khooniatma
TF Buzz
Hi Everyone,
I did not find this anywhere on any forum so just posting it here for everyone's benefit. HDFC Smartbuy provides multi-city flight bookings via EaseMyTrip. This integration, however, is broken. How?
When you select multi-city flights on Smartbuy, Smartbuy internally searches for two separate airline tickets, i.e onward journey and return journey. Note that this is different from a search which is a multi-city return journey. Effectively, Smartbuy's feed from EaseMyTrip comprises of two one-way flights. How does this make a difference?
Most airlines give massive discounts when you book a return journey with the. Multi-city or not, a two way journey is counted as a return journey if you book directly on the airline's website, or on any of the aggregator (EaseMyTrip, Yatra, ClearTrip, MakeMyTrip) directly.
Let me give an example of what I experienced with Smartbuy -
Delhi to Melbourne - Onward Leg
Brisbane to Delhi - Return Leg
Both of these flights are in December. Below is a comparison for the identical set of flights -
Smartbuy Cost for 2 people: Rs 3,11,500
EaseMyTrip Cost for 2 people: Rs 1,80,300
MakeMyTrip Cost for 2 people: Rs 1,62,700
Let me explain the reason for the massive difference in cost.
If I do two one-way searches on EaseMyTrip for the set of dates, I get the following fares:
Delhi to Melbourne for 2 people: Rs 96,700
Brisbane to Delhi for 2 people: Rs 185,200
Total cost - Rs 2,81,900
As you can see, while there is still a significant difference between Smartbuy cost and the two, one-way journey costs, it is still in that ballpark, compared to the multi-city return journey cost.
I called the concierge and tried explaining this flaw to them several times, but as expected, it fell on deaf ears.
Ultimately, I could not use Smartbuy plartform to book my flights.
Here is what I did instead -
1. Got 3 e-pay vouchers from MMT with 1% off and 5x reward points. Only a maximum of 3 could be applied per transaction.
2. Used the e-pay vouchers and payed the difference with my Infinia card.
(I only have Infinia and Sapphiro cards)
I did not find this anywhere on any forum so just posting it here for everyone's benefit. HDFC Smartbuy provides multi-city flight bookings via EaseMyTrip. This integration, however, is broken. How?
When you select multi-city flights on Smartbuy, Smartbuy internally searches for two separate airline tickets, i.e onward journey and return journey. Note that this is different from a search which is a multi-city return journey. Effectively, Smartbuy's feed from EaseMyTrip comprises of two one-way flights. How does this make a difference?
Most airlines give massive discounts when you book a return journey with the. Multi-city or not, a two way journey is counted as a return journey if you book directly on the airline's website, or on any of the aggregator (EaseMyTrip, Yatra, ClearTrip, MakeMyTrip) directly.
Let me give an example of what I experienced with Smartbuy -
Delhi to Melbourne - Onward Leg
Brisbane to Delhi - Return Leg
Both of these flights are in December. Below is a comparison for the identical set of flights -
Smartbuy Cost for 2 people: Rs 3,11,500
EaseMyTrip Cost for 2 people: Rs 1,80,300
MakeMyTrip Cost for 2 people: Rs 1,62,700
Let me explain the reason for the massive difference in cost.
If I do two one-way searches on EaseMyTrip for the set of dates, I get the following fares:
Delhi to Melbourne for 2 people: Rs 96,700
Brisbane to Delhi for 2 people: Rs 185,200
Total cost - Rs 2,81,900
As you can see, while there is still a significant difference between Smartbuy cost and the two, one-way journey costs, it is still in that ballpark, compared to the multi-city return journey cost.
I called the concierge and tried explaining this flaw to them several times, but as expected, it fell on deaf ears.
Ultimately, I could not use Smartbuy plartform to book my flights.
Here is what I did instead -
1. Got 3 e-pay vouchers from MMT with 1% off and 5x reward points. Only a maximum of 3 could be applied per transaction.
2. Used the e-pay vouchers and payed the difference with my Infinia card.
(I only have Infinia and Sapphiro cards)
)
