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I recently planned to purchase an Air Canada flight for someone, and while searching around, I kept finding different prices for the exact same flight. After a bit of digging, I realized that clicking through Google Flights always gave me a cheaper price. I’ve never seen this before. My assumption is they just want to rank higher on the flight results, but who knows!

The Currency & Login Trap

The first problem? Every time I changed the currency or signed into my account, it would automatically revert to the higher price. So, I had to get creative: pre-sign in to my account, purchase the flight in Canadian Dollars, and use the right credit card to earn good rewards and avoid foreign transaction fees (Amex Platinum can do just that). Honestly, I figured that was no big deal.

The “Youth” Roadblock

But when I tried to actually book it, I suddenly got blocked because the passenger was a “Youth.” Here’s the issue: Air Canada has three age tiers (Child, Youth, and Adult), but Google Flights only has two (Child and Adult). There was no way to get the Google discount while booking a Youth ticket, because the Google link prefills your ticket type and locks in the discount. You literally cannot go back and change it.

The Workaround

After a bit of thinking, I decided to pull a trick. I manually made the URL link force Google to pull a Youth ticket together with the discount, thereby finally bridging the gap. I hit enter, booked the ticket, and everything seemed to have worked out seamlessly!

Wait… Who is Flying?!

…But then I checked my account. I signed in and saw a reservation… with my name on it. Wait, what?! I did not book a flight for myself! Did I accidentally screw up the booking? I checked the email, and it clearly had his name, not mine.

They also mentioned something about a payment hold and a slight price increase of a few bucks. Confused and a bit panicked, I tried reaching out to Air Canada via X (Twitter) and called them, but nobody picked up. I guess they just have really bad customer service.

The Resolution

Anyhow, I glanced back at the confirmation and noticed there were actually two confirmation codes. Because I was signed into my account when I booked, the system oddly booked me a separate ghost ticket. And since this phantom booking happened right after the first one, the price had apparently gone up a bit! Lol.

After some research, I found out that the Air Canada system can sometimes screw up like this. Thankfully, the phantom booking automatically canceled itself after 24 hours, and since the first flight was properly ticketed, everything was fine.

The Ultimate Irony

So ends my saga, but there is one last thing. I noticed in the confirmation email that it actually listed the specific promo code Google Flights was applying. Turns out, I can just use that code to get the cheaper price directly on the Air Canada website.

I guess I won’t have to jump through these hoops anymore! Lol.

Have you ever encountered something like this before?