Cheap flights
Apr 8th 2011, 11:15 am
#31
Septic Sprout
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
Re: Cheap flights
Having got up early this morning and with a bit of time on my hands during my morning cup of tea I decided to have a look at this a bit more closely, mainly because I'm the kind of kid that just has to find out how things work.
I don't know when OP is flying, but I priced out his itinerary traveling in early November, departing on a Wednesday and spending exactly one week away. Same routing: Nashville to Heathrow via Toronto with Air Canada.
Here is what found:
Vayama: $772
Expedia: $753
Air Canada's own site: $753
As I suspected, it's not as simple as saying 'Website X has the cheapest fares'. My experience has been that often one is a bit cheaper than another, but the one that is a bit cheaper is not a constant. In this instance Expedia was cheaper than Vayama, but no cheaper than booking directly with Air Canada, where you would have no difficulty selecting seats. (I will always book directly with the carrying airline for that reason if I know that there is no saving to be had elsewhere).
The holy grail of booking cheap flights, however, is achieving big savings, not $20 here and $30 there. Just for jollies I then went and priced out traveling from Toronto to LHR and return, using exactly the same flights and dates from the Nashville itinerary. Once again, both Expedia and Air Canada came up with the same price, but that price was a whopping US$1052.
So, effectively, Air Canada gives you a $299 discount if you fly from Nashville first rather than simply starting your journey at Toronto!
From reading Flyertalk on and off for a few years, this kind of thing tends to happen fairly regularly. Ticket prices are mostly impacted by:
- Capacity: The cost of a seat increases as a flight fills, or as the airline predicts the flight will fill.
- Market: What is the market price for a journey from, say, Nashville to London? How can we (Airline X) get in on that action? Any airline will charge the maximum it thinks that people will be prepared to pay.
It's the latter than often causes a flight from A to C via B to be cheaper than the flight from B to C by itself. There's a guy on Flyertalk that commutes from Albany (I think) to Newark, and discovered that if he bought a ticket to Dulles instead (via Newark) then it's half the price than just buying a ticket to Newark. So he's been buying ticket after ticket to Dulles and simply walking away at Newark. The airline has by now caught on and is demanding that he stop.
I think that once you understand how this works it's possible to get a little bit creative with the searches you perform online, and this can lead to far greater "discounts". Once you've found a routing that's clearly cheaper, then dick around between different sites to see if you can shave off a few bob.
When OP found his fare, I'd like to know if Expedia, Air Canada etc. all had the cheap fare, or was this something that was somehow 'exclusive' to Vayama?
I don't know when OP is flying, but I priced out his itinerary traveling in early November, departing on a Wednesday and spending exactly one week away. Same routing: Nashville to Heathrow via Toronto with Air Canada.
Here is what found:
Vayama: $772
Expedia: $753
Air Canada's own site: $753
As I suspected, it's not as simple as saying 'Website X has the cheapest fares'. My experience has been that often one is a bit cheaper than another, but the one that is a bit cheaper is not a constant. In this instance Expedia was cheaper than Vayama, but no cheaper than booking directly with Air Canada, where you would have no difficulty selecting seats. (I will always book directly with the carrying airline for that reason if I know that there is no saving to be had elsewhere).
The holy grail of booking cheap flights, however, is achieving big savings, not $20 here and $30 there. Just for jollies I then went and priced out traveling from Toronto to LHR and return, using exactly the same flights and dates from the Nashville itinerary. Once again, both Expedia and Air Canada came up with the same price, but that price was a whopping US$1052.
So, effectively, Air Canada gives you a $299 discount if you fly from Nashville first rather than simply starting your journey at Toronto!
From reading Flyertalk on and off for a few years, this kind of thing tends to happen fairly regularly. Ticket prices are mostly impacted by:
- Capacity: The cost of a seat increases as a flight fills, or as the airline predicts the flight will fill.
- Market: What is the market price for a journey from, say, Nashville to London? How can we (Airline X) get in on that action? Any airline will charge the maximum it thinks that people will be prepared to pay.
It's the latter than often causes a flight from A to C via B to be cheaper than the flight from B to C by itself. There's a guy on Flyertalk that commutes from Albany (I think) to Newark, and discovered that if he bought a ticket to Dulles instead (via Newark) then it's half the price than just buying a ticket to Newark. So he's been buying ticket after ticket to Dulles and simply walking away at Newark. The airline has by now caught on and is demanding that he stop.
I think that once you understand how this works it's possible to get a little bit creative with the searches you perform online, and this can lead to far greater "discounts". Once you've found a routing that's clearly cheaper, then dick around between different sites to see if you can shave off a few bob.
When OP found his fare, I'd like to know if Expedia, Air Canada etc. all had the cheap fare, or was this something that was somehow 'exclusive' to Vayama?
Apr 8th 2011, 11:43 am
#32
Forum Regular
Thread Starter
Joined: Feb 2006
Location: Nashville,TN
Posts: 81
Re: Cheap flights
Having got up early this morning and with a bit of time on my hands during my morning cup of tea I decided to have a look at this a bit more closely, mainly because I'm the kind of kid that just has to find out how things work.
I don't know when OP is flying, but I priced out his itinerary traveling in early November, departing on a Wednesday and spending exactly one week away. Same routing: Nashville to Heathrow via Toronto with Air Canada.
Here is what found:
Vayama: $772
Expedia: $753
Air Canada's own site: $753
As I suspected, it's not as simple as saying 'Website X has the cheapest fares'. My experience has been that often one is a bit cheaper than another, but the one that is a bit cheaper is not a constant. In this instance Expedia was cheaper than Vayama, but no cheaper than booking directly with Air Canada, where you would have no difficulty selecting seats. (I will always book directly with the carrying airline for that reason if I know that there is no saving to be had elsewhere).
The holy grail of booking cheap flights, however, is achieving big savings, not $20 here and $30 there. Just for jollies I then went and priced out traveling from Toronto to LHR and return, using exactly the same flights and dates from the Nashville itinerary. Once again, both Expedia and Air Canada came up with the same price, but that price was a whopping US$1052.
So, effectively, Air Canada gives you a $299 discount if you fly from Nashville first rather than simply starting your journey at Toronto!
From reading Flyertalk on and off for a few years, this kind of thing tends to happen fairly regularly. Ticket prices are mostly impacted by:
- Capacity: The cost of a seat increases as a flight fills, or as the airline predicts the flight will fill.
- Market: What is the market price for a journey from, say, Nashville to London? How can we (Airline X) get in on that action? Any airline will charge the maximum it thinks that people will be prepared to pay.
It's the latter than often causes a flight from A to C via B to be cheaper than the flight from B to C by itself. There's a guy on Flyertalk that commutes from Albany (I think) to Newark, and discovered that if he bought a ticket to Dulles instead (via Newark) then it's half the price than just buying a ticket to Newark. So he's been buying ticket after ticket to Dulles and simply walking away at Newark. The airline has by now caught on and is demanding that he stop.
I think that once you understand how this works it's possible to get a little bit creative with the searches you perform online, and this can lead to far greater "discounts". Once you've found a routing that's clearly cheaper, then dick around between different sites to see if you can shave off a few bob.
When OP found his fare, I'd like to know if Expedia, Air Canada etc. all had the cheap fare, or was this something that was somehow 'exclusive' to Vayama?
I don't know when OP is flying, but I priced out his itinerary traveling in early November, departing on a Wednesday and spending exactly one week away. Same routing: Nashville to Heathrow via Toronto with Air Canada.
Here is what found:
Vayama: $772
Expedia: $753
Air Canada's own site: $753
As I suspected, it's not as simple as saying 'Website X has the cheapest fares'. My experience has been that often one is a bit cheaper than another, but the one that is a bit cheaper is not a constant. In this instance Expedia was cheaper than Vayama, but no cheaper than booking directly with Air Canada, where you would have no difficulty selecting seats. (I will always book directly with the carrying airline for that reason if I know that there is no saving to be had elsewhere).
The holy grail of booking cheap flights, however, is achieving big savings, not $20 here and $30 there. Just for jollies I then went and priced out traveling from Toronto to LHR and return, using exactly the same flights and dates from the Nashville itinerary. Once again, both Expedia and Air Canada came up with the same price, but that price was a whopping US$1052.
So, effectively, Air Canada gives you a $299 discount if you fly from Nashville first rather than simply starting your journey at Toronto!
From reading Flyertalk on and off for a few years, this kind of thing tends to happen fairly regularly. Ticket prices are mostly impacted by:
- Capacity: The cost of a seat increases as a flight fills, or as the airline predicts the flight will fill.
- Market: What is the market price for a journey from, say, Nashville to London? How can we (Airline X) get in on that action? Any airline will charge the maximum it thinks that people will be prepared to pay.
It's the latter than often causes a flight from A to C via B to be cheaper than the flight from B to C by itself. There's a guy on Flyertalk that commutes from Albany (I think) to Newark, and discovered that if he bought a ticket to Dulles instead (via Newark) then it's half the price than just buying a ticket to Newark. So he's been buying ticket after ticket to Dulles and simply walking away at Newark. The airline has by now caught on and is demanding that he stop.
I think that once you understand how this works it's possible to get a little bit creative with the searches you perform online, and this can lead to far greater "discounts". Once you've found a routing that's clearly cheaper, then dick around between different sites to see if you can shave off a few bob.
When OP found his fare, I'd like to know if Expedia, Air Canada etc. all had the cheap fare, or was this something that was somehow 'exclusive' to Vayama?
I was also curious what the price would be from Toronto-LHR thinking that it must be somewhat less,and l also found that it was over a grand..unbelievable.
My flights are confirmed with both AC & BMI,so l was really lucky and there's just no accounting for airline fares ! Incidentally my fare was $482 and not $480 (it was $480 when l first saw it and waited 12 hrs or so before l could book it and it's has gone up $2
Here's the info
1 Adult(s) $ 210.00
Taxes and Fees $ 311.69
Trip Insurance $ 26.49
April Showers Brings you Fare Flowers: $ -40.00
Total $ 508.18 USD
Electronic Tickets (Note: Your ticket should be issued as electronic. If for any reason we must issue Paper Tickets, we will notify you in advance.)
Charges on your credit card
Air Canada $ 421.69 USD
Vayama $ 60.00 USD
Travel Guard $ 26.49 USD
Apr 8th 2011, 12:21 pm
#33
Septic Sprout
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
Re: Cheap flights
Here's the info
1 Adult(s) $ 210.00
Taxes and Fees $ 311.69
Trip Insurance $ 26.49
April Showers Brings you Fare Flowers: $ -40.00
Total $ 508.18 USD
Electronic Tickets (Note: Your ticket should be issued as electronic. If for any reason we must issue Paper Tickets, we will notify you in advance.)
Charges on your credit card
Air Canada $ 421.69 USD
Vayama $ 60.00 USD
Travel Guard $ 26.49 USD
1 Adult(s) $ 210.00
Taxes and Fees $ 311.69
Trip Insurance $ 26.49
April Showers Brings you Fare Flowers: $ -40.00
Total $ 508.18 USD
Electronic Tickets (Note: Your ticket should be issued as electronic. If for any reason we must issue Paper Tickets, we will notify you in advance.)
Charges on your credit card
Air Canada $ 421.69 USD
Vayama $ 60.00 USD
Travel Guard $ 26.49 USD
Apr 8th 2011, 12:43 pm
#34
.
Joined: Nov 2002
Location: Where bad things rarely happen in movies
Posts: 8,933
Re: Cheap flights
Maybe if we resurrect the "Houston - it really is sh!t" campaign I'll get home with all the kids at christmas instead of having to sell one of them to pay for the flights....
Apr 8th 2011, 12:45 pm
#35
.
Joined: Nov 2002
Location: Where bad things rarely happen in movies
Posts: 8,933
Apr 8th 2011, 1:30 pm
#36
Forum Regular
Thread Starter
Joined: Feb 2006
Location: Nashville,TN
Posts: 81
Re: Cheap flights
Its obvious whats happening - they feel sorry for you for flying from somewhere sh!t so they make it cheaper to get out. I would hasten to add that I've never been to Nashville, but I have been to Memphis and that was sh!t (apart from Graceland, and the Gibson Guitar factory) and as they are in the same state I'm tarring Nashville with the same brush
Maybe if we resurrect the "Houston - it really is sh!t" campaign I'll get home with all the kids at christmas instead of having to sell one of them to pay for the flights....
Maybe if we resurrect the "Houston - it really is sh!t" campaign I'll get home with all the kids at christmas instead of having to sell one of them to pay for the flights....
Somebody may well have screwed up the pricing somewhere,but l'm not complaining
Apr 8th 2011, 1:53 pm
#37
.
Joined: Nov 2002
Location: Where bad things rarely happen in movies
Posts: 8,933
Re: Cheap flights
I went up to meet an old girlfriend from the UK a few years ago - have to say, I enjoyed Graceland - it was a bit like when they did that run of old B movies late on a Friday night timed for when you got back from the pub...they were so bad they were good... Although the best parts were some of the reactions of the other people on the tour...hushed reverence as if in church, tears at the memorial near the fountain, stroking the glass encasing some of his costumes etc etc. Quite bizarre! And of course we had to stay over the road at Heartbreak Hotel which, obviously, was at the end of Lonely Street! Actually, looking back, I thought the whole thing was rather excellent in a naff sort of way............
