brit_usa2014

Need to fly back home to Newcastle in February and I can fly either by Aer Lingus and pay $750 or fly to Edinburgh and pay $550 and get the train from there. Another option would be to pay $350 and go by Wow Air (never heard of it before). It only goes to Edinburgh. Is $750 a reasonable price? Would you fly Aer Lingus or Wow Air (never flown either before)!

Why are flights so expensive back home from the USA? Its usually cheaper the other way round

robin1234

Both options sound pretty reasonable to me. It's a matter of perspective I suppose, until a couple of years ago, I remember usually paying $1,200 or so for a round trip to LHR...

BenK91

I'd say that's reasonable.

Me and my wife paid nearly $2000 to fly from Denver to LGW (round trip), granted that was near Christmas but even then we still normally see prices at around $1200-$1500.

Nutek

Reasonable.

It's always a gamble though.

Last year I got BA to fly me Boston > Heathrow for 400ish round trip. I just booked the same thing for this year (same airports / airline / dates) and its 200 bucks more.

Even so, it's a steal considering how much it used to cost. Anything up to $1,200.00 some years ago.

MidAtlantic

I agree it sounds very reasonable to me. It would be helpful to know where you are flying from.

morpeth

Sounds reasonable.

Sometimes better to fly to Dublin, then catch separate flight to Newcastle on a discount airline, a few times ( not always or even usually) this has saved me money.

Giantaxe

WOW Air gets shockingly bad reviews. I didn't want to fly to the UK with them because I didn't want them to strand me in Iceland and wreck the start of my trip, but I did fly back with them from Edinburgh a couple of years ago. It was fine - just avoid paying $$$ for food/water by taking your own.

Don't know where you're flying from, but in the Bay Area prices have dropped markedly due to much increased capacity with flights from WOW, Norwegian and BA's relatively new services from San Jose and Oakland.

rpjs

I have flown Aer Lingus several times and would recommend them, especially as your return flight from Ireland will pre-clear US customs and immigration there and will be treated as a domestic arrival in the US. Do note that they don't provide free booze down the back. Their economy catering is a bit sparse too but you can pre-buy an enhanced meal which I've found to be pretty good and it includes wine.

N1cky

I'd second this. We flew Aer Lingus in November. SFO-DUB, then RyanAir to Manchester ($19 each), reverse for the return journey.

AL was fine, I actually liked the 2 seat configuration for the window seats. No-one got stuck with a middle seat, which is always nice IMO. The no free alcohol was a bit of a shock though.

md95065

Wow Air don't look quite so cheap when you realize that they charge you extra for absolutely everything.

robtuck

Flights originating from the USA are a little more expensive, on the whole, but not always - depends on what airlines are doing with competition. I just booked flights back in July and living only 20 minutes from Atlanta airport this is clearly our "usual". This time though BA were offering significantly lower priced flights from Nashville as they are just opening the route. They are not as cheap the other way around though, so clearly BA is trying to snag some of the USA market from other regional airports, such as Atlanta where USA traffic is huge, but UK flyers will be less precious about.

The best time to book is also slightly different, which would be down to purchasing behaviour I guess. Read online that around 3-4 months out is usually where you see the lowest average fare for transatlantic plus you don't get the same "Sales" activity as you might see in the UK (Virgin & BA usually track each other and have a post Christmas Sale for example in the UK, which was not being advertised in the USA)

Finally, exchange rates will come into play - the rising pound will be reducing the relative price to fly from the USA right now.

brit_usa2014

For those who asked I'll be flying out of Boston Airport. When I looked yesterday flights to NCL were $750 and now they're around $850 Flights are reasonable either to Edinburgh/Manchester!! And its not even summer/school holidays/peak season!!

robtuck

Different markets either side of the Atlantic for the route - doubt too many people will be getting their short and t-shirts ready for a family trip to Newcastle, no offence.

morpeth

Good point that a lot depends on the airlines own market situation at the time. I have found though an anomaly dealing on flights to Newcastle that a few times it was less expensive for me to buy a flight from outside the UK from BA than in the country I was located in- and conversely as an AA platinum member sometimes their customer service could offer me prices and routing I would not have thought about.

Recently I had to book a trip to Newcastle that involved a code share flight with Iberia, the BA price quote 25% less than that of Iberia for the same routing, and 40% less when I considered BA put me in business class for the longest legs of the trip.

Coming from North America I always double-check flying through Dublin as sometimes the Dublin-Newcastle flight can be almost nothing : less expensive than taxi from airport to home.

lansbury

That hasn't been true for some time now. The airlines run very sophisticated load management software which is constantly monitoring the market, reservations and just people checking prices among a myriad of other criteria. I spent a very interesting morning a few years back at Speedbird House having an idiots guide to how it works and as they said the only thing that is predictable is that the computer is unpredictable.