Crazy airline pricing
 

A colleague at work is travelling from Atlanta to Montreal next month for a wedding, he was complaining about the cost.
Over lunch we did some looking on Kayak to see if we could find a better price. He was going to choose a direct Delta flight with a cost of $650 round trip. I suggested he look at alternative airports like Birmingham Alabama (only a 2 hour drive away), we change the 'from' airport in the search and the top choice came up as Delta for only $401. When viewing the flights it turned out that it was using exactly the same flight as the earlier viewed direct flight but it was $250 cheaper, this doesn't make sense or does it, how can it be cheaper to fly from Birmingham to Atlanta and up to Montreal than buy a direct flight ticket on the same flight.
Any frequent flier wizards car to offer an explanation?

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

Because of demand.

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

This.

There was a thread a while ago where someone was trying to get from (Charlotte?) to London, and discovered that it was cheapest to route via Montreal (or maybe Toronto). Just for jollies I looked at the individual segments and it was much cheaper to fly Charlotte-Montreal-London than it was Montreal-London (on the same flight).

Airlines will price their tickets from point A to point B for as much as the market will bear. If there is a connection at point C, then the price of a ticket from point C to point B will be irrelevent.

It's because of this that people sometimes use what's known as "throw-away ticketing". They want to fly from A to B, but discover that a ticket from A to C (via B) is half the price. They then book the lower priced ticket, pack hand luggage only and then hope they don't get re-routed due to a thunderstorm. (There are a few other "gotcha's" to watch for in this practice but you get the drift).

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

It has nothing to do with distance but demand from/to a particular airport. I travel to Vancouver fairly often and will take the SLC to Seattle or Bellingham (puddle jumper) and drive to Vancouver. Ticket to Seattle or Bellingham has never gone over $600 yet a flight to Vancouver can go from $800 to $2100 depending on the time of year or day of week one needs to travel. Had the same experience heading to Toronto so many times we have flown to Buffalo and driven across the border. These airlines will charge whatever they please to a customer that will pay.

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

I think this may be legal. You didn't say but I suspect the flight stops over in Atlanta and I believe he can board and unboard there so he doesn't have to drive the two hours.

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

If you skip any segment on your itinerary the airline will (pretty much always) automatically cancel the remainder of your itinerary. That's why "throw-away" ticketing only works when it's the final segment that's being thrown away. And when people flying from the UK to the US find out that it's much cheaper to fly from Amsterdam, Jersey or Lisbon via London then they actually do have to get to Amsterdam, Jersey or Lison first to start their journey.

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

Not necessarily. I had a friend that had a flight booked from the UK to SF to LA back to the UK. She shipped he flight from SF to LA and boarded in LA.

Normally you can get boarding passes from the web site for an extra cost (about $5) and just ask for two boarding passes each way and discard two of them.

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

Holding a boarding pass will not allow you to board a flight if the ticket itself is cancelled - and printing a boarding pass is not a way of preventing this from happening.

Impossible to comment on why your friend was able to drop that particular segment without knowing the detail of how their itinerary was structured, but you do need to assume that the default is that the itinerary will be cancelled if you skip a segment (and then look for ways - if any - to try to prevent that from happening) otherwise it's highly likely you'll get into an expensive pickle.

Much, much discussion on this topic on Flyertalk. Examples here and here.

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

A few years ago it became fairly widely known that it was significantly cheaper to fly on US Airways GSO->CLT->x, x->CLT->GSO (where the two airports are about 80 miles apart, connected by an interstate), than to fly directly from CLT. US Airways got pissy about people who were flying with only carry-on bags, and on the return trip getting off the plane in Charlotte (CLT) and going home! But to your point above, if you skipped the GSO->CLT outward leg you were not able to board the aircraft in Charlotte.

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

In my BA example above, AMS, JER and LIS are three originating points that often have far cheaper (BA) tickets to the US than traveling from LHR. UK-based savvy planners (with time on their hands) therefore buy tickets from those points instead, but with an extended stopover (up to a year) at LHR on the return. They then start their US trips with a nice weekend in Lison (or wherever) to begin with, traveling to Lisbon using the final segment of their previous itinerary, and then picking up the new itinerary after their break there. Even after paying for a night in a nice hotel in Lison, they're still quids in.

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

They have so many seats at A fare and then it goes to B fare.
When my father was in the ICU, I had to book 2 flights.
I could only book 1 at the $140. (I don't remember the exact amount but it was under $140 after fees.) My son's flight was a little over $400. Same seats right next to each other booked right after the other.

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

When we went to the UK a few years ago, I actually found it cheaper (by $1k) for all of us to fly from Philadelphia to Dublin. This included booking a separate flight from Seattle to Philadelphia and for booking a flight from Dublin to Leeds. Ok, it was a bit of flaffing around, but we arrived in Philly the day before and had time to see some of the sights before we boarded our flight to Dublin. I also thought our jetlag was less because we took the time change in increments. However, my husband wasn't as happy because he just wants to get there...:)

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

Used to be like that but with the very complex load management systems the airlines use these days the price fluctuates up and down, without having a set number of seats in any fare code.

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

Your friend lucked out or wasn't flying a US Airline. I know of no US airline that will allow you to skip a segment.

If you buy a ticket say Birmingham-ATL-Montreal, the airline agent should deny you boarding in Atlanta, as when you no show for the flight in Birmingham, its assumed your not flying and the ticket is cancelled.

Its not permitted by any US Airline that I am aware of.

I denied more then one passenger boarding because of trying this scam, which in the end is what it really is.

Re: Crazy airline pricing
 

Are you aware of any non-US airlines that allow this? I ask as I am not, although I do not profess to know the rules of every airline, although every non-US airline whose rules I know prevent this as well.