Discover has announced a new member to their lucrative Shop Discover program. It is no secret that I am a big fan of Discover Card and their Shop Discover and Cashback Bonus programs. Discover is the oldest credit card in my portfolio, dating back to my high school days of the late 90s. It is also no wonder that I always turn to Discover first when going to make an online purchase because typically their Shop Discover program grants the highest payouts of any of the reward programs. In addition, their 5% cashback on rotating categories is an industry leader, although I wish they would raise the limits on what can be earned. If I have the means to spend more, creating more fees for them, why should I not be rewarded for it?

So I was excited to evaluate Shop Discover’s new partnership with CheapTickets.com. The new agreement boasts a 5% cashback bonus on airfare purchases.

Let me preface this by saying I have never used CheapTickets.com before this experiment. When shopping for airfares, I typically start with the ITA Software program, as well as individually shopping the carriers not listed such as Southwest Airlines. I also used to extensively rely on Expedia and Travelocity to help monitor prices, but their systems have become rather broken and not so user friendly as they once were.

So for comparison sake for this experiment, I am going to perform searches using the ITA software, CheapTickets, and the carrier’s direct website to see how things stack up against sites like Expedia and Travelocity. Of course, your experience may be slightly different based on your individual scenario. My main goal is to prove to myself and others that saving 5% using ShopDiscover and CheapTickets.com makes sense.

Lets start with a basic search, and we will go with my favorite example, Cleveland (CLE) to Honolulu (HNL), and lets say for the middle of August 2013, still giving us plenty of time out to snag a deal during the busy summer season when kids are still out of school.

I also need to note that the ShopDiscover 5% cashback bonus is based on the base fare and does not get calculated on taxes and fees.

August 7 to 14, 2013 based on four (4) seats for a typical family. All flights flying a combination of United and American Airlines.

ITA Matrix – $903.77 per person ($989.30 per person with taxes/fees; $3,957.20 total)
CheapTickets – Base price unknown ($1,011.29 per person with taxes/fees; $4,045.16 total)
Travelocity – ($1074.79 per person includes taxes and fees; $4,299.16)
Expedia – ($989.30 per person; $3,985.20 total, includes Expedia booking fee)

Right off the start, what I do not like after going through with a dummy booking on CheapTickets is no where can I find out exactly what my flight costs without the taxes and fees. They only give me a final cost. I had hopes that even after entering in all of our passenger information (fake) that on the final screen it would show me the tally of costs, but they do not from what I can tell. Even the little link for “Taxes and Fees Included” goes to a generic window explaining the extra charges but no individual explanation for this particular order.

The problem being I have no way of knowing what the taxes and fees are to determine the base fare for determination of the 5% Discover Cashback. However, I will presume a similar taxes/fee structure to that at ITA Matrix.

This means roughly $85.53 of each ticket is the result of fees and taxes, which results in a base fare of approximately $925.76 each, or approximately $22 per ticket higher than that through the ITA Matrix.

How Does CheapTickets Compare to CheapTickets

Here is the real kicker that bothers me. I decided to try another experiment, comparing the same exact criteria by directly going to CheapTickets.com in another browser. Keep in mind the first time I went to CheapTickets.com was through the Shop Discover portal.

This time the price dropped to $995.30 per person (including taxes and fees) or $3,981.20 for all passengers.

This proves that not only does CheapTickets cost more than purchasing from the carriers directly using the ITA Matrix, but also that CheapTickets increases the price of the tickets when using a cashback portal such as ShopDiscover. Shameful!

However, before you abandon this offer altogether, lets again look at the numbers.

Is ShopDiscover 5% Cashback Worth it at CheapTickets.com?

The ITA Matrix tells us the best price at this moment in time is $903.77 per person. Cheap Tickets, via Shop Discover is approximately $925.76 each. However, purchasing via ShopDiscover will result in 5% cashback or $46.29 off of the purchase price. This means the savings far exceed the ITA Matrix offer, even including that CheapTickets marks up the prices by going through ShopDiscover.

The dynamics of this offer and how they vary across platforms fascinates me! Will your same experiment warrant similar results? Let us know in the comments, because sometimes paying more means paying less in the long run.

Thanks ShopDiscover for proving me and my skepticism wrong, as this does look it can benefit our family and the consumer!

Save Money, Travel More!

Source: Discover Facebook