
```
You can also use this feature to also plan trips where you fly A=>B and B=>C. The "Multi-Segment" feature defaults to three segments, but you can use the "Add Segment" and "Remove Segment" buttons to plan trips from one to four segments. For more information see Other Types of Trips.
How do I specify multiple airports for my origin or destination?

You can enter multiple cities or airports in the origin or destination fields of the trip request form. Just separate the names with a semi-colon (";"). For instance, to find the cheapest flights between Boston, MA or Providence, RI or Manchester, NH and Cincinnati, OH or Dayton, OH, try entering "Boston, MA; Manchester, NH; Providence, RI" in the origin field and "Cincinnati; Dayton, OH" in the destination field.
The software complained that it found more than one city/airport for the name I entered. How do I fix that?

Re-enter the city/airport name with more information. Try adding the state name, if you left that off. For instance, if you typed "portland", the software might complain that both Portland, Maine and Portland, Oregon match your input. Try typing in "portland, or" instead. Or you can use the three-letter code, if you know it (for instance, PDX, for Portland, Oregon).
How do I find the airports near my destination?

If you don't know which airport is near your destination, you can look up the airports in a state by entering the state's name as the Origin or Destination. Hit "GO" and a list of major airports in the state you entered will be shown.
What is "Sales city", and when and why do I need to specify it?

The "Sales city" refers to the city in which a ticket will be sold (for most trips, this will be your home city).
For trips within the United States, or for trips which originate from the United States, it is generally fine to ignore the "Sales city" field and leave its value of BOS (Boston, MA) as is.
When planning international travel which originates outside the United States, however (for example, a round trip from Paris to New York City, or a round trip from Rome to London), it is very important to supply us with the city in which the ticket will be sold (for most trips, this will be your home city). Providing the correct sales city affects the fares and currencies used when pricing such international trips.
A second way that the sales city can be relevant (for both domestic and international trips) is when advance purchase restrictions apply. For example, if you live in Los Angeles and it is 11:00PM there, entering "LAX" as the Sales City will enable you to view fares that are set to expire at "midnight" tonight. By contrast, if you entered the Sales City as BOS, those fares would not be displayed because it would already be 2:00AM in Boston.
What do the "Cheapest available", "Business class", and "First class" options in the service class pulldown menu actually mean?

The options in this menu enable users to control two different aspects of their travel:
- The comfort and convenience of the seat you sit in on the planes you travel on, and
- Whether or not your tickets are refundable if you decide not to go on your trip, and whether or not you are charged a penalty if you decide to change your trip in some way.
Below is a description of what each of these classes of service means on the ITA website:
- Cheapest available: Seats in the coach class cabin (if we find first class or business class options which are cheaper, we will also return those options to you). These tickets usually have a number of restrictions (nonrefundable, penalties for changing your trip in some way, blackout dates, etc).
- Business class: Seats in the business class cabin, which might actually be the same as first class seating, if there are only two cabins on the plane. If we find first class options which are cheaper, we will also return those options to you. Unless otherwise stated, these solutions are refundable and have no ticket change penalties (though they may have other types of restrictions).
- First class: Seats in the first class cabin. Unless otherwise stated, these solutions are refundable and have no ticket change penalties (though they may have other types of restrictions).

Interpreting ITA Search Results:

When choosing flights using the graphical interface, the colored flight bars display is all messed up. What's wrong?

Some browsers have problems displaying the graphical version of the "Choose flights" interface. If you notice a problem, please report it to us; we want to know! If the problems make the interface difficult to use, consider switching over to the textual version of the "Choose flights" interface, which has similar functionality, but without the graphics, and probably without the display problems.
The software didn't return any answers for the trip I specified. How come?

There might be several reasons why the software was unable to find any solutions matching the criteria you specified:
- You may have specified a time window for arrival or departure that was too narrow. Try adjusting the time range controls or the "Alternate dates" menu to widen the time range within which to search.
- You may have specified an origin or destination that doesn't have many flights. Try adding airports in the vicinity to your search.
- A bug in our software. If you think the software didn't find any answers it clearly should have for a trip, please send us email, giving us the details of the trip you asked it about. It's important for you to include the following information with your report:
  - What you asked for (i.e. the settings you selected for all of the menus/fields which you used to specify your trip)
  - What operating system run on your computer (i.e. Windows 98, Macintosh, etc)
  - What web browser you're using and what version it is (i.e. Netscape or Internet Explorer), and
  - Who provides your Internet connection

When a search is performed, do you check to see if there are seats available on the flight options you present?

Yes. We check seat availability for every option, and only present flight options which actually have seats available. There are exceptions, however: we are unable to check seat availability for some airlines, because we do not have access to that information. In these cases, we will always warn you on the 'details' pages for these options that 'we are unable to confirm seat availability for this option'.
Sometimes, when I perform a search, I ask to see itineraries in a particular class of service (e.g. first class), but the search returns some answers in which part of or the entire itinerary is in a lower class of service. Why?

There are several possible reasons for why we might return itineraries such as this:
- There are no seats available in the class of service you requested for some or all of the segments of your trip. Rather than forcing you to go back and re-specify your trip with a lower class of service, we show you what is available, given that the class of service you requested is not available.
- There's no way to fly one or more segments of your trip in the class of service you requested. For example, no first class service is provided by any carrier for some destinations (e.g. small cities and towns served by smaller planes with no first or business class cabins). In this case, we make every attempt to find first or business class service for all flight segments of the trip for which this is possible.
- There are coach class itineraries with fewer stops than the first or business class itineraries. First or business class travelers, for example, might very well prefer a nonstop coach class itinerary over a first or business class itinerary which contains one or more stops.
In cases like this, our philosophy is for our search engine to return itineraries to you which match as closely as possible to what you want (even if it's not exactly what you asked for), rather than returning no itineraries at all and forcing you to perform another search.
I've found the flights I want; how do I book them?

ITA Software's website does not currently have the ability to make reservations and sell tickets directly. However, you can use the information from the ITA Software site to book your tickets from a conventional travel agent, airline, or an online travel site. Once you've found the ticket you want, it's a good idea to check the airline's web site to see if there are currently any specials on the fare you've chosen. If you want to book an itinerary with multiple carriers, though, you will need to go through an independent travel agent rather than an airline.

Note: To make sure your travel agent gets you the same flights for the same price that you found with ITA Software, you will need the booking codes from the 'booking details' page for that trip. Also, to make sure that the booking codes you have and the fare you want are still valid, you should order your ticket the same day that you looked it up on our site. Booking codes and fare rules change daily, and this is the best way to ensure you get the flights you want at the price we quote.
What does "we are unable to confirm availability" mean?

Some carriers, such as JetBlue, do not list their availability information in a form that the ITA Software website can access. You must contact these airlines directly to see if a given ticket is available.
I entered a trip for many passengers and didn't get any answers or didn't get very many answers. What's wrong?

Many airlines never tell us that there are more than 4 seats available on a plane. We are working to fix this problem.