Every Airline Wants You to Book Flights in Its App. Should You?

What more than 4,500 fare comparisons show: unless someone else is paying, installing only the airline's own app is a bad idea.

The summer travel season is in its last stretch, which means it is time to book flights for the National Day holiday.

Open an airline app and you will find China Eastern's "limited-time deals on independent travel for the second half of the year," China Southern's "Super Member Day" booking special on the 28th of every month, and Air China's "More Segments, More Miles" campaign, which pays members bonus miles for booking in the app.

Airlines have been fighting online travel agencies such as Trip.com Group and Qunar for that business for the better part of a year now.

On the last day of 2015, China Southern Airlines, Hainan Airlines and Capital Airlines announced they were suspending their partnerships with Qunar. Chongqing Airlines, China Eastern and Air China followed with near-identical statements closing their flagship stores on the platform.

A few months earlier, Air China had circulated a notice barring agents from listing fares more than 2% below the prices on its own website, on pain of steep penalties.

The big airlines later resumed working with Qunar, but the prices on the platform had changed.

For decades, airlines sold tickets through agents in order to reach more cities and more people. Smartphones let them reach ordinary consumers directly, the way Trip.com Group and Qunar do — not just the people who fly for work.

After several months of price changes, can what an airline offers on your phone compete with the travel platforms?

We picked 22 routes across nine of the busiest airports and ran four booking scenarios: same-day, two weeks out, National Day, and Chinese New Year. We compared the apps of Air China, China Eastern, China Southern and Hainan Airlines — the four carriers that hold more than 80% of the Chinese market — against four travel platforms: Alitrip, Tongcheng, Trip.com Group and Qunar, backed by the internet giants Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu.

On price, the thing that matters most, airline apps have no real advantage

• Booking a flight that leaves the same day: airline apps often run out of seats

At 2 p.m. on Monday, August 15, we searched for that day's fares on flights departing from 4 p.m. onward.

In the charts below, light green marks the lowest fare in a time slot and dark green marks any app within 5% of it. The bright red marks gaps of more than 30%; in the final tallies, some gaps reach 100% or even 150%.

When you need to fly today, Alitrip and Qunar have the most seats left. If the Hainan Airlines app is the only one on your phone, you may not get out at all. On price, the lowest fare in a slot also turns up most often on Qunar and Alitrip.

Counting how often each app had the lowest fare in a slot, or came within 5% of it, the online travel agencies clearly win.

The widest gaps above the lowest fare in a slot came from the Air China and China Eastern apps.

Out of Beijing and Shanghai, Air China and China Eastern usually have the most seats. But book on the day of departure and any airline may have little left, or nothing but expensive first-class seats. The platforms give you more to choose from.

• Two weeks out: third-party platforms are still cheaper between first-tier cities, with China Eastern out of Shanghai as the exception

On the afternoon of August 16 we searched for a Saturday two weeks out, August 27, taking the cheapest fare in each app for every hour from 6:00 in the morning to 22:00 at night.

Most of the time, the cheapest fares between first-tier cities sit on Alitrip and Qunar.

The exceptions are China Eastern's Shanghai–Beijing and Shanghai–Guangzhou flights and its Guangzhou–Shanghai flights. On those three routes, only the China Eastern app has the cheapest ticket.

• National Day fares are all expensive; for a cheap seat, look at the budget carriers

Over the National Day holiday the apps differ less than usual, and they share one trait: everything is expensive. Even the cheapest fare in a slot carries no real discount.

Qunar came out cheapest in our results, with Alitrip next. Most of their low fares come from budget carriers such as China United Airlines and China Express Airlines.

Tongcheng also carries plenty of budget-carrier tickets, but charges more for them.

For this period, the budget carriers remain the cheaper way to fly.

• Chinese New Year: airlines have not released many seats, or what they had is nearly gone

On August 17 we used the eight apps to book flights for the Chinese New Year rush. January 25 falls two days before New Year's Eve, when people start heading home or setting off on trips.

China Eastern had the lowest fare most often among the airline apps. Air China's released fares are all on the high side, and Hainan Airlines still flies very little. Across routes between the nine busy airports, the Chinese New Year fare gap between airlines and online agencies is already small.

For Chinese New Year bookings made now, China Eastern is the cheapest of the airline apps. It has the lowest fare on most routes, and when it doesn't, it usually sits less than 5% above.

On the online travel agencies, the cheapest prices generally come from two places: the airlines' own flagship stores and the platforms' in-house flash-sale channels. Mileage redemption, changes and refunds all work through the airlines' WeChat official accounts as well.

• No international routes, because the apps aren't worth using for them

Delta often has cheap seats from Beijing and Shanghai to the US West Coast. It shares an alliance with China Eastern and China Southern, and points earned on one can buy award tickets on the other — yet you still cannot book a Delta ticket in the China Eastern or China Southern app.

The same goes for Air China and United Airlines, both in Star Alliance.

Airlines still compete with each other more than they cooperate. On international routes that can mean a difference of more than a thousand yuan on a single ticket.

On domestic routes the gap is smaller, but if your departure time has to be right, one airline's app is not enough.

On the apps themselves, Air China's is the best of the airlines

China Eastern and Air China Wireless both shipped new versions recently, and both are much better than they were a month ago.

• Air China

After those updates, the Air China app opens fastest and runs most smoothly of the four. It has everything it ought to have.

When you book, Air China, China Southern and Hainan Airlines all show fares right on the calendar. Only China Eastern doesn't.

Until June of this year, Air China's member services lived in a separate app, Phoenix Miles Hub, run by an outside company.

Air China then ended that partnership and folded Phoenix Miles Hub into the new version of its own app. There was a strange interlude: the operator of Phoenix Miles Hub texted users to accuse Air China of walking away unilaterally, and told them to download Mileage Manager, an app with no connection to Air China.

The Air China app now handles the basics — booking, check-in, changes — while member benefits such as claiming missing miles and redeeming them sit under a Phoenix Miles tab.

After nearly two months of upgrades, Air China's app is the best of the airline apps on both detail and stability.

• China Eastern

China Eastern's app offers the most. Directly under the flight search box are hotels, a points mall, vacation packages, airport pickup and drop-off, insurance and overseas Wi-Fi, plus bundles of hotel, attraction ticket and flight, and a member section where you can claim missing miles.

It is also the worst of the airline apps to use.

Over the weeks between planning this test and finishing it, one QDaily iPhone 6s could never get the China Eastern app to open at all. In App Store reviews, crashes on search, failed ID-photo verification and crashes at launch are all common complaints.

The app has no eye for detail either. Type "Pudong" into the departure field and Pudong Airport doesn't come up; you have to search "Shanghai," "Shanghai Pudong" or "PVG."

Worse, China Eastern runs two passwords. Besides the one you log in with, rarely used tasks such as changing your personal information or adding a mileage-redemption beneficiary require a separate payment password — used so seldom that you may have to reset it every time.

• China Southern

China Southern's is the only app in the test that still hasn't been fitted to the iPhone 6/6 Plus screen. Few apps in the App Store are in that state now; the iPhone 6 has been out for nearly two years.

The basics work well enough, and the app puts award tickets, changes and refunds, and cabin upgrades where you can see them. Claiming missing miles happens on China Southern's official WeChat account instead.

• Hainan Airlines

The Hainan Airlines app books Hainan flights and those of its codeshare partners.

Apart from self-service check-in and flight status, everything else — the occasionally useful and the never-opened alike — is dumped behind a "Travel Assistant" button in the bottom-right corner. You cannot claim missing miles in the app.

Elite status buys less than it did ten years ago

Beyond fares and booking, airlines have long used frequent-flyer programs to hold on to customers.

Air China has Phoenix Miles, China Eastern has Eastern Miles, China Southern has the Sky Pearl Club. Each promises roughly the same two things: better treatment and award tickets.

Ten years ago, elite status made a trip noticeably more comfortable.

At the airport, while everyone else shuffled toward the economy counters, a gold member walked up to the first-class desk and saved half an hour.

Past security, a gold member did not have to choose between boiled water at 10 yuan a cup and frozen dumplings at 5 yuan apiece. He could walk into the first- or business-class lounge and eat a free bowl of beef noodles. Back then you only learned that a flight was late once you were at the airport, so a lounge sofa made the wait far easier.

On board, a flight attendant brought a greeting and a newspaper. In the days when phones and laptops had to stay off and the iPad wasn't even on a drawing board, a copy of Global Times or Reference News was the only thing many people had to read.

Ten years on, all of it survives, and none of it is as appealing.

Check-in: If you have only a carry-on, your phone or a kiosk checks you in faster than the first- and business-class counters.

Security: Chasing frequent travelers, banks including ICBC, China Merchants Bank, CITIC and China Guangfa have added CIP fast-track service to platinum cards whose annual fee can be waived — a dedicated lane, or the first- and business-class channel. An airline gold member holding an economy ticket still queues with everyone else. Without a bank card, Yidao airport transfers and UnionPay Wallet sell the same CIP service cheaply.

Waiting: Umetrip and VariFlight tell you before you leave home that your plane is still 1,000 kilometers away and will not take off on time, so you can go to the airport later instead of sitting at the gate. If the flight really is delayed, or you need a rest between connections, the Priority Pass and Dragon Pass that come with premium bank cards get you into the lounges. Neither is harder to get than Air China gold, which takes 80 segments or 80,000 kilometers a year.

Food: Big airports now have chain restaurants charging city prices. The airline lounges serve the same dull canteen food they did ten years ago, and if you miss the meal window, biscuits and instant noodles.

What's left of membership is miles and upgrades.

Take Air China from Beijing to Shanghai Hongqiao: a full-fare one-way earns 1,195 kilometers. Book a December 2 flight today and 12,000 kilometers buys an award ticket — fly ten times, get one free. Book a discounted fare and the same distance earns 75%, 50% or even 25% of that.

It is a real benefit, but the airlines don't require you to book in their apps. Tickets bought through Trip.com Group, Alitrip and other channels earn exactly the same miles.

So the airlines have started running promotions to pull people in. Air China's current one pays miles for every booking made in the app: 16 bookings in a quarter, on flights the member takes himself, earn 15,000 kilometers.

What a mile is worth depends on the airline and the route you redeem on, and unless you are willing to let the airline pick your destination, you often can't redeem on the routes that pay best.

By the estimate of the frequent-flyer site BoardingArea, miles on foreign carriers are generally worth 1.3 to 1.5 US cents each — roughly 0.14 to 0.16 yuan per kilometer. China's four big airlines usually fall short of that.

None of this matters to people flying on business. Many companies' only rule is economy class; they don't insist on the cheapest airline. If you aren't paying, sticking with one carrier on the company's money and spending the miles on holiday is a very good deal.

If you are paying, the miles often aren't worth the extra fare that loyalty to one airline costs you.

Besides carrying people between airports, what else do airlines want to sell?

Almost everyone booking a flight is traveling for pleasure or for work, and beyond the ticket come hotels, attraction tickets, airport transfers, even insurance and visas.

Open any online travel agency's app and the home page says the same thing: one app for everything about your trip.

Chinese airlines are not alone in wanting bookings back on their own sites. Delta pulled its flight information off online travel agency sites altogether, and Lufthansa charges an extra booking fee of more than ten US dollars on any ticket bought outside its own website.

The more passengers buy from the airline directly, the more chances the airline has to sell them something else.

The industry calls this upselling. A large share of Delta's profit comes from what passengers buy after the base fare.

China Eastern and China Southern both sell services tied to the destination. China Southern Holidays packages flights, hotels and attraction tickets; China Eastern books hotels through a partnership with Booking. Both sell overseas Wi-Fi, in both cases supplied by Youbanban. Hainan Airlines, after investing in Uber, wired Uber airport transfers into its app — buried so deep that you tap the suitcase icon in the bottom-right corner and then hunt for it among dozens of others.

Next to the online travel agencies, whose home pages list dozens of categories, what the airlines offer is not yet competitive.

The airlines want the same thing the platforms want: every travel purchase made in one app, theirs. Against rivals who have burned through huge subsidies and built reliable supply, they are nowhere close.

So how should you buy a ticket?

• For the least trouble, Alitrip and Qunar will get you the cheapest fare or something near it.
• Tongcheng is the most expensive of the third-party platforms, though it does hand out subsidies, such as a 20-yuan rebate.
• Trip.com Group and Qunar have merged, but the prices they show still differ. If you want the lowest fare, install both.
• Airlines do occasionally have the genuine lowest fare, so if you don't mind the clutter, installing every app is the only way to be sure.
• The cheapest tickets on the platforms often come from the airlines' own flagship stores. If you insist on Air China, China Eastern or China Southern, a third-party platform will save you only a few yuan. Many of the big three's flights are codeshared with smaller carriers such as Shandong Airlines, Joy Air and XiamenAir, and those fares run a little lower; the aircraft and the service are the same, though you may earn fewer miles.
• If the Hainan Airlines app is the only one you have, an urgent trip may leave you with no ticket at all.
• On popular routes, budget carriers aren't necessarily cheap. Outside the earliest and latest departures, they often aren't the lowest fare.
• If you want a more comfortable airport but don't live on planes, a premium bank card is easier to get than airline elite status, which takes 40,000 kilometers or 40 segments a year.
• Airline apps do check-in and flight status too, but when the gate changes or the flight slips, Umetrip knows before the airline tells you.
• On longer flights, check the aircraft on SeatGuru before you pick a seat and you can avoid the bad ones.
• Your miles don't have to go to the airline you're flying. Where to Credit shows what your fare class earns with each carrier.
• For now the airlines are still aiming at frequent business travelers who don't watch the price. If that isn't you, there is no reason to install just one app.

Cover image from Visual hunt