For the first time ever, those searching for flights will be able to book Allegiant Airlines on a site other than the airline’s official website. This week, it was announced that Allegiant had reached an exclusive agreement with Expedia Group. Although, at this time, the deal is only set to last for 12 months.
Since Allegiant has low base fares but plenty of fee-incurring options, I was curious how their flights would show up in Expedia. So, I ran a search for dummy dates in August, flying round-trip from Springfield, Missouri to Las Vegas. Sure enough, Allegiant was one of the first options (given the low price). However, when I clicked on the flight, there was a disclosure laying out what was included in the fare and what you could expect to pay for add-ons. For example, the site lists the price of a carry-on bag at $15 to $70. Obviously, that’s a pretty wide range, but it is accurate.
Something interesting about booking Allegiant through Expedia versus the airline’s own site is that the former gives you the round-trip price from the start. Meanwhile, when looking on Allegiant, you’ll see a per-way price — although, in some cases, this is an advantage because you can also see other available days that may be cheaper. For the record, the math was indeed mathing as the Expedia round-trip rate matched the two legs on the Allegiant site.
I was curious to see how the seat selection and baggage interface worked on Expedia. Unfortunately, it seems that I’d need to book and pay for the flight in order to get that far — and I’m not that committed to my reporting, I’m sorry to say. My guess is that, after booking, you’ll be directed to Allegiant to pick out your upgrades, but that’s just speculation on my part.
Something else I noticed is that, in at least one aspect, booking via Expedia may actually be better than doing it directly. That’s because Allegiant insists on highlighting bundle options (which I don’t think are a good deal) and forcing you to find the “No Thanks, Skip Bundle” button to move on. Expedia removes this confusion by simply showing you the fare. Granted, I don’t know what customers will see later on in the process, but I think this is a better way to start.
Overall, I think it’s pretty cool that Allegiant will now gain some visibility thanks to this partnership with Expedia Group. Moreover, I think the Expedia interface does a decent job of letting passengers know what they’re in for (even if a more precise baggage fee price would be helpful). With that, I’m very curious to see how this year-long experiment goes and whether it ends up being extended when renewal time rolls around.
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