Buyer Beware – New Level Airline isn’t pricing tickets correctly
The new Level Airline by IAG has been taking the internet by storm lately. They’ve been offering really low fares to and from Barcelona with connections around Europe. Something fishy is going on when you actually try and book a connection out of Barcelona though. Keep reading to find out how you can avoid a potentially expensive mistake.
We wrote about Level yesterday with some breaking news that they sold over 52,000 tickets the first day that they launched. I can only imagine that those tickets were with Barcelona as a final destination, because it seems like if you want to head out of Barcelona, you’re going to pay more than you should!
Level Airline from IAG website
Flying in and out of Barcelona
Just want to make Barcelona your final stop? No problem! Those tickets can still be had pretty inexpensively. Just take a look at these flights that we found in October.
Level Airline Cheap Barcelona Flight
Under $400 for a trans con flight is a great value, especially considering you can earn Avios on your flight, and you’ve got a direct shot to Spain.
Connecting out of Barcelona
In theory, you should be able to connect on IAG’s partner low cost carrier Vueling, at least according to one of their tweets:
Willie Walsh: “LEVEL will allow customers of Vueling’s extensive network to connect with long-haul flights from Barcelona” #FLYwithLEVEL
— LEVEL_en (@flywithlevelEN) March 17, 2017
But it looks like Iberia’s website (which is used to book all Level flights) is having some problems. First, it’s not always offering Vueling flight options all the time, and secondly when it does, the prices are exorbinant! Check out this flight from Oakland to Ibiza
Oakland to Ibiza, add $1000!
Sorry, but adding almost $1,000 for a low cost connection to Ibiza is ridiculous, especially when you can buy the flight on its own for only $119. That’s an 800% markup. OUCH!
Vueling flight to Ibiza, only $119
Pricing displayed doubles
There’s also something funky going on when you actually go to choose your flights. Both Vueling and Iberia are having this same pricing issue when you add them onto a Level flight. Notice below how the inbound flight almost doubles from $375 to $673 once you go to check out? That’s a big oops.
Oakland Basic Fare – looking good
Oops! Just kidding
Buy your connections separately
Until Level figures out where the computer hiccup is, I’d recommend buying your tickets separately. Obviously this is not intentional (at least I hope not!) and I’d imagine that they will be working on a solution soon.
March 19, 2017
Well said. I have been searching for the promotion from Oakland to Barcelona but its not $149 as they advertised. I am begining to question this myself. Its not worth to do business with them
March 19, 2017
I think they’ve got a kink or two to work out but… I’m hoping for the best.
March 20, 2017
Parr of the reasom may be that you can only connect if the connection is an Iberia codeshare flight and BOOKED UNDER THE IB CODE. This in the fare rules.
Super cheap Vueling seats are only bookable on their site and so do not carry an IB code. The IB coded tickets are the more expensive ones with frills.
March 20, 2017
Perhaps, and I hope that’s the only reason. But I find it disingenuous to say that you can connect on their partner, only to not have any of those flights be loadable, and then when you DO connect, it’s 8x the price. Seems like there was plenty of time to fix this problem before going live with ticket sales.
March 20, 2017
It seemed too good to be true. Hopefully this gets fixed.
March 27, 2017
Use Easy Jet to BCN then use Level. Easy. What’s the problem???? Stuff BA and Iberia.