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art of spoonbending posted:Just a word of warning, don't use Cheapoair if there's any chance you'll need to change your booking. We foolishly booked a flight through them as it was the cheapest on skyscanner or whatever we were using. Would probably have been fine... until you need to change anything. Just don't go through them, pay the $10 extra to go directly through the airline. Just so we're all clear, when buying the cheapest fares, changing them will cost you money no matter where you book them. It is a nearly universal truth. I've always advocated buying directly from the source whenever possible so you don't have to deal with a middle man, but you'll pay a fee either way to make changes after the fact.
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May 29, 2014 13:56
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erobadapazzi posted:I'm looking for 2 one-way tickets from Korea (any airport works fine, whether ICN/GMP or PUS or something else) to Los Angeles (again, anything in the area is good), leaving within a few days of August 21 (the earlier the better). Aside from Air China through Beijing, are there any other places where we might be able to get a cheap stopover? Also, I'm seeing a good price for that Air China deal, but it gets in at 2 and leaves the next day at 2. I can't seem to find an option on their website to take a flight out two days later. How would I go about trying to get a price for that? Thanks! I don't see anything less than $1000. The cheapest I see is GMP-SAN for $1221 on a mixture of ANA and United. The upside to these being one-way tickets is that you change planes in HND and then again in LAX. You can simply leave the airport at LAX and you're good to go. This is not something I recommend doing often, but the next cheapest flight that terminates at LAX is ICN-SEA-LAX on Delta for $1370.
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May 29, 2014 14:01
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Mackieman posted:I don't see anything less than $1000. The cheapest I see is GMP-SAN for $1221 on a mixture of ANA and United. The upside to these being one-way tickets is that you change planes in HND and then again in LAX. You can simply leave the airport at LAX and you're good to go. This is not something I recommend doing often, but the next cheapest flight that terminates at LAX is ICN-SEA-LAX on Delta for $1370. Here is a fun throwaway ticket if August 26th works -- Delta/UA put a bunch of ICN - US routes for September through early December on sale for $600RT (source).  Edit: $883 on 8/20, $786 on 8/24 and 25th. fuseshock fucked around with this message at 23:31 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 23:11
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fuseshock posted:Here is a fun throwaway ticket if August 26th works -- Delta/UA put a bunch of ICN - US routes for September through early December on sale for $600RT (source). Indeed; my sleep-deprived brain did not think of that option. I'd only do it if you're a US Citizen though; missing that return flight for a foreigner is likely to cause issues later on.
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May 30, 2014 00:20
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Quick question for the more savvy travelers: I will be traveling from San Francisco to Kansas in August. Going to fly out to Wichita, rent a car, attend a wedding. I also plan on taking said car to Oklahoma to visit a friend. Would it be possible to return the rental to the Tulsa airport and take a flight from there back to San Francisco? If so, would it count as two one-way trips or could I book it as a roundtrip somehow? edit: Hmm, guess I'm looking for the multi-city option? Man, considering the price to return the car to a different city is double, maybe I'll just bite the bullet and make that terrible 3 hour drive back to Kansas. ChikoDemono fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Jun 1, 2014 |
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Jun 1, 2014 14:05
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ChikoDemono posted:Quick question for the more savvy travelers: Yeah, it's a multi-city itinerary, no issues with booking it that way. Generally they price like two one-ways but it depends on the carrier and routing rules of the fare in question. On the car front, rate codes tend to help dramatically in those cases. A google search will return several good codes for most of the major rental agencies.
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Jun 1, 2014 16:38
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In my experience unless it's an opposite direction snowbird route, you're going to get absolutely dicked on a one way car rental. They have to account on them getting the car back to the origin somehow, via truck or driver. Renting in OAK and returning to SJC is regularly double the rate even with codes. Maybe they'll help but mine never do, and that's a drive that isn't nearly as far as yours.
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Jun 1, 2014 19:07
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Thanks for the help with my question, everyone. I ended up going through a travel agent and getting the AirChina flight I wanted for almost the same price the website was showing me (paying 1991600 KRW per person for a one-way ICN-LAX with a 2-hour layover in PEK). I'm glad to have it settled!
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Jun 1, 2014 23:04
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Thanks for info. I might just do the drive back. Car rentals are finicky as is, I don't need the extra hassle.
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Jun 2, 2014 01:35
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ITA Matrix is driving me insane with fares that are no longer available. For example, I'm looking for a flight from AMS/RTM/BRU to PEK/PVG for 10 to 14 days, in August or September. Now they're showing €531 tickets through Emirates (which is pretty decent), but the prices on their website is 300 more (just a more expensive fare). Any websites where I can actually see live fares, or am I going to have to do this manually?
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Jun 2, 2014 14:05
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Jeoh posted:ITA Matrix is driving me insane with fares that are no longer available. For example, I'm looking for a flight from AMS/RTM/BRU to PEK/PVG for 10 to 14 days, in August or September. Now they're showing €531 tickets through Emirates (which is pretty decent), but the prices on their website is 300 more (just a more expensive fare). Any websites where I can actually see live fares, or am I going to have to do this manually? Almost all of the third party sites are relying upon GDS data which is something the airline has the responsibility to update. Most often, when I see issues like this, it involves carriers based in the Middle East. No idea why they tend to have the issue more often than others, but it sure seems that way in my purely anecdotal view. As such, the only way to overcome it is to search on the airline's website directly.
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Jun 2, 2014 16:41
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Jeoh posted:ITA Matrix is driving me insane with fares that are no longer available. For example, I'm looking for a flight from AMS/RTM/BRU to PEK/PVG for 10 to 14 days, in August or September. Now they're showing €531 tickets through Emirates (which is pretty decent), but the prices on their website is 300 more (just a more expensive fare). Any websites where I can actually see live fares, or am I going to have to do this manually? Hmm, but do you specifically want to fly Emirates? Because I just did a general calendar search starting from the 3rd of August and you can get €550-€600 tickets for almost departure date starting on the 19th of August. Emirates isn't that nice anyway if you get stuck in a 10-abreast 777. Cheapest I saw was €546 with Swiss.
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Jun 2, 2014 22:17
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Geriatric Pirate posted:Hmm, but do you specifically want to fly Emirates? Because I just did a general calendar search starting from the 3rd of August and you can get €550-€600 tickets for almost departure date starting on the 19th of August. Emirates isn't that nice anyway if you get stuck in a 10-abreast 777. Cheapest I saw was €546 with Swiss. Nah I don't really care much about the airline. Slight preference for SkyTeam or Star Alliance 'cause this flight would get me in range of award tickets (have about 10k saved up with both). Thanks though, I didn't see the Swiss tickets.
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Jun 3, 2014 15:48
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Mackieman posted:Almost all of the third party sites are relying upon GDS data which is something the airline has the responsibility to update. Most often, when I see issues like this, it involves carriers based in the Middle East. No idea why they tend to have the issue more often than others, but it sure seems that way in my purely anecdotal view. I work at a travel agency who works on the Galileo GDS system, the reasoning why you will see this happen with Emirates and Qatar in particular (Not always with them and not always not with others either though) is that they are very strict on controlling yield, with specific booking classes being available only if you have certain routing/dates/return dates/flight numbers/having a stopover or not/etc. So for example if the O class fare with Qatar is $1000 + Taxes, a random GDS search will show MEL - DOH - LHR // FCO - DOH - MEL in O Class all the way showing $1000 + Tax, but then you go to hold it in and you will see that in a live booking, O Class is in fact available MEL - DOH - LHR but not on the return... only once you have actually held in the outbound sectors will you see that maybe only N class is available for the inbound sector, which may be that $300 more. Singapore Airlines do it as well, at least EK/QR/SQ are the three I see do it regularly being from a Melbourne, Australia based agency.
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Jun 4, 2014 11:48
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I'm looking at a return flight from Dublin to Chicago from Sep 15th till the 30th. Is €650 a good price? I've always booked packaged deals with somewhere like Expedia
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Jun 4, 2014 12:21
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TwoDogs1Cup posted:I'm looking at a return flight from Dublin to Chicago from Sep 15th till the 30th. Is €650 a good price? I've always booked packaged deals with somewhere like Expedia Looks pretty good based on a quick search. You could get it a bit cheaper (€590) if you have +-2 days flexibility, check ITA Matrix for that.
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Jun 4, 2014 14:23
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Hey Guys, my girlfriend and I are looking at going to Vietnam out of Vancouver, Canada for about a month in October. Our travel dates are somewhat flexible (+/- one day) but would center around leaving October 1st and returning October 29th. We want to book a multiple destination flight that would go as follows: Vancouver to Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City to Vancouver. We found this flight being priced through Kayak for about 824-850$ (CAD) but every time we tried to purchase these last night, it said there was an error on the webpage or that certain flights were no longer available and then inflated to about 1000$ (CAD). I've heard sites like Kayak track your IP address and inflate the price of flights according to how many times you visit the site. Is this true? My question is, does this 850$ fare actually exist or are we going to have to shell out another 150$ to go? Reading the OP, I've also checked the nearby Seatac airport, but flights are a tiny bit more expensive out of there.
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Jun 6, 2014 17:42
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It's not. Give the last few pages a read re: update times to GDS. What airline? Try calling them directly to book.
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Jun 7, 2014 03:48
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Ugh I have the most hosed up schedule this summer and I can't make ANYTHING work without costing like a billion dollars. Seriously, Premium Economy one way tickets being basically the same price as a return to Australia/NZ is killing me, since I want to return via Tokyo which seems to be impossible because ~*~AIRLINES~*~ It should absolutely be doable with ANZ in *A and Qantas in OW
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Jun 7, 2014 05:59
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Sorry, where are you starting your trip from?
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Jun 8, 2014 06:30
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sellouts posted:Sorry, where are you starting your trip from? Oh, sorry, I'm not super really looking for help so I didn't mention it. I just figured this was the best place to rant about plane ticket prices and their magic. My trip isn't completely set in stone yet and is dependant on a lot of factors. I'm leaving from Vancouver, going to Melbourne Australia in Premium Economy, probably August 3rd or 4th. Then at some point in late September I'm going to be going back to Canada, but I'm going via either Tokyo or Osaka (preferably Osaka) and stopping there for a week or so. Also one of the legs, probably Japan -> YVR, I'm going to do on points. It's just a giant clusterfuck to figure out, namely because the one way tickets in PE are almost the same price as a round trip, so it's become stupidly expensive to do, and I can't get Qantas to actually route me through Tokyo on the way back, even with a multi city booking. HookShot fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Jun 8, 2014 |
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Jun 8, 2014 17:38
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Weird, I can get them to the point where they want to take my cash on Qantas.com.au for those flights no problem. I don't see what's hard to figure out aside from your schedule and when you want to travel. You're going to pay through the nose for this because it's really 2 one ways -- returning via Tokyo/Osaka isnt the most direct path to your origin, there's no routed flights that go via NRT and you're stopping over for a week. Not a ton of magic there, there's just no free lunch for trying to choose your way to a city and choosing to layover for a week rather than connect in a traditional round trip manner. Also, PE with points is traditionally a terrible value -- business is usually not much more for far greater service.
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Jun 8, 2014 18:07
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sellouts posted:Weird, I can get them to the point where they want to take my cash on Qantas.com.au for those flights no problem. I don't see what's hard to figure out aside from your schedule and when you want to travel. You're going to pay through the nose for this because it's really 2 one ways -- returning via Tokyo/Osaka isnt the most direct path to your origin, there's no routed flights that go via NRT and you're stopping over for a week. Not a ton of magic there, there's just no free lunch for trying to choose your way to a city and choosing to layover for a week rather than connect in a traditional round trip manner. Oh yeah, definitely, I know all that (I think the Qantas site had a glitch the other night, I can now get the multi city flight tool to work, whereas when I had my original rant it wouldn't do it), that's why I said I'm not really looking for help, just ranting. I'm going Business with the points for sure, Air Canada don't even have a way to do PE with them, but yeah you're right. I only book business class with point for exactly that reason.
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Jun 8, 2014 20:40
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Why is it almost $700 roundtrip from PEK - ULN, it's a two hour flight? That appears to be the base price regardless of what date I choose between now and the end of the summer. e: For comparison PEK - ICN is $380 for a 2 hour flight, and PEK - BKK is $500 for a 5 hour flight. But I really just wanna go to Mongolia for my vacation and I do not understand what is going on. Arakan fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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Jun 10, 2014 18:02
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Because there are enough people willing to pay those prices to make it profitable for the airline to charge that. There's no other rhyme or reason to it.
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Jun 10, 2014 18:18
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So I'm moving to Spain from the US in a month in a half and won't be making any return flights until next July. I'm departing from Omaha Eppley (OMA) and my destination will be Madrid-Barajas (MAD). I'd preferably like to keep it to just one stop (most flights I'm seeing stop in ORD or DFW). I'm planning on departing on Thursday July the 24th, although this is flexible by two days either way or so. Since I don't have a return leg planned (the date is too far out), the costs are astronomical. The airline sites are listing at $2500+ with IAT Matrix and Hipmunk et al spitting out similar prices. Skyscanner has much cheaper prices ($800+) but I'm not sure if it's legit. Would it simply be wiser to buy a round-trip ticket for the large savings and change the return leg date for a fee? Are sites like skyscanner legitimate and reliable? Should I suck it up and look for flights with two stops? Thanks.
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Jun 11, 2014 01:56
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Last minuteish since plans have changed, but is there even really an advantage to going to travel agencies (in person) for a flight like SFO-FRA departing early July? Asia seems to have more of that "agents buying in bulk and then hooking you up in order to get rid of tickets" thing going, but I feel like Euro trips being of thing for privileged folks kind of kills the bargaining game haha. Am I off on that? Not interested in "perks" like hotels and tours. I've done the Condor thing and transfered in SEA for major savings, but it was a pain in the rear end. Despite United's "ELBOWS AND KNEES HUN, CART COMIN' THROUGH!!" service and no personal screens in the year of our Lord 2014, I'm a bum with his life in his bag and the direct flight + lax enforcement of carry ons makes it the flight! High season Europe travel 
moflika fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Jun 11, 2014 |
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Jun 11, 2014 03:09
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blueyedevil posted:So I'm moving to Spain from the US in a month in a half and won't be making any return flights until next July. Skyscanner is legit. You don't book anything there yourself, it redirects you to a booking site. The searches will also list multiple places from where you can get the same ticket: "Norwegian" = book directly with Norwegian, all those other sites are booking sites that offer the same flight 
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Jun 11, 2014 18:57
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Geriatric Pirate posted:Skyscanner is legit. You don't book anything there yourself, it redirects you to a booking site. The searches will also list multiple places from where you can get the same ticket: So sites like Book Airfare and Senturia et al are legitimate? And should I just get the one-way flight from one of them for $800 instead of purchasing a round trip from BA or Lufthansa and then changing my return-leg date?
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Jun 12, 2014 02:13
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I have a general question about flying in the US, sorry for it being slightly offtopic. I'm travelling over from New Zealand in August, and flying back from Montreal in September. My international flights (Air NZ, cheap thanks to the resources in this thread) have a checked luggage component part built in, but I understand US domestic flights don't. If you want to check a bag, do you need to book and pay for that online in advance, or is it just something to do at the airport? Also, how early do you need to show up to check in for domestic US flights (in NZ it's 30min but someone told me it was 2 hours in the US)?
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Jun 12, 2014 05:40
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Meander- I think NZ is like us here in Australia where you are encouraged to book baggage in advance and in fact typically penalised if you just rock up. MOST carriers (All?) In the US are the opposite, and usually will just charge you on check in. If you booked an Air NZ ticket Auckland to the US/Canada (I assume either LA/San Fran/Vancouver) and then the ticket also has ON THE SAME TICKET flights from there to wherever you are heading (And on the way back Montreal to wherever to Auckland) then even though they are on another carrier the Air NZ ticket will allow you to have the baggage already included. Check who you booked through for clarification. If you just bought domestic ones outside of that though usually it's like 25USD per bag, so just check the appropriate airlines website for more details. Most US domestic flights are just the 60 minute mark, but security is so slow there you might want to add more.
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Jun 12, 2014 09:04
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blueyedevil posted:So sites like Book Airfare and Senturia et al are legitimate? And should I just get the one-way flight from one of them for $800 instead of purchasing a round trip from BA or Lufthansa and then changing my return-leg date? Well, I wouldn't know about those specific sites. Is Skyscanner not giving you something legitimate like eBookers along with them? If not, at least Senturia looks a bit dodgy... btw, just book the return ticket, it seems cheaper than the 1 ways 
Geriatric Pirate fucked around with this message at 09:32 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 09:26
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teacup posted:useful stuff Sounds sensible, thanks! Yes you're right, for Air NZ flights you normally select whether you have checked baggage or not when booking the flight, and it's cheaper than doing it at the airport later.
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Jun 12, 2014 09:41
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Geriatric Pirate posted:
Amy idea how much it will cost to change my return leg date?
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Jun 12, 2014 14:31
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blueyedevil posted:Amy idea how much it will cost to change my return leg date? Dunno how much it is in practice but according to the ticket rules for the outbound leg... it's probably this + difference in ticket price code:
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Jun 12, 2014 14:35
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Or you could just die.
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Jun 12, 2014 15:22
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Geriatric Pirate posted:Dunno how much it is in practice but according to the ticket rules for the outbound leg... it's probably this + difference in ticket price Difference in the ticket price meaning the difference between a return leg and a direct flight? That's about $1000 right there.
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Jun 12, 2014 15:28
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Meander posted:I have a general question about flying in the US, sorry for it being slightly offtopic. I'm travelling over from New Zealand in August, and flying back from Montreal in September. They'll also ask if you have checked luggage when you do your online check-in the day before. Which you should do so you don't end up standing in line at the airport. If you've checked in online you'll probably be good showing up at the airport 90 minutes in advance, but keep in mind that every joke, whines and complaint you've read about the TSA is based in fact. Don't wear sandals to the airport cause you're going to have your shoes off way longer than you think.
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Jun 12, 2014 15:29
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blueyedevil posted:Difference in the ticket price meaning the difference between a return leg and a direct flight? That's about $1000 right there. Yeah I don't know the details here on between what it would be, i.e. one leg of a return flight (lower fare, you can get the breakdown on ITA) or a direct flight
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Jun 12, 2014 17:14
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Holy posts, batman. I've reportedly got WiFi on my IAH-LGA leg tomorrow so I'll try to reply to some of these.
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Jun 13, 2014 04:53
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