Inconsistent Price Comparison Site Policies

peterpeterpumpkin on 11/04/2017 - 09:36
Last edited 11/04/2017 - 11:34

You can't post a deal link to Staticice. It's just a price comparison website and it's literally banned. If MSY has a deal to a Sony product, just give us a link to the MSY website. Not Sony or Staticice.

You can't post a deal link to Pricehipster. It's a just price comparison website and it's also banned. If Coles has a deal on Bonds underwear, just give us a link to the Coles website. Not the Bonds website or Pricehipster.

Now using the information above, here's a test:

Cathay Pacific has a special on flights to Paris. They start at $1100.

JimmyDiscountFlyer (a pseudonym) sees this deal in a Facebook ad and he knows what to do next. He goes on Skyscanner, IWTF and Momondo and searches for the cheapest available flights to serve the OzBargain community. As often the case, it turns out that a reseller, BYOJet, has the best deal on Cathay Pacific flights, which he found on both Skyscanner and IWTF. It's only $950! In fact, there are 3 other resellers that also sell tickets for less than $1100, which Jimmy really wants to communicate as well.

So what should JimmyDiscountFlyer do next…?

P.S. He adds "please be nice because it's my first post :)".

Poll Options

  • 1
    Post a deal's link to Facebook where he found the deal for flights from $1100?
  • 1
    Post a deal's link to Cathay Pacific's website for flights from $1100?
  • 2
    Post a deal's link to BYOJet for flights from $950?
  • 2
    Post a deal's link to Skyscanner for flights from $950?
  • 1
    Post a deal's link to the Aussie IWTF for flights from $950?
  • 1
    Post a deal's link to Skyscanner/IWTF for $950 but don't mention BYOJet 'cos they suck?
Site Discussion

Comments

  • [Deactivated] on 11/04/2017 - 09:52
    +3

    Jimmy should book the flight and get the hell out of town.

  • Moderatorneil on 11/04/2017 - 11:50

    The difference between the airline booking sites (IWTF, Skyscanner, etc.) is that they can show the date ranges, prices, details of the deal in their links whereas most of the direct sites (e.g airlines) can't (user sessions only). The airline booking sites also tend to be cheaper than direct and the best prices tend to vary. So while an April 12 flight might be cheapest at BYOJet, the April 13 flight lists STA Travel as the cheapest.

    I post a lot of flight deals and I put links for all of the sites as some don't want to book through some little known booking site out of Western Europe and prefer booking with an Australian company in Australian currency even if it means a slight price difference.

    So answer would be post a link to Skyscanner OR IWTF and mention BYOJet in the description (Not a poll option).

  • peterpeterpumpkin on 11/04/2017 - 12:17

    I agree with all of your points, especially your last paragraph. It's clear an aggregator would be more useful (though Skyscanner and IWTF aren't guaranteed to be accurate in real-time unfortunately). I just wanted to ensure I understood OzBargain's policy regarding the primary link. I falsely assumed that the best practice for the primary link would be to use the cheapest price from a seller you find personally reputable and to list a helpful link (e.g. Skyscanner or IWTF) in the body. Thanks for clearing that up.

    I'm sorry I made this discussion public. I probably should have used TWAM in retrospect. I forgot about OzBargain's burgeoning bullying sub-culture, which makes it increasingly hard to have open discussions. It's seemingly unavoidable with popular sites.

    • Moderatorneil on 11/04/2017 - 12:38

      Deal Posting Guidelines. We don't create guidelines to make things difficult. They are always evolving and if there is a better way to do something, then these site discussion forums are the best way forward.

      It's up to you if you want to link to BYOJet or the aggregator. We usually set display stores on flight deals so your potential deal will show up on Cathay Pacific's store regardless of the link. The one place you shouldn't link to is the blog post, that should be credited in the description as the blog post will just be an extra step to where people need to click.

      I forgot about OzBargain's burgeoning bullying sub-culture, which makes it increasingly hard to have open discussions.

      We have zero tolerance for bullying. Commenting Guidelines and Improving The OzBargain Environment, Acting Respectfully & Goals for 2017. If you have any issues, use the report link. We had 1,000,000 comments in 2016, so we can only act on things if people report them.

      • peterpeterpumpkin on 11/04/2017 - 12:56

        Cheers. Don't worry, I know it's way too big to monitor without reports. And the anonymity doesn't help.

        It reminds me of that comment from years ago: "It's OzBargain not OzBully…".

  • [Deactivated] on 11/04/2017 - 12:29
    +1

    post all the aggregators

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