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Quite often when searching for plane tickets I get only some high priced results, ridiculous schedules, etc. It makes me wonder if these are the only options to get from point A to point B or have I just missed something more reasonable and it's sold out.

Having this information could help me make a better decision on what to do next. Especially in cases when exact dates/times are not that critical for me.

I understand that most flight booking engines use the same underlying software for actual searches, but maybe there are some exceptions that could just show sold out flights along with available ones?

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  • This is a good question. I'm pretty sure that travel agents have this ability with their direct connections to the CRS, but I've never seen this feature exposed for end-users.
    – user27478
    Commented Sep 26, 2011 at 11:55
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    Not a direct answer, but I've used wikipedia before to see what flights are offered into and out of an airport. It normally lists airlines and destinations.
    – Ray
    Commented Feb 8, 2012 at 10:12

4 Answers 4

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Yes, there is a way to do this, see http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ and make sure to unselect the box "Only show flights and prices with available seats"

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OK another option just revealed by Lifehacker is hipmunk - you can check ANY time period now, so could search more than just 3 days.

http://lifehacker.com/5827750/hipmunk-flight-search-adds-options-for-flexible-travel-dates

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  • Thanks. I know (and like) Hipmunk too. That feature is great and makes life easier but it's still not a direct answer to the question, which I assume has no answer. Commented Aug 6, 2011 at 8:03
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I don't really think so. Airline schedules are distributed amongst a bunch of different systems and most of the web portals have to do some scraping. Is your issue linked to directs or connecting flights? Bear in mind that some airlines don't like their schedules being aggregated and so you might find a full listing. You could try Amadeus.net though....they used to be quite good.

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  • It's mostly about connecting flights. You can see direct flight schedules by going to the airports web site (at least over here). Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 6:35
  • Okay. Well I am not sure that what you are looking for is really possible - amadeus.net used to give wider connections than most other travel portals but they do not have information for all airlines, for example, and as noted above, not all the airlines will enable their schedules to be picked up by crawlers. Typically depending on the route I am looking for I will look for the indivual flight legs myself.
    – temptar
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 15:07
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Airline and booking sites don't show flight schedules/timetables. They only show what they can sell to you.

Check out www.routehappy.com. Do a "compare flights" between two cities and it'll show you all airlines that fly that route non-stop along with their schedules.

Disclaimer: I work for Routehappy

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