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How to Beat High Airfares (2011)
- _dark_matter_ 12y agoThis needs a (2011) tag.
- outericky 12y agoand a (Nate Silver) tag
- cake 12y agoThat's why the tips felt so irrelevant. Last time I checked booking two tickets made no difference, kayak and all are all well known and I hope that everyone checks at least if there's not a cheaper alternative with these. Usually I can't find anything that I didn't know about, maybe it's because the number of airlines is diminushing every year. I must also add that I hate those people coming with huge bags, filling the overhead bins as advised in the article. There's no room in the cabin, the old lady won't be able to lift it on her own or you'll get the bag in the face because she's not carefull. In my opinion only backpacks and laptops bags should be allowed, the way it used to be (not so old man rant).
- outericky 12y agoAccording to this story [1], in 2012 airlines made just $0.37 per passenger trip. So, while I think the inefficient pricing is in need of repair, to say that prices are too high, is unfortunately not true. I hate paying for transcontinental flights as much as the next guy, but what other way can you cover 3000 miles that cheaply and quickly? [1] http://online.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-losers-1410535536 http://online.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-fo...
- jib 12y agoIs that because of pricing or because of company structure/setup though? Ryanair is currently predicting 510M profit on 81M trips in Europe for 2014. Not saying they are a model company in any way (the main thing I disagree with is some of their employee treatment), but they are certainly proving that it is possible to operate a profitable airline with low prices and high quality.
- jacob019 12y agoonly $6.30 profit per trip and that's the best example of a profitable airline, crazy
- jib 12y agoThat is on about 3-4B revenue or so though, so its actually a pretty good profit margin.
- jacob019 12y agoThat would be only $49 in revenue per trip, seems low.
- Someone1234 12y agoWhen you put it in those terms it seems almost insane. How can any company operate on such low margins? I mean, yes, the "Walmart model" is the answer, but it seems like they could go under very easily if hit by something unexpected.
- epochwolf 12y ago> it seems like they could go under very easily if hit by something unexpected They do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_bankruptcies_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_bankruptcies_in_the_Uni...
- fennecfoxen 12y agoThere's an old joke about this: How do you make a million dollars in the airline business? Well, you start with a billion dollars...
- ssharp 12y agoI have no idea how airline accounting works, but if these numbers are correct, you'd have to assume quite a bit of money collected is not counted as revenue and is going to cover direct costs like taxes.
- discardorama 12y ago> in 2012 airlines made just $0.37 per passenger trip. But how much of the costs are due to inefficiencies? Every time I fly, I am amazed at how long the agents have to keep typing away on their keyboards just for simple tasks.
- serve_yay 12y agoThe prices are more than we would like to pay so of course someone is screwing us. It can't just be that moving us around costs a bunch of money.
- nathancahill 12y agoHere's a site that lets you search for these flights: https://skiplagged.com/ https://skiplagged.com/ I've used it many times, usually saving around 50% on flights. I never check bags anyway, so it works out well.
- Someone1234 12y agoYou can use a similar technique to get ultra-cheap First/Business class tickets to places like Europe. You book a flight to some poorer European country, like Poland for one example, it will have a stop-over in either Paris or London, you then disembark there. The tickets will be partly based on the cost of living in the destination (Poland) so be significantly cheaper than a ticket to London or Paris direct in those classes (i.e. same exact aircraft, same route, same class, but cheaper).
- jacob019 12y agoI don't see how this could work for the return flight. If I book Indianapolis to LA to get a cheaper ticket to Denver, I would still need a flight back from Denver, so even if I save 20% on the first flight, I'm only saving 10% on the round trip. Am I missing something?
- jcdavis 12y agoNope. If the city of origin is another airline hub you could theoretically do another hidden-city trip back, though. (eg Denver->Indianapolis->XXX)
- mikegreen 12y agoYou have to book two one-way tickets. One IND-LAX thru DIA, and another one DIA-LAX. If you booked a round-trip IND-LAX, both thru Denver, and you skipped the DIA-LAX on the outbound, the rest of your ticket will be cancelled. It can be substantial even doing it one-way, a popular route I flew into ORD was $454 each way on its own, but going thru ORD onto somewhere like MKE was $89-105 consistently. So even with the full-fare ticket back, it would reduce the price from nearly $900 r/t to $600ish. YMMV.
- nostrademons 12y agoAlternatively you could do a second hidden-city trip, eg.DIA->ANX via LAX, and just not not use the second leg of the return trip.
- noer 12y agoairlines will cancel your ticket if you don't get on the plane for the first leg
- nostrademons 12y agoTwo one-ways, two different airlines. Fly from, say, LA to Indianapolis via Denver on, say, Delta and get off at Denver. For the return trip, fly Denver to Anchorage via LA on say Alaska Airlines and get off at LA. You have completed your travel plans, and from the perspective of each airline, you just missed your connection on a one-way trip.
- joshvm 12y agoThere was a great Stack post on this a while ago. Basically it always boils down to booking early, really, that's how you get those cheap flights. The "book a few weeks before" option is bunk. For most of us Europeans, jumping off at a stopover isn't an option, although it is possible to do this on trains sometimes (and actually it's very legal, you're entitled to break your journey at a valid calling point). https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/2952/flight-tickets-buy-two-weeks-before-even-during-holiday-seasons https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/2952/flight-ticke...
- pidg 12y agoIn the UK, you can break your rail journey on the flexible ticket types, but not on Advance fares. So you can either get a good deal by booking in advance, or by breaking a cheaper, longer journey - but not both.
- joshvm 12y agoNot to mention that you should always split tickets if possible, particularly if you change service providers. That and avoid London and First Great Western; their ticket prices are obscene.
- useful 12y agoPart of my job is to prevent this. We are very good at cancelling your ticket based on airline rules if we know you wont get on a plane based on your other flights. Airlines ban/fine travel agents (and sometimes passengers) that abuse their rules.
- tnuc 12y agoYou're not doing a very good job. Almost all my flights these days use a 3X to reduce the YQ. The economist does a fairly good job at explaining it. http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2013/11/fuel-dumping http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2013/11/fuel-dumping
- jbkkd 12y agoCould you tell us some more about how you do it?
- exhilaration 12y agoExperienced dumpers scorn novices seeking guidance, unless the newcomers can offer hot new 3Xs in exchange.
- swimfar 12y agoYQ : fuel surcharge (which is apparently not related to fuel costs) 3X : method to eliminate this additional cost by adding an extra leg to the trip (which is then not taken).
- useful 12y agowe do a good job, the airlines don't want to pay for the arms race they create by making their rules around pricing so difficult that no single person in their business understands it (personal opinion). I believe airlines that do use our services do much better than the ones that don't (like +0.5-1% more margin). Think about how much money that is to someone like united with 38 billion in revenue. The only reason I have a job is because the reservation system is old and has all sorts of scope creep to do things that aren't really airline related but were implemented to make a sale. tl;dr I agree with the guy at the end of the story.
- drammons 12y agoIf you have a high zone number when boarding, the odds of the overhead bins being filled before you board are higher. About half of my trips to and from NYC in the last 4 years have required zones 4 and 5 to check their bags at the gate, due to full overhead bins.
- phantom784 12y agoA risk of this is that the airline is only required to get you to the actual destination your purchased. If your flight is cancelled, they could re-book you with a routing that doesn't fly through your intended destination.
- TeMPOraL 12y agoThey should start doing that, or something similar. Say you book a flight from city A to city B, but you really intend to drop off at the place C which is the middle-stop. Airlines could every now and then switch the route to go through a different city D without announcing it in advance. Getting stuck in a different city at random would quickly drive the point home to cheaters.
- larrydag 12y agoEasier said than done. Logistics of flight scheduling is very difficult. You need to schedule aircraft routes, flight crew routes, and attendant crew routes. Also have to include refueling stops and maintenance stops. Sabre Solutions made a name for themselves doing this for American. Your solution can be done but there are serious cost consequences.
- TeMPOraL 12y agoI know, I know. It was only a half-joke. Once upon a time I stumbled upon the ITA slides[0] and the complexity involved with fares and routes pretty much blew my mind. [0] - https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.itasoftware.com/en//pdf/ComplexityofArlineTravelPlanning_Carl_Sep-03.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.itasoftware.c...
- Someone1234 12y agoThat's unlikely simply because it would upset a lot of people, non-cheaters, as it both alters their itinerary but also alters the total travel time (e.g. 8 hrs instead of 6 hrs). Plus that isn't really how aircraft travel works, it isn't a single aircraft which travels from A to B to C, it is a connection which only exists because aircraft A and B land at the same airport within 30-60 minutes of one another. Now everyone understands if there is an aircraft issue/emergency and the airline needs to re-route you. But if they started making a random habit of it just for "fun" (to catch less than 0.1% of their customers) people would get upset very quickly.
- Dawenster 12y agoI heard about this a while back so my friend and I made this search engine: http://www.flyshortcut.com/ http://www.flyshortcut.com/. Only works in North America, and like most people say - be mindful of the risks!
- frequentflyeru 12y agoIf you really want to beat high airfare, stop buying tickets and figure out how to accrue frequent flyer miles at the lowest rate. BoardingArea.com is a good resource. Few years back, people figured out US Mint was selling gold $1 coins at cost + free shipping, so people (myself included) bought them on their mileage earning credit card and just re-deposited the coins into the bank. Some people earned $1M+ miles for free. http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB126014168569179245 http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB126014168569179245
- r00fus 12y agoDo these kind of arbitration opportunities still exist except as mistakes? I assume that channel would have been made unprofitable after discovery...
- fennecfoxen 12y agoIt's arbitrage, not arbitration. I believe the mint began by denying orders from people suspected of being crazy-exploitative, and ultimately terminated the program altogether. (You can still order the coins, but you'll have to pay for shipping.)
- dkfmn 12y agoAlmost every credit card changed their terms so that cash equivalent purchases no longer accrued perks.
- fennecfoxen 12y ago... by exploiting the government (and in turn its taxpayers) by using their services in a manner flagrantly inconsistent with the program's aims of getting the $1 coins in broader circulation. I'd rather find ways to do something useful and make money, instead of just leeching off society like that, myself. Maybe this is why I'll never be super-rich though :b
- misterbwong 12y agoThe article is touting hidden city ticketing. While this is still a valid strategy, one needs to be careful when employing it as the airlines hate this behavior. It's not against the law but (I think) it is against their contract of carriage. Better (and less dodgy) advice would be to follow these websites: http://www.theflightdeal.com/ http://www.theflightdeal.com/ (my current favorite) http://faredealalert.com/ http://faredealalert.com/ http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/ http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/ Set up an IFTTT alert on the RSS feed for your home airport and/or desired destination and jump on it when you get the notification.
- serve_yay 12y agoThe biggest problem is as they point out - you can't check your bag, and if you board too late they will force you to check it. Then you're screwed. So you get that unique modern form of anxiety - trying to board the plane before everyone else so you don't have to gate check. You better have a bookbag and nothing else.
- geofffox 12y agoI know it's supposedly new thinking, but I used this trick often in 1970-71. Flying to West Palm Beach from LaGuardia was more expensive than just getting off a flight that stopped at PBI while continuing to Miami. Thank you Eastern Airlines.
- kazinator 12y agoHow the airlines could confront this is by not reliably stopping in the intermediate cities. That is to say, multi-leg flights should sometimes not stop in those some of the intermediate destinations, so that passengers who want to get off there using a cheaper ticket face a gamble: the risk of ending up in the wrong city, wasting time and money to get where they really want. Yes, the plane has to pick up people from those place, but the logistics of that could be worked in with the uncertainty so those people are taken care of. Some other plane grabs them in that case or whatever. Perhaps another airline's plane with some kind of sharing plan. Say two airlines N and M have flights from A to D. One airline stops over at B, and the other at C. They could enter into a flight sharing agreement so that they pick up each other's passengers at B and C. Then it is not known whether any given N or M flight will stop at B or whether at C. The only sure destination is D. (Not saying I agree with this, but it's better than other tactics, like bullying customers who are only behaving rationally. "May or may not stop in Dallas": problem solved.)