American Airlines has added a new clause to their conditions of carriage, banning the use of automated tools that rebook your flight at a lower fare with no change fee.
While airlines may frown upon using robots to handle the rebooking, it’s a good reminder that most flights these days offer free changes, and most award tickets offer free cancellations.
Hotels and car rentals also typically offer the ability to rebook at no charge.
With airlines and hotels moving to dynamic pricing, it’s more important than ever to stay on top of your bookings.
Google flights can help you track airfare for specific flights or dates, which can be a big help for booking flights and reshopping.
On some trips, I’ll end up reshopping a flight or hotel room half a dozen times as prices fall. Thanks to free cancellations, I don’t mind locking in a higher price, knowing that I can always rebook when prices drop.
By watching the price on a daily basis, I’m always ready to rebook at a lower rate. With my brothers, Dovid and JJ making a bas mitzvah and upsherin in Miami this month, that has helped drive down the cost of our United airfare from 20K miles to 7.5K miles and the S. Regis Bal Harbour down from 120K points to 75K points.
With the S. Regis, I noticed that some dates would go up while others went down, so I booked each night individually to be able to maximize the reshopping savings.
How much have you saved by reshopping your flight, hotel, and car rental, and how often do you check on potential savings after you book travel?
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37 Comments On "American’s Banning Of Automated Reshopping Tools Is A Good Reminder To Reshop All Of Your Travel Plans To Save Big!"
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@Dan do you have a list of reshopping tools you would recommend?
@dan would love link to post where you share reshopping techniques as well
Which apps track hotel and car price dropping?
Autoslash.com for cars
Any way to reshop award flights and stays Automatically or do those have to be done manually?
What is the difference between Google flights and Kayak?
Please link to where in the CoC they prohibit the use of Auto re-shoppers. I do see the definition, but dont see where they prohibit it.
It’s under “ticket validity” > “prohibited booking practices”
**Ignore that** I see it now.
Spent 2 nights in Miami in January. Saved 30k Marriott points by repricing
Does the St. Regis allow you to combine the various nights into one stay without making you checkout?
Typically yes. I have done it many times and just let them know once we check it that all for the same person.
In theory could kick you out if they specifically need that room but I have never had a problem and again we tell them upfront so can make sure room will be available. I also have never done for more then 4 or 5 days so not sure if more if a problem if longer stay.
Hey Dan,
I booked a ticket through a credit card’s travel agency (Amex of Chase), and the fare went down, so I changed the flight and was told that the difference in fair will be refunded to me the next day, as a voucher. I called the next day, and was told that it was being refunded directly to the Travel agency. The online TA did send me a confirmation of my flight change, but kept the price the same.
Is this a huca, or is that true that the airline will refund the money directly to TA, and the rep who changed the flight for me and told me that I would be getting a voucher made the mistake?
+1
Autoslash for car rentals is great for this.
Assuming this is only relevant within 24 hrs or booking fares and stays that are refundable
No, nearly all fares allow for free changes.
How would free changes work if I wana rebook for the same day ? Have to change to another date then change back ?
Other then basic economy which I would assume a large percentage of the readers of this blog book
@Dan I’m curious to hear your process for how you manage reshopping and keeping tabs on already booked travel.
Probably not allowed to share a link here, but I recently wrote a free reshopping tool for Southwest. If admin allows, happy to share a link.
Suggestion: You can start a topic on forums.dansdeals.com then state that people can private message you for more info. I may be your first pm there!
I don’t really want to jump through hoops tbh. This is a free tool so I’m not inclined to try too hard to advertise it. But I noticed if you Google the following it’s the first result: southwest lower price notifier
For point or cash?
Works for both actually
How do you reshop, you just cancel it and book it again?
free changes on cash bookings?
Is that true for most airlines?
@dan when booking hotel nights separately do you have to check out and recheck in each day?
Just saved over $900 yesterday by rebooking hotel and car rental (for the exact same car and room). It’s a great tactic!
which sites are good to use to track flights and hotel prices for specific reservations?
You can do this with a fight that’s been book with Chase ultimate rewards?
+1
+1
How does it work once the price goes down when Chase points were used to pay for ticket/car ?
+1
I just had to cancel a flight booked with Chase Ultimate Rewards, and they charged me a cancelation fee of $240. Did I overpay something that I wouldnt have had to pay??
Can you please provide a bit more instruction on how you reshop? I’ve never done that or heard of that before.
+1 Dan this was a vague post