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Can you buy the same ticket at a lower price if you buy it from another country?

276 points by beatthatflight 4y ago

andbeyond 4y ago
It gets worse in our post-covid age. All companies are now openly screwing us over with no repercussions. Go on a website, be it legit airline site or reputable agency. Book, pay for the flight. After payment, they inform you that the trip you booked (through their website) simply does not exist. Your only choice is to ask for a refund that will take 28 days. Easy, cheap cashflow. Happened to me 3 times this year, Qatar airways (official site), Fram (official site). Happened to my friends and family, all post covid. I need to go back to France next month, am 4000 euros down in "pending refunds", reached my cc limit and most importantly, have no idea where to safely book a ticket.
- flemhans 4y ago
  I wish there was a site would just charge the fare price +15% and do away with all the dark patterns and scams. You select the flight and enter your name and pay.
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Did this years ago with a travel package company. Due to the drop in value of the British Pound, their published prices in the US and the UK that had been near par at the start of the year, had become imbalanced. As these prices were in printed catalogs that were good for a year, I was able to save a significant amount of money by booking through the UK site and using a friend's address in Bath. The company did question it at first, noticing that my passport and credit card were both from the US, but once I said I was visiting a friend in the UK and booked from her computer, they let the transaction go through.
deleted 4y ago
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olalonde 4y ago
It's called price discrimination in economics. There's even a section on how it is used within the travel industry on Wikipedia[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination#Travel_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination#Travel_in...
johnwalkr 4y ago
I have one hotel hack, that works especially well for conferences when rooms are almost fully booked and prices are high. Book a hotel room with no charge for cancellation. Then, the day before arriving (or even the day of arriving if you're still able to cancel), check for rooms again. There's often nicer rooms that become available at the last minute due to others cancelling, at a lower price.
- air7 4y ago
  or if you're adventurous, cancel your own room and rebook it immediately...
Wildgoose 4y ago
Yes. Many years ago I was working on the Isle of Man. I initially travelled from England on Monday morning, returning on Friday evening. I then started buying tickets for the same aircraft flying to England on Friday evening and returning to the Isle of Man on Monday morning, which was around 25% cheaper despite all journeys taking place on the same aircraft.
_huayra_ 4y ago
There is a "lowest price guarantee" on Google flights now, wherein they will reimburse you the difference if the flight goes lower in price than if you buy it at that time (through their platform / booking, at least). To me, this is a signal that Google has used all of its price history data for flights to say "this is a bottom in price", and given they don't want to lose money hand over fist from mispredictions, they're probably right. I usually set up a price watch on a specific flight I want, then every time it drops, I check if it got the "low price guarantee" stamp of approval and buy then. Even if I'm wrong, I'll get paid the difference either way!
- carrotcarrot 4y ago
  More likely it's just a scheme to increase usage and they'll figure out the rest later, once they have more data to work with
di456 4y ago
I've found that some international flights with a regional domestic connection after landing in the new country are often several $100's cheaper to book one itinerary with the international segment, then a separate itinerary for the regional domestic connection.
- nexus7556 4y ago
  I've actually seen the opposite. * I was recently looking at GVA-EWR-BTV vs just GVA-EWR it was several hundred dollars less to go to BTV. * I was in Paris three weeks ago, looking at return flights CDG-SFO. It was several hundred dollars cheaper to book FRA-CDG-SFO or GVA-CDG-SFO than CDG-SFO.
  - di456 4y ago
    It's wild how much pricing variation there can be with different routes to the same or a nearby destination.
dom96 4y ago
An extreme example of this which applies not just to tickets but a full holiday package is Disney World. If you're based out of the UK you can get a very good 14 day package which includes Disney World tickets, hotel and flights for a significant discount over the US/EU. In theory it should be possible to have someone outside the UK to buy these packages but I haven't tested it. I do actually track the prices and have built a site that exposes the data[1]. I found a couple of other hacks that are interesting (for example, you can save multiple thousands of £ by just splitting your stay, you'll need to move to a different hotel room but that might be worth it for many). 1 - https://mousetrack.co.uk/ https://mousetrack.co.uk/
grecy 4y ago
The effect of this (and the example given in the top SO answer) is significantly magnified when flying to and from Undeveloped countries. When I was in Africa I flew out of, and then back into Mali, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Egypt. Booking the tickets to do so while sitting in those countries was up to half the price of booking it from the Developed country I was flying into. I was just using kayak.com in Incognito and the price differences were staggering.
carrotcarrot 4y ago
I've bought a round trip ticket for 1/3 the price of the one way ticket. I literally couldn't afford the one way... It was 3000 and I had just graduated and was moving back to the states. The round trip was 800
elif 4y ago
Absolutely. To fly direct from Atlanta to Tokyo is about $3000 round trip. To fly to Tokyo from Costa Rica round trip via Atlanta layover is about $1500. You don't even need a VPN to see the price difference. It's the same airlines, the same exact planes. It's priced by demand not by costs and it is absurd imo, especially from a climate perspective. Should I take a Costa Rica vacation I don't need just to save money? It has me evaluating
- Kailhus 4y ago
  Indeed. And not if that layover is overnight and you ask to take your bags off Atlanta airport whilst you sleep at the hotel nearby, scrapping that ATL>Costa Rica leg the next day as no show. That’s another trick I haven’t seen mentioned around: the extra ‘dummy’ leg at the end sometimes make a huuuge difference.
emrah 4y ago
If you buy the ticket from another country, it's no longer the same ticket because the origin is (assumed to be) different
sacnoradhq 4y ago
Virgin Atlantic counter @ LHR. If you ask very very nicely when it's not too busy, someone may teach you the query terminal and let you have a look at fares across airlines if you happen to be more/less stranded.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  You don't need those. There are online systems that lets you check those details at home (can't remember the name now) But https://matrix.itasoftware.com/search https://matrix.itasoftware.com/search is a close second, if you know how to play around
Ozzie_osman 4y ago
I travel to my home country once a year to visit family, but have it set up so that my origin for the round trip is the home country (ie XYZ-SFO-XYZ rather than SFO-XYZ-SFO). The ticket is generally half the cost, which adds up when you're traveling with family. I can only do this because I consistently travel to that same place every year, otherwise I wouldn't be able to swap the origin. It also requires you knowing your dates in advance, but generally, even if I have to change the ticket, it's still much cheaper to pay the difference.
- HenrikB 4y ago
  In the same situation here. Yes, it looks like traveling outbound from some major hubs is more expensive than from other places. A round trip SFO-XYZ two week ticket can be substantially more expensive than XYZ-SFO round trip for the same period. Note that depending on when you travel and for how long, a SFO-XYZ-SFO ticket might be more expensive also because it is a shorter ticket (1 month or 3 month ticket) and it hits a high season period ("tourist season"), whereas the XYZ-SFO-XYZ is a long-term ticket (12 months) that avoids (most of) the high season.
- AnonC 4y ago
  Please elaborate since this is not clear. Are you actually doing a round trip on SFO-XYZ-SFO but buying two half priced (or lower than half priced) tickets for XYZ-SFO-XYZ (date 1) and XYZ-SFO-XYZ (date 2) and not using one leg on each of those tickets? Long ago I’d read that airlines don’t take this well.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    Also curious, since I imagine airlines try to cancel subsequent flights if you didn’t get on the initial flight to ensure someone gets in that seat (at a higher price)
    - Zircom 4y ago
      He isn't skipping any flights. He presumably bought a one-way ticket to XYZ years ago, and since then each year he books an XYS->SFO->XYZ roundtrip for a year long "visit" to SFO before returning "home" to XYZ for a little bit before booking another round trip for another year long "visit" back in SFO, and so on.
rhtgrg 4y ago
Recently I paid to book better seats on an Air France flight and since the website was a hot mess (specifically the payment portal) I tried various VPNs to try and get through. To my surprise, prices were significantly different (about ~20% variation) depending on country, and it was most expensive in...France. This was on a flight that had already been booked from the US long ago.
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  Could be taxes making up the difference, 20% sounds suspiciously close to the French V.A.T. rate of... 20% [1]. [1] https://www.vatupdate.com/2021/04/21/vat-rates-in-france/
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - rhtgrg 4y ago
    Perhaps, though I now recall that one of the options was free. I tried that one too, but I abandoned it first in favor of the others since the checkout and "payment" experience failed in strange and unpredictable ways with that one (the others at least showed me a 'sorry this is broken' style of message).
  - FearNotDaniel 4y ago
    There's no VAT on international flights. Other taxes, perhaps, but that 20% difference is not so easily explained.
    - the_third_wave 4y ago
      This was not a payment for a flight but for some extra "service", is there no V.A.T. on that either?
      - FearNotDaniel 4y ago
        I'm not a tax accountant so I couldn't say for certain. But if this is an additional payment for a seat reservation on an international flight, I would assume it falls into the same category of "international travel", which I believe is zero-VAT across EU. If it was something not directly related to the travel aspect itself, e.g. pre booking an inflight meal or lounge access, I would expect VAT to apply. Or a domestic flight within France, of course.
INTPenis 4y ago
Referrers that lower price on travel booking sites are a real thing. One trick I've noticed works sometimes is clicking on ads in online newspapers of your home country. So if you're in country A, but you're browsing the news website of country B, they might see where you're browsing from and offer up an ad for travel from/to your specific country A. This is meant for expats because the whole site and the ad is in the language of country B.
- 93po 4y ago
  sounds like a good browser extension - auto-inject different data based on community feedback on which gives the best deals
- dymk 4y ago
  Can confirm, my workflow for booking hotels now is find something on booking.com/hotels.com/kayak, then google search for the exact same hotel and follow links quoting lower prices to booking.com/hotels.com/kayak.
thrdbndndn 4y ago
It can work, but rarely. The international flight price has been very well globalized. What used to work very well is to rent a car through a foreign website. I live(d) in the US and was planning a trip in California for a few weeks back in ~2015. By going through a major car rental company's UK website, I literally halved my cost. I didn't have much luck with this trick last time I travelled though, unfortunately.
- r00fus 4y ago
  We visit France every year-ish and French automakers [1][2] vastly undercut long-term rentals from rental agencies by selling you a car with your promise to sell it back to them at nearly the same price (difference is the rental price). You are only ever out the actual rental price. We regularly save 1-2k EUR on a 3+ week rental unless we book the rental literally 6m+ beforehand. Kicker is that $0 deducible CDW is included, and the terms are quite generous. The only downside is last-minute cancellations will cost a non-trivial fee, but even those can be mitigated through insurance. [1] https://www.ttcar.com/en/ttcar https://www.ttcar.com/en/ttcar [2] https://www.autoeurope.com https://www.autoeurope.com
  - xur17 4y ago
    Do you know if there is anything like this in the US? I've considered 1-3 month "trips" in the US, but the car rental ends up being quite expensive (to the point at which I've considered just buying and reselling the car). I'd be happy to front the full cost of the car if I was able to get some guarantee on the resale value, and didn't have to deal with selling the car itself.
    - r00fus 4y ago
      Unfortunately no. I imagine there is some tax/regulatory regime in Europe that incentivizes this kind of offering.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
  It can also happen to work via the phone if it doesn’t online. I was trying to book a one way rental from Bergen to Oslo a few years ago. Avis Norwegian and USA website showed some insane price, but when I called up Bergen airport Avis they quoted me something less than half the price. Side note if you ever find yourself up that way it’s hands down the most beautiful drive I’ve ever done in my life and I’ve been driving in Iceland, Switzerland and other parts of Norway several times
choeger 4y ago
Absolutely. I had a 25% discount offer for the same flight when booking through the American site vs. the European one. Unfortunately, they also asked for an invoice address in the states. So I opted out of that airline altogether. Just wait for the day when airlines buy hotel booking data and increase your price because you already booked a non-refundable room. Or they look into your messaging service or social network for clues in how determined you are to go (e.g., to a funeral or job interview). Privacy is valuable, indeed. Even in hard cash.
- tayo42 4y ago
  last second trips are already expensive, why would they need to go through your private messages?
- TylerE 4y ago
  Sounds like VAT? We do t have that in the US, so our prices are about 20% lower. You still get taxed, it’s just not rolled into the advertised price.
  - matsur 4y ago
    Quoted airfares are required by law to include taxes in the US.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    There's no EU VAT on international flights to/from the EU. (Which is unfortunate, as there usually is VAT on train tickets.)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- raverbashing 4y ago
  > buy hotel booking data and increase your price because you already booked a non-refundable room Actually this is (usually) the opposite Tickets sold for tourism are usually cheaper than a non-tourism ticket to the same place, so the ticket might be conditioned to being sold together with a hotel booking (travel agents like selling those combos)
harry8 4y ago
The theory of Price Discrimination, simple stuff, for anyone who isn't up on the econs 101 jargon, looks like it's here: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/price_discrimination.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/price_discrimination.as... Everyone including you will do it whenever you can when selling. The logical place surveillance capitalism is going isn't pretty. Will regulation protect consumers or will Goog, FB, Apple etc capture a good amount of everyone's consumer surplus? Would mass consumer outrage influence regulators more than lobbying cash? I don't have any answers, if don't think much of the questions it'd be interesting to know why you think that way.
- htag 4y ago
  This type of price discrimination isn't powered by surveillance capitalism. Using the example in the first answer on the stackexchange, this is nothing more than selling the same ticket at a different price to someone walking up to a United counter in USA compared to someone walking up to a United counter in AU. Surveillance capitalism powering price discrimination sounds scary, but there seems to be few examples of ML powered price discrimination. Currently we are paying massive amounts for simple price discrimination. You can save a ton of money (for things in general) by searching for discounts, booking ahead of time, accepting slower shipment, waiting for off-season/off-peak, buying in bulk, haggling, etc.
  - harry8 4y ago
    > This type of price discrimination isn't powered by surveillance capitalism Ok in this particular example of price discrimination it isn't. Yet. Sure. Now imagine you wan't to power it buy surveillance capitalism to get more of that surplus and current laws and norms are no object. What would that look like? How close do you think we will get to that? How fast? [1] Think vendors will keep much of that captured surplus in the face of Goog, FB, Apple, whatever market power? [1] I'd just refuse to buy any ticket unless your country of birth and residency of your family was known, which holidays you celebrate. By which I mean make dis counts readily available on that basis (with exclusions) to really slug anyone going home for high holidays, for example. Frame it as a discount, whatever. So that's one way it might go. Can you think of how this is going to work for insurance? Health insurance? What else would really supercharge revenue using techniques like this?
quickthrower2 4y ago
Can I get a pay rise if I use a VPN?
- xur17 4y ago
  Amusingly enough, maybe? I was staying in a coliving house, and one of my friends there was working a US only job from Europe using a VPN they setup back in the US. None of their coworkers knew, and it paid better than EU options they could find.
- faeyanpiraat 4y ago
  If you can teach your VPN to ask for a raise, you definitely deserve to get it.
herpderperator 4y ago
VPN was added in the HN title but is not present in the actual question title. The act of simply "using" a "VPN" does not make prices cheaper. Let's not abuse the term. It's about purchase location.
- rdlw 4y ago
  If someone asked whether you can drive a nail into a board more easily if you use a hammer, I would say yes, even though the act of simply "using" a "hammer" does not instantly make nearby nails go into boards. It doesn't seem like an abuse of terms, just not fully explaining what a VPN is or how you should use it in the short title.
  - andrewshadura 4y ago
    Most VPNs I use on a daily basis don't provide access to outside themselves, and don't, in fact, have any routers usable as a default gateway, and as such are unusable for the purpose described in the article.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rtpg 4y ago
People say this and it always sounds a bit like a myth, so here's a concrete search. Tokyo to Seattle, May 18th to June 8th. first link ([0]) with the sales city set to Seattle, the other time set to Tokyo ([1]). Most of the airlines price the flight roughly the same (writing up the differences in pricing to currency conversions, like ~1%) but Singapore Airlines is offering the same flight at 3x the cost! I feel like I've read in the past about how flight tickets are priced based on many rules, that are shared between various companies that sell tickets. My inference is thus that these rules might be dynamic, but they aren't like.... "price will change minute to minute based on all of the cookies in your browser" dynamic. Which then leads me to wondering: what sort of pricing rules are kicking in for these pricing differences? Because it feels to me a lot more like "lack of a discounting mechanism" rather than "rule that triples singapore airline flights out of Tokyo for Tokyo-based pruchases" [0]: https://matrix.itasoftware.com/flights?search=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 https://matrix.itasoftware.com/flights?search=eyJ0eXBlIjoicm... [1]: https://matrix.itasoftware.com/flights?search=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%3D%3D https://matrix.itasoftware.com/flights?search=eyJ0eXBlIjoicm...
habitue 4y ago
Do travel agents have some benefit when travelling internationally or something? I have not heard about travel agents since the 90s. Maybe I'm missing some incredible deals? I kinda expected them to not exist any more
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  A friend of mine works in the public sector, and using an agent saves on the bureaucracy. They need to find three separate providers/offers, and then choose cheapest option... so they call an agency, tell them where they want to go and when, what hotel, and that they need two more expensive options too,... so an agency calls other friendly agencies, tell them what (higher) price they need, and the public sector worker gets what they need with minimal work.
  - netsharc 4y ago
    Huh, couldn't that be construed as a price-fixing conspiracy?
- 93po 4y ago
  i think they're still popular for disney since there are a ton of options for packages and i think they can also provide better deals than booking elsewhere
- netsharc 4y ago
  I think they're still around, and they probably have the "on-the-ground" knowledge that's useful, maybe from feedback of their customers, or network of local friends (some small agencies focus on particular destinations, probably because they travelled there once and liked it so much they became an expert of the region, and big agencies just have partners in popular destinations). Compare that to if you check out a hotel on booking.com, the ratings are all exaggerated, even if you rate everything as crap, their scoring system will make your final rating about a 6.0 (don't quote me on that). Not to mention review-buying or faking. As for flights, the last few times I tried booking from a booking como5any through Skyscanner where the price was 20% lower, I got all the way to entering my CC number and clicking "Buy now" only for the page to tell me, "Oops, tickets for this price are no longer available, do you want to buy for [price advertised on the airline website]?"... Hell fuck no!
IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
about 10 years ago, you could buy a a flight lima-cuzco like a local by simply making the reservation online on the correct carrier (lanperu i believe), getting a voucher, then stopping by the main supermarket, presenting the voucher and paying for it in cash. This decreased the cost of the ticket by approximately 50% It was important to book on the right local carrier of Lan to do this, as well as entering certain info for the voucher itself No Peru passport or driver's license required.
martin-adams 4y ago
I had to rebook more expensive flights due to a cancellation. My wife has it open on her phone for £500 less than the same flights on my phone.
- EntrePrescott 4y ago
  lemme guess: your phone is an iphone whereas your wife's phone is an android phone?
  - martin-adams 4y ago
    Both iPhone, but did make me wonder at the time
robbiep 4y ago
I was in Vietnam once and buying a flight between Dalat and Da Nang. First searched on there .com and it was $3-400 AUD. Searched again on the Vietnamese domain - $75 AUD. Wild.
yosito 4y ago
I've been flying internationally 10-15 times a year for ~10 years. Different routes and destinations each time. I've spent a lot of time searching for hacks like this that let me save a few bucks on flight tickets. Sometimes it works. Sometimes you find that a flight is cheaper depending on which country's website or currency you use to book. Flight tickets are priced dynamically using a variety of factors to determine the price. By manipulating those factors you can get different prices. However, the factors that are used to determine price are generally not publicized and change frequently, so there is no predictable rule. In the end, I've realized that my time is better spent not chasing these elusive deals. I can spend all day searching for the cheapest flight somewhere, or I can just book the cheapest thing on Kiwi or SkyScanner in 10 minutes and spend the rest of my day writing code for a project that is paying me far more money than I would have saved searching for flight deals. The best hacks to save money on plane tickets: travel carry-on luggage only, fly economy, and book with a credit card that provides travel insurance and accumulates rewards. Chase Sapphire cards are pretty much the standard for travelers.
- olalonde 4y ago
  I found it often works with https://ctrip.com https://ctrip.com (Chinese airline booking service).
- eadmund 4y ago
  > travel carry-on luggage only That is impossible if one wishes to carry a pocketknife or handgun at one’s destination. The latter is fairly uncommon, but the former is very common, right? Not to mention if one is bringing back a bottles of beer, wine or spirits.
  - rejectfinite 4y ago
    >The latter is fairly uncommon, but the former is very common, right? idk, is it really? >Not to mention if one is bringing back a bottles of beer, wine or spirits. Buy that stuff at the destination.
  - tayo42 4y ago
    ive traveled a bit and never felt the need to bring a knife...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
haunter 4y ago
It's the same with train tickets in Europe! I live in Budapest and regularly have to go to Wien. If you buy the ticket from the hungarian railways it costs the half or less than compared to the austrian railways. Example: next monday Hungarian BP>Wien https://i.imgur.com/9rZgB8c.png https://i.imgur.com/9rZgB8c.png Austrian BP>Wien https://i.imgur.com/mn95IrV.png https://i.imgur.com/mn95IrV.png Hungarian Wien>BP https://i.imgur.com/GymMOaW.png https://i.imgur.com/GymMOaW.png Austrian Wien>BP https://i.imgur.com/zN3VCDv.png https://i.imgur.com/zN3VCDv.png I always tell my friends coming from Germany or Austria to buy tickets from the hungarian railways because it's much cheaper.
- jkepler 4y ago
  I really appreciate seat61.com when I need to book train travel. The site is full of info as to when and where to book to get the best price, as well as what level of service various trains in various countries provide.
- w-m 4y ago
  It's too bad that the Czech train hack doesn't seem to work any more: There's a train from Berlin to Prague that stops in Dresden. It used to be much cheaper to book the trip Berlin-Dresden with České dráhy, compared to the price you get with DB. I think you also had to make it an international ticket to make it work, booking the journey from Berlin to the first station after the border. And then just leaving the train early, at your intended destination.
qwertox 4y ago
Somewhat related: If you rent your car via sixt.es instead of sixt.de, you'll get it for a lower price [0] [1] [0] https://www.sixt.es/betafunnel/#/offerlist?zen_pu_location=7ece8579-c64e-4886-95ec-c8ea9991cc12&zen_do_location=7ece8579-c64e-4886-95ec-c8ea9991cc12&zen_pu_title=Berl%C3%ADn%20BER%20Aeropuerto%20T1%2B2&zen_do_title=Berl%C3%ADn%20BER%20Aeropuerto%20T1%2B2&zen_pu_time=2023-03-30T12%3A30&zen_do_time=2023-04-03T08%3A30&zen_pu_branch_id=BRANCH%3A8&zen_do_branch_id=BRANCH%3A8&zen_offer_matrix_id=ed38de5f-6c6a-49f4-bd16-071e71df2131&zen_vehicle_type=car&zen_filters=%7B%22group_type%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22transmission_type%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22passengers_count%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%222%22%2C%22key%22%3A%22passengers_count%22%7D%5D%2C%22bags_count%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%221%22%2C%22key%22%3A%22bags_count%22%7D%5D%2C%22minimum_driver_age%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%2226%22%2C%22key%22%3A%22minimum_driver_age%22%7D%5D%7D&zen_booking_id=5d8e6417-8acb-48be-9e98-2191e9e187b4 https://www.sixt.es/betafunnel/#/offerlist?zen_pu_location=7... [1] https://www.sixt.de/betafunnel/#/offerlist?zen_pu_location=726bbdf0-fffd-49db-b3cf-7ec83ae0f003&zen_do_location=726bbdf0-fffd-49db-b3cf-7ec83ae0f003&zen_pu_time=2023-03-30T12%3A30&zen_do_time=2023-04-03T08%3A30&zen_pu_branch_id=BRANCH%3A8&zen_do_branch_id=BRANCH%3A8&zen_offer_matrix_id=93f4fe7f-da8a-4b18-83be-b9f295e52275&zen_vehicle_type=car&zen_filters=%7B%22group_type%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22transmission_type%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22passengers_count%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%222%22%2C%22key%22%3A%22passengers_count%22%7D%5D%2C%22bags_count%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%221%22%2C%22key%22%3A%22bags_count%22%7D%5D%2C%22minimum_driver_age%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%2226%22%2C%22key%22%3A%22minimum_driver_age%22%7D%5D%7D&zen_pu_title=Berlin%20BER%20Flughafen%20T1%2B2&zen_do_title=Berlin%20BER%20Flughafen%20T1%2B2 https://www.sixt.de/betafunnel/#/offerlist?zen_pu_location=7...
- nolok 4y ago
  I wanted to ask "Is it a VAT thing ?" but Spain actually has higher VAT so no I'm pretty sure it's illegal in the EU for the same company to give a different price to customer depending on where they live in the union, I assume they get around that by being "not the same company" but sixt spain and sixt germany instead ...
  - andrewaylett 4y ago
    It's perfectly legal to offer different products or different prices to different markets. What's not legal is blocking someone from accessing a market just because it's not their "home" market. Skyscanner has come up in this discussion, and full disclosure: I'm an employee. But this is an entirely personal comment. Skyscanner has a lot of different market-based websites, for example https://www.skyscanner.de https://www.skyscanner.de and https://www.skyscanner.fr https://www.skyscanner.fr. We don't geo-block, though: wherever you are, you'll have full access to any Skyscanner website, and we'll happily give you whichever market, locale, and currency triple you ask for. And we pass on the underlying market-based prices that we're given. So if you want to know whether different markets get different selections of flights, or different prices for the same flight, it's relatively easy to look and find examples. Amazon is the same: you'll get different products and prices on de and uk, but if I'm willing to pay shipping then Amazon is willing to sell me stuff from Germany even though the UK left the EU and it's legal for them to block me or give me different prices. Which was very useful when I needed radiator thermostat adapters a couple of months ago.
homami 4y ago
Based on my experience traveling between Europe, Middle East and Asia: - for return flights I always get different fares based on the origin. At least for the airlines that I travel with it does not matter what my IP is, but where my origin is. - depending on the airline or the hotel booking service, I get higher fares if I book with an iPhone (including their apps) or a Mac comparing to when I spoof my user agent to Windows. The difference can be substantial. - for hotel bookings, my IP location used to make a big difference. I guess these days the services just became better at finger printing and detecting VPNs.
ezconnect 4y ago
Hotels have a different online pricing depending on where you are buying it. It is always cheaper locally.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Example? I have never seen this using a major hotel brand website.
textread 4y ago
Somewhat related: Over the counter medicine is significantly cheaper to buy from Thailand, Indonesia and India [1]. Medicines in the US cost 50 times their cost in Thailand. [1] https://static.toiimg.com/thumb/imgsize-23456,msid-72197131,width-600,resizemode-4/72197131.jpg https://static.toiimg.com/thumb/imgsize-23456,msid-72197131,...
- AdamN 4y ago
  Indian pharmaceuticals are not well regulated and if you can afford it, it's better to look for products from other countries with stronger oversight.
swe_dima 4y ago
In the past I have written a script for skyscanner that goes through a list of countries and searches for the lowest price. Usually price difference isn't that big, but you can save a few bucks this way.
thih9 4y ago
> As a result of this demand, the airline may choose to increase the price of flights for Australians (who are more likely to pay them as they are headed to summer!) and keep the price the same for Americans who would not be willing to pay the higher charges. But why keep the price the same for Americans? Wouldn’t it be more profitable to increase the price overall?
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  Thats the fundamental question of pricing - x people will buy at $y and your margin will be $z, but i people will buy at $j and your margin will be $k. Now decide what x, y, i and j are, then find whether z>k.
jaimehrubiks 4y ago
My experience is that the only thing that matters is the origin of your roundtrip. Trips from Europe cost half the trips from the us. With same paths or even same flights.
lazyasciiart 4y ago
Years ago I bought an RTW ticket from One World, where the pricing varied based on what country your flights started in. I think the lowest price I found was from Morocco, and the USA was among the highest - something like $3000 vs $5000.
ourmandave 4y ago
Had friends save enough money flying to Europe from Montreal, it was worth the drive from Illinois.
aaron695 4y ago
[dead]

It gets worse in our post-covid age. All companies are now openly screwing us over with no repercussions. Go on a website, be it legit airline site or reputable agency. Book, pay for the flight. After payment, they inform you that the trip you booked (through their website) simply does not exist. Your only choice is to ask for a refund that will take 28 days. Easy, cheap cashflow. Happened to me 3 times this year, Qatar airways (official site), Fram (official site). Happened to my friends and family, all post covid. I need to go back to France next month, am 4000 euros down in "pending refunds", reached my cc limit and most importantly, have no idea where to safely book a ticket.

flemhans 4y ago
I wish there was a site would just charge the fare price +15% and do away with all the dark patterns and scams. You select the flight and enter your name and pay.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

Did this years ago with a travel package company. Due to the drop in value of the British Pound, their published prices in the US and the UK that had been near par at the start of the year, had become imbalanced. As these prices were in printed catalogs that were good for a year, I was able to save a significant amount of money by booking through the UK site and using a friend's address in Bath. The company did question it at first, noticing that my passport and credit card were both from the US, but once I said I was visiting a friend in the UK and booked from her computer, they let the transaction go through.

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olalonde 4y ago

It's called price discrimination in economics. There's even a section on how it is used within the travel industry on Wikipedia[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination#Travel_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination#Travel_in...

johnwalkr 4y ago

I have one hotel hack, that works especially well for conferences when rooms are almost fully booked and prices are high. Book a hotel room with no charge for cancellation. Then, the day before arriving (or even the day of arriving if you're still able to cancel), check for rooms again. There's often nicer rooms that become available at the last minute due to others cancelling, at a lower price.

air7 4y ago
or if you're adventurous, cancel your own room and rebook it immediately...

Wildgoose 4y ago

Yes. Many years ago I was working on the Isle of Man. I initially travelled from England on Monday morning, returning on Friday evening. I then started buying tickets for the same aircraft flying to England on Friday evening and returning to the Isle of Man on Monday morning, which was around 25% cheaper despite all journeys taking place on the same aircraft.

_huayra_ 4y ago

There is a "lowest price guarantee" on Google flights now, wherein they will reimburse you the difference if the flight goes lower in price than if you buy it at that time (through their platform / booking, at least). To me, this is a signal that Google has used all of its price history data for flights to say "this is a bottom in price", and given they don't want to lose money hand over fist from mispredictions, they're probably right. I usually set up a price watch on a specific flight I want, then every time it drops, I check if it got the "low price guarantee" stamp of approval and buy then. Even if I'm wrong, I'll get paid the difference either way!

carrotcarrot 4y ago
More likely it's just a scheme to increase usage and they'll figure out the rest later, once they have more data to work with

di456 4y ago

I've found that some international flights with a regional domestic connection after landing in the new country are often several $100's cheaper to book one itinerary with the international segment, then a separate itinerary for the regional domestic connection.

nexus7556 4y ago
I've actually seen the opposite. * I was recently looking at GVA-EWR-BTV vs just GVA-EWR it was several hundred dollars less to go to BTV. * I was in Paris three weeks ago, looking at return flights CDG-SFO. It was several hundred dollars cheaper to book FRA-CDG-SFO or GVA-CDG-SFO than CDG-SFO.
- di456 4y ago
  It's wild how much pricing variation there can be with different routes to the same or a nearby destination.

dom96 4y ago

An extreme example of this which applies not just to tickets but a full holiday package is Disney World. If you're based out of the UK you can get a very good 14 day package which includes Disney World tickets, hotel and flights for a significant discount over the US/EU. In theory it should be possible to have someone outside the UK to buy these packages but I haven't tested it. I do actually track the prices and have built a site that exposes the data[1]. I found a couple of other hacks that are interesting (for example, you can save multiple thousands of £ by just splitting your stay, you'll need to move to a different hotel room but that might be worth it for many). 1 - https://mousetrack.co.uk/ https://mousetrack.co.uk/

grecy 4y ago

The effect of this (and the example given in the top SO answer) is significantly magnified when flying to and from Undeveloped countries. When I was in Africa I flew out of, and then back into Mali, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Egypt. Booking the tickets to do so while sitting in those countries was up to half the price of booking it from the Developed country I was flying into. I was just using kayak.com in Incognito and the price differences were staggering.

carrotcarrot 4y ago

I've bought a round trip ticket for 1/3 the price of the one way ticket. I literally couldn't afford the one way... It was 3000 and I had just graduated and was moving back to the states. The round trip was 800

elif 4y ago

Absolutely. To fly direct from Atlanta to Tokyo is about $3000 round trip. To fly to Tokyo from Costa Rica round trip via Atlanta layover is about $1500. You don't even need a VPN to see the price difference. It's the same airlines, the same exact planes. It's priced by demand not by costs and it is absurd imo, especially from a climate perspective. Should I take a Costa Rica vacation I don't need just to save money? It has me evaluating

Kailhus 4y ago
Indeed. And not if that layover is overnight and you ask to take your bags off Atlanta airport whilst you sleep at the hotel nearby, scrapping that ATL>Costa Rica leg the next day as no show. That’s another trick I haven’t seen mentioned around: the extra ‘dummy’ leg at the end sometimes make a huuuge difference.

emrah 4y ago

If you buy the ticket from another country, it's no longer the same ticket because the origin is (assumed to be) different

sacnoradhq 4y ago

Virgin Atlantic counter @ LHR. If you ask very very nicely when it's not too busy, someone may teach you the query terminal and let you have a look at fares across airlines if you happen to be more/less stranded.

raverbashing 4y ago
You don't need those. There are online systems that lets you check those details at home (can't remember the name now) But https://matrix.itasoftware.com/search https://matrix.itasoftware.com/search is a close second, if you know how to play around

Ozzie_osman 4y ago

I travel to my home country once a year to visit family, but have it set up so that my origin for the round trip is the home country (ie XYZ-SFO-XYZ rather than SFO-XYZ-SFO). The ticket is generally half the cost, which adds up when you're traveling with family. I can only do this because I consistently travel to that same place every year, otherwise I wouldn't be able to swap the origin. It also requires you knowing your dates in advance, but generally, even if I have to change the ticket, it's still much cheaper to pay the difference.

HenrikB 4y ago
In the same situation here. Yes, it looks like traveling outbound from some major hubs is more expensive than from other places. A round trip SFO-XYZ two week ticket can be substantially more expensive than XYZ-SFO round trip for the same period. Note that depending on when you travel and for how long, a SFO-XYZ-SFO ticket might be more expensive also because it is a shorter ticket (1 month or 3 month ticket) and it hits a high season period ("tourist season"), whereas the XYZ-SFO-XYZ is a long-term ticket (12 months) that avoids (most of) the high season.
AnonC 4y ago
Please elaborate since this is not clear. Are you actually doing a round trip on SFO-XYZ-SFO but buying two half priced (or lower than half priced) tickets for XYZ-SFO-XYZ (date 1) and XYZ-SFO-XYZ (date 2) and not using one leg on each of those tickets? Long ago I’d read that airlines don’t take this well.
- judge2020 4y ago
  Also curious, since I imagine airlines try to cancel subsequent flights if you didn’t get on the initial flight to ensure someone gets in that seat (at a higher price)
  - Zircom 4y ago
    He isn't skipping any flights. He presumably bought a one-way ticket to XYZ years ago, and since then each year he books an XYS->SFO->XYZ roundtrip for a year long "visit" to SFO before returning "home" to XYZ for a little bit before booking another round trip for another year long "visit" back in SFO, and so on.

rhtgrg 4y ago

Recently I paid to book better seats on an Air France flight and since the website was a hot mess (specifically the payment portal) I tried various VPNs to try and get through. To my surprise, prices were significantly different (about ~20% variation) depending on country, and it was most expensive in...France. This was on a flight that had already been booked from the US long ago.

the_third_wave 4y ago
Could be taxes making up the difference, 20% sounds suspiciously close to the French V.A.T. rate of... 20% [1]. [1] https://www.vatupdate.com/2021/04/21/vat-rates-in-france/
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rhtgrg 4y ago
  Perhaps, though I now recall that one of the options was free. I tried that one too, but I abandoned it first in favor of the others since the checkout and "payment" experience failed in strange and unpredictable ways with that one (the others at least showed me a 'sorry this is broken' style of message).
- FearNotDaniel 4y ago
  There's no VAT on international flights. Other taxes, perhaps, but that 20% difference is not so easily explained.
  - the_third_wave 4y ago
    This was not a payment for a flight but for some extra "service", is there no V.A.T. on that either?
    - FearNotDaniel 4y ago
      I'm not a tax accountant so I couldn't say for certain. But if this is an additional payment for a seat reservation on an international flight, I would assume it falls into the same category of "international travel", which I believe is zero-VAT across EU. If it was something not directly related to the travel aspect itself, e.g. pre booking an inflight meal or lounge access, I would expect VAT to apply. Or a domestic flight within France, of course.

INTPenis 4y ago

Referrers that lower price on travel booking sites are a real thing. One trick I've noticed works sometimes is clicking on ads in online newspapers of your home country. So if you're in country A, but you're browsing the news website of country B, they might see where you're browsing from and offer up an ad for travel from/to your specific country A. This is meant for expats because the whole site and the ad is in the language of country B.

93po 4y ago
sounds like a good browser extension - auto-inject different data based on community feedback on which gives the best deals
dymk 4y ago
Can confirm, my workflow for booking hotels now is find something on booking.com/hotels.com/kayak, then google search for the exact same hotel and follow links quoting lower prices to booking.com/hotels.com/kayak.

thrdbndndn 4y ago

It can work, but rarely. The international flight price has been very well globalized. What used to work very well is to rent a car through a foreign website. I live(d) in the US and was planning a trip in California for a few weeks back in ~2015. By going through a major car rental company's UK website, I literally halved my cost. I didn't have much luck with this trick last time I travelled though, unfortunately.

r00fus 4y ago
We visit France every year-ish and French automakers [1][2] vastly undercut long-term rentals from rental agencies by selling you a car with your promise to sell it back to them at nearly the same price (difference is the rental price). You are only ever out the actual rental price. We regularly save 1-2k EUR on a 3+ week rental unless we book the rental literally 6m+ beforehand. Kicker is that $0 deducible CDW is included, and the terms are quite generous. The only downside is last-minute cancellations will cost a non-trivial fee, but even those can be mitigated through insurance. [1] https://www.ttcar.com/en/ttcar https://www.ttcar.com/en/ttcar [2] https://www.autoeurope.com https://www.autoeurope.com
- xur17 4y ago
  Do you know if there is anything like this in the US? I've considered 1-3 month "trips" in the US, but the car rental ends up being quite expensive (to the point at which I've considered just buying and reselling the car). I'd be happy to front the full cost of the car if I was able to get some guarantee on the resale value, and didn't have to deal with selling the car itself.
  - r00fus 4y ago
    Unfortunately no. I imagine there is some tax/regulatory regime in Europe that incentivizes this kind of offering.
SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
It can also happen to work via the phone if it doesn’t online. I was trying to book a one way rental from Bergen to Oslo a few years ago. Avis Norwegian and USA website showed some insane price, but when I called up Bergen airport Avis they quoted me something less than half the price. Side note if you ever find yourself up that way it’s hands down the most beautiful drive I’ve ever done in my life and I’ve been driving in Iceland, Switzerland and other parts of Norway several times

choeger 4y ago

Absolutely. I had a 25% discount offer for the same flight when booking through the American site vs. the European one. Unfortunately, they also asked for an invoice address in the states. So I opted out of that airline altogether. Just wait for the day when airlines buy hotel booking data and increase your price because you already booked a non-refundable room. Or they look into your messaging service or social network for clues in how determined you are to go (e.g., to a funeral or job interview). Privacy is valuable, indeed. Even in hard cash.

tayo42 4y ago
last second trips are already expensive, why would they need to go through your private messages?
TylerE 4y ago
Sounds like VAT? We do t have that in the US, so our prices are about 20% lower. You still get taxed, it’s just not rolled into the advertised price.
- matsur 4y ago
  Quoted airfares are required by law to include taxes in the US.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Symbiote 4y ago
  There's no EU VAT on international flights to/from the EU. (Which is unfortunate, as there usually is VAT on train tickets.)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
raverbashing 4y ago
> buy hotel booking data and increase your price because you already booked a non-refundable room Actually this is (usually) the opposite Tickets sold for tourism are usually cheaper than a non-tourism ticket to the same place, so the ticket might be conditioned to being sold together with a hotel booking (travel agents like selling those combos)

harry8 4y ago

The theory of Price Discrimination, simple stuff, for anyone who isn't up on the econs 101 jargon, looks like it's here: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/price_discrimination.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/price_discrimination.as... Everyone including you will do it whenever you can when selling. The logical place surveillance capitalism is going isn't pretty. Will regulation protect consumers or will Goog, FB, Apple etc capture a good amount of everyone's consumer surplus? Would mass consumer outrage influence regulators more than lobbying cash? I don't have any answers, if don't think much of the questions it'd be interesting to know why you think that way.

htag 4y ago
This type of price discrimination isn't powered by surveillance capitalism. Using the example in the first answer on the stackexchange, this is nothing more than selling the same ticket at a different price to someone walking up to a United counter in USA compared to someone walking up to a United counter in AU. Surveillance capitalism powering price discrimination sounds scary, but there seems to be few examples of ML powered price discrimination. Currently we are paying massive amounts for simple price discrimination. You can save a ton of money (for things in general) by searching for discounts, booking ahead of time, accepting slower shipment, waiting for off-season/off-peak, buying in bulk, haggling, etc.
- harry8 4y ago
  > This type of price discrimination isn't powered by surveillance capitalism Ok in this particular example of price discrimination it isn't. Yet. Sure. Now imagine you wan't to power it buy surveillance capitalism to get more of that surplus and current laws and norms are no object. What would that look like? How close do you think we will get to that? How fast? [1] Think vendors will keep much of that captured surplus in the face of Goog, FB, Apple, whatever market power? [1] I'd just refuse to buy any ticket unless your country of birth and residency of your family was known, which holidays you celebrate. By which I mean make dis counts readily available on that basis (with exclusions) to really slug anyone going home for high holidays, for example. Frame it as a discount, whatever. So that's one way it might go. Can you think of how this is going to work for insurance? Health insurance? What else would really supercharge revenue using techniques like this?

quickthrower2 4y ago

Can I get a pay rise if I use a VPN?

xur17 4y ago
Amusingly enough, maybe? I was staying in a coliving house, and one of my friends there was working a US only job from Europe using a VPN they setup back in the US. None of their coworkers knew, and it paid better than EU options they could find.
faeyanpiraat 4y ago
If you can teach your VPN to ask for a raise, you definitely deserve to get it.

herpderperator 4y ago

VPN was added in the HN title but is not present in the actual question title. The act of simply "using" a "VPN" does not make prices cheaper. Let's not abuse the term. It's about purchase location.

rdlw 4y ago
If someone asked whether you can drive a nail into a board more easily if you use a hammer, I would say yes, even though the act of simply "using" a "hammer" does not instantly make nearby nails go into boards. It doesn't seem like an abuse of terms, just not fully explaining what a VPN is or how you should use it in the short title.
- andrewshadura 4y ago
  Most VPNs I use on a daily basis don't provide access to outside themselves, and don't, in fact, have any routers usable as a default gateway, and as such are unusable for the purpose described in the article.
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rtpg 4y ago

People say this and it always sounds a bit like a myth, so here's a concrete search. Tokyo to Seattle, May 18th to June 8th. first link ([0]) with the sales city set to Seattle, the other time set to Tokyo ([1]). Most of the airlines price the flight roughly the same (writing up the differences in pricing to currency conversions, like ~1%) but Singapore Airlines is offering the same flight at 3x the cost! I feel like I've read in the past about how flight tickets are priced based on many rules, that are shared between various companies that sell tickets. My inference is thus that these rules might be dynamic, but they aren't like.... "price will change minute to minute based on all of the cookies in your browser" dynamic. Which then leads me to wondering: what sort of pricing rules are kicking in for these pricing differences? Because it feels to me a lot more like "lack of a discounting mechanism" rather than "rule that triples singapore airline flights out of Tokyo for Tokyo-based pruchases" [0]: https://matrix.itasoftware.com/flights?search=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 https://matrix.itasoftware.com/flights?search=eyJ0eXBlIjoicm... [1]: https://matrix.itasoftware.com/flights?search=eyJ0eXBlIjoicm91bmQtdHJpcCIsInNsaWNlcyI6W3sib3JpZ2luIjpbIlRZTyJdLCJkZXN0IjpbIlNFQSJdLCJyb3V0aW5nIjoiIiwiZXh0IjoiIiwicm91dGluZ1JldCI6IiIsImV4dFJldCI6IiIsImRhdGVzIjp7InNlYXJjaERhdGVUeXBlIjoic3BlY2lmaWMiLCJkZXBhcnR1cmVEYXRlIjoiMjAyMy0wNS0xOCIsImRlcGFydHVyZURhdGVUeXBlIjoiZGVwYXJ0IiwiZGVwYXJ0dXJlRGF0ZU1vZGlmaWVyIjoiMCIsImRlcGFydHVyZURhdGVQcmVmZXJyZWRUaW1lcyI6W10sInJldHVybkRhdGUiOiIyMDIzLTA2LTA4IiwicmV0dXJuRGF0ZVR5cGUiOiJkZXBhcnQiLCJyZXR1cm5EYXRlTW9kaWZpZXIiOiIwIiwicmV0dXJuRGF0ZVByZWZlcnJlZFRpbWVzIjpbXX19XSwib3B0aW9ucyI6eyJjYWJpbiI6IkNPQUNIIiwic3RvcHMiOiItMSIsImV4dHJhU3RvcHMiOiIxIiwiYWxsb3dBaXJwb3J0Q2hhbmdlcyI6InRydWUiLCJzaG93T25seUF2YWlsYWJsZSI6InRydWUiLCJjdXJyZW5jeSI6eyJkaXNwbGF5TmFtZSI6IlVuaXRlZCBTdGF0ZXMgRG9sbGFyIChVU0QpIiwiY29kZSI6IlVTRCJ9LCJzYWxlc0NpdHkiOnsiY29kZSI6IlRZTyIsIm5hbWUiOiJUb2t5byJ9fSwicGF4Ijp7ImFkdWx0cyI6IjEifSwic29sdXRpb24iOnsic2Vzc2lvbklkIjoiM0NaMGRVVFlhQ1Q3N2lCbFF6eHRZR2taRSIsIkFkIjp0cnVlLCJtaCI6IjAyMjk5U0xaR1pPOU8wUVc2elFNV1FHIiwiR2kiOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D https://matrix.itasoftware.com/flights?search=eyJ0eXBlIjoicm...

habitue 4y ago

Do travel agents have some benefit when travelling internationally or something? I have not heard about travel agents since the 90s. Maybe I'm missing some incredible deals? I kinda expected them to not exist any more

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
A friend of mine works in the public sector, and using an agent saves on the bureaucracy. They need to find three separate providers/offers, and then choose cheapest option... so they call an agency, tell them where they want to go and when, what hotel, and that they need two more expensive options too,... so an agency calls other friendly agencies, tell them what (higher) price they need, and the public sector worker gets what they need with minimal work.
- netsharc 4y ago
  Huh, couldn't that be construed as a price-fixing conspiracy?
93po 4y ago
i think they're still popular for disney since there are a ton of options for packages and i think they can also provide better deals than booking elsewhere
netsharc 4y ago
I think they're still around, and they probably have the "on-the-ground" knowledge that's useful, maybe from feedback of their customers, or network of local friends (some small agencies focus on particular destinations, probably because they travelled there once and liked it so much they became an expert of the region, and big agencies just have partners in popular destinations). Compare that to if you check out a hotel on booking.com, the ratings are all exaggerated, even if you rate everything as crap, their scoring system will make your final rating about a 6.0 (don't quote me on that). Not to mention review-buying or faking. As for flights, the last few times I tried booking from a booking como5any through Skyscanner where the price was 20% lower, I got all the way to entering my CC number and clicking "Buy now" only for the page to tell me, "Oops, tickets for this price are no longer available, do you want to buy for [price advertised on the airline website]?"... Hell fuck no!

IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago

about 10 years ago, you could buy a a flight lima-cuzco like a local by simply making the reservation online on the correct carrier (lanperu i believe), getting a voucher, then stopping by the main supermarket, presenting the voucher and paying for it in cash. This decreased the cost of the ticket by approximately 50% It was important to book on the right local carrier of Lan to do this, as well as entering certain info for the voucher itself No Peru passport or driver's license required.

martin-adams 4y ago

I had to rebook more expensive flights due to a cancellation. My wife has it open on her phone for £500 less than the same flights on my phone.

EntrePrescott 4y ago
lemme guess: your phone is an iphone whereas your wife's phone is an android phone?
- martin-adams 4y ago
  Both iPhone, but did make me wonder at the time

robbiep 4y ago

I was in Vietnam once and buying a flight between Dalat and Da Nang. First searched on there .com and it was $3-400 AUD. Searched again on the Vietnamese domain - $75 AUD. Wild.

yosito 4y ago

I've been flying internationally 10-15 times a year for ~10 years. Different routes and destinations each time. I've spent a lot of time searching for hacks like this that let me save a few bucks on flight tickets. Sometimes it works. Sometimes you find that a flight is cheaper depending on which country's website or currency you use to book. Flight tickets are priced dynamically using a variety of factors to determine the price. By manipulating those factors you can get different prices. However, the factors that are used to determine price are generally not publicized and change frequently, so there is no predictable rule. In the end, I've realized that my time is better spent not chasing these elusive deals. I can spend all day searching for the cheapest flight somewhere, or I can just book the cheapest thing on Kiwi or SkyScanner in 10 minutes and spend the rest of my day writing code for a project that is paying me far more money than I would have saved searching for flight deals. The best hacks to save money on plane tickets: travel carry-on luggage only, fly economy, and book with a credit card that provides travel insurance and accumulates rewards. Chase Sapphire cards are pretty much the standard for travelers.

olalonde 4y ago
I found it often works with https://ctrip.com https://ctrip.com (Chinese airline booking service).
eadmund 4y ago
> travel carry-on luggage only That is impossible if one wishes to carry a pocketknife or handgun at one’s destination. The latter is fairly uncommon, but the former is very common, right? Not to mention if one is bringing back a bottles of beer, wine or spirits.
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  >The latter is fairly uncommon, but the former is very common, right? idk, is it really? >Not to mention if one is bringing back a bottles of beer, wine or spirits. Buy that stuff at the destination.
- tayo42 4y ago
  ive traveled a bit and never felt the need to bring a knife...

deleted 4y ago

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haunter 4y ago

It's the same with train tickets in Europe! I live in Budapest and regularly have to go to Wien. If you buy the ticket from the hungarian railways it costs the half or less than compared to the austrian railways. Example: next monday Hungarian BP>Wien https://i.imgur.com/9rZgB8c.png https://i.imgur.com/9rZgB8c.png Austrian BP>Wien https://i.imgur.com/mn95IrV.png https://i.imgur.com/mn95IrV.png Hungarian Wien>BP https://i.imgur.com/GymMOaW.png https://i.imgur.com/GymMOaW.png Austrian Wien>BP https://i.imgur.com/zN3VCDv.png https://i.imgur.com/zN3VCDv.png I always tell my friends coming from Germany or Austria to buy tickets from the hungarian railways because it's much cheaper.

jkepler 4y ago
I really appreciate seat61.com when I need to book train travel. The site is full of info as to when and where to book to get the best price, as well as what level of service various trains in various countries provide.
w-m 4y ago
It's too bad that the Czech train hack doesn't seem to work any more: There's a train from Berlin to Prague that stops in Dresden. It used to be much cheaper to book the trip Berlin-Dresden with České dráhy, compared to the price you get with DB. I think you also had to make it an international ticket to make it work, booking the journey from Berlin to the first station after the border. And then just leaving the train early, at your intended destination.

qwertox 4y ago

Somewhat related: If you rent your car via sixt.es instead of sixt.de, you'll get it for a lower price [0] [1] [0] https://www.sixt.es/betafunnel/#/offerlist?zen_pu_location=7ece8579-c64e-4886-95ec-c8ea9991cc12&zen_do_location=7ece8579-c64e-4886-95ec-c8ea9991cc12&zen_pu_title=Berl%C3%ADn%20BER%20Aeropuerto%20T1%2B2&zen_do_title=Berl%C3%ADn%20BER%20Aeropuerto%20T1%2B2&zen_pu_time=2023-03-30T12%3A30&zen_do_time=2023-04-03T08%3A30&zen_pu_branch_id=BRANCH%3A8&zen_do_branch_id=BRANCH%3A8&zen_offer_matrix_id=ed38de5f-6c6a-49f4-bd16-071e71df2131&zen_vehicle_type=car&zen_filters=%7B%22group_type%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22transmission_type%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22passengers_count%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%222%22%2C%22key%22%3A%22passengers_count%22%7D%5D%2C%22bags_count%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%221%22%2C%22key%22%3A%22bags_count%22%7D%5D%2C%22minimum_driver_age%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%2226%22%2C%22key%22%3A%22minimum_driver_age%22%7D%5D%7D&zen_booking_id=5d8e6417-8acb-48be-9e98-2191e9e187b4 https://www.sixt.es/betafunnel/#/offerlist?zen_pu_location=7... [1] https://www.sixt.de/betafunnel/#/offerlist?zen_pu_location=726bbdf0-fffd-49db-b3cf-7ec83ae0f003&zen_do_location=726bbdf0-fffd-49db-b3cf-7ec83ae0f003&zen_pu_time=2023-03-30T12%3A30&zen_do_time=2023-04-03T08%3A30&zen_pu_branch_id=BRANCH%3A8&zen_do_branch_id=BRANCH%3A8&zen_offer_matrix_id=93f4fe7f-da8a-4b18-83be-b9f295e52275&zen_vehicle_type=car&zen_filters=%7B%22group_type%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22transmission_type%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22passengers_count%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%222%22%2C%22key%22%3A%22passengers_count%22%7D%5D%2C%22bags_count%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%221%22%2C%22key%22%3A%22bags_count%22%7D%5D%2C%22minimum_driver_age%22%3A%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%2226%22%2C%22key%22%3A%22minimum_driver_age%22%7D%5D%7D&zen_pu_title=Berlin%20BER%20Flughafen%20T1%2B2&zen_do_title=Berlin%20BER%20Flughafen%20T1%2B2 https://www.sixt.de/betafunnel/#/offerlist?zen_pu_location=7...

nolok 4y ago
I wanted to ask "Is it a VAT thing ?" but Spain actually has higher VAT so no I'm pretty sure it's illegal in the EU for the same company to give a different price to customer depending on where they live in the union, I assume they get around that by being "not the same company" but sixt spain and sixt germany instead ...
- andrewaylett 4y ago
  It's perfectly legal to offer different products or different prices to different markets. What's not legal is blocking someone from accessing a market just because it's not their "home" market. Skyscanner has come up in this discussion, and full disclosure: I'm an employee. But this is an entirely personal comment. Skyscanner has a lot of different market-based websites, for example https://www.skyscanner.de https://www.skyscanner.de and https://www.skyscanner.fr https://www.skyscanner.fr. We don't geo-block, though: wherever you are, you'll have full access to any Skyscanner website, and we'll happily give you whichever market, locale, and currency triple you ask for. And we pass on the underlying market-based prices that we're given. So if you want to know whether different markets get different selections of flights, or different prices for the same flight, it's relatively easy to look and find examples. Amazon is the same: you'll get different products and prices on de and uk, but if I'm willing to pay shipping then Amazon is willing to sell me stuff from Germany even though the UK left the EU and it's legal for them to block me or give me different prices. Which was very useful when I needed radiator thermostat adapters a couple of months ago.

homami 4y ago

Based on my experience traveling between Europe, Middle East and Asia: - for return flights I always get different fares based on the origin. At least for the airlines that I travel with it does not matter what my IP is, but where my origin is. - depending on the airline or the hotel booking service, I get higher fares if I book with an iPhone (including their apps) or a Mac comparing to when I spoof my user agent to Windows. The difference can be substantial. - for hotel bookings, my IP location used to make a big difference. I guess these days the services just became better at finger printing and detecting VPNs.

ezconnect 4y ago

Hotels have a different online pricing depending on where you are buying it. It is always cheaper locally.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Example? I have never seen this using a major hotel brand website.

textread 4y ago

Somewhat related: Over the counter medicine is significantly cheaper to buy from Thailand, Indonesia and India [1]. Medicines in the US cost 50 times their cost in Thailand. [1] https://static.toiimg.com/thumb/imgsize-23456,msid-72197131,width-600,resizemode-4/72197131.jpg https://static.toiimg.com/thumb/imgsize-23456,msid-72197131,...

AdamN 4y ago
Indian pharmaceuticals are not well regulated and if you can afford it, it's better to look for products from other countries with stronger oversight.

swe_dima 4y ago

In the past I have written a script for skyscanner that goes through a list of countries and searches for the lowest price. Usually price difference isn't that big, but you can save a few bucks this way.

thih9 4y ago

> As a result of this demand, the airline may choose to increase the price of flights for Australians (who are more likely to pay them as they are headed to summer!) and keep the price the same for Americans who would not be willing to pay the higher charges. But why keep the price the same for Americans? Wouldn’t it be more profitable to increase the price overall?

lazyasciiart 4y ago
Thats the fundamental question of pricing - x people will buy at $y and your margin will be $z, but i people will buy at $j and your margin will be $k. Now decide what x, y, i and j are, then find whether z>k.

jaimehrubiks 4y ago

My experience is that the only thing that matters is the origin of your roundtrip. Trips from Europe cost half the trips from the us. With same paths or even same flights.

lazyasciiart 4y ago

Years ago I bought an RTW ticket from One World, where the pricing varied based on what country your flights started in. I think the lowest price I found was from Morocco, and the USA was among the highest - something like $3000 vs $5000.

ourmandave 4y ago

Had friends save enough money flying to Europe from Montreal, it was worth the drive from Illinois.

aaron695 4y ago

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