Flights, my head hurts...

SixTwoSix

SixTwoSix

SixTwoSix

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Using various flight search engines such as Skyscanner, Kayak plus airlines own websites and getting the weirdest results. I'm not new to this, i've booked holidays across 5 different continents without using a travel agent.

However the results i'm getting right now are driving me crazy. Looking for flights into Hawaii on certain dates in September.

My cheapest option for my dates has 2 stops, options with 1 stop is over £200/person extra.

  • KLM - London > Amsterdam > Seattle > Honolulu. - £722/person
The wife and I don't mind waiting around in an airport for a few hours between each flight.


Then I thought, why not fly into Amsterdam on a super cheap no frills flight and book tickets from AMS into Hawaii, must be cheaper right.

  • KLM - Amsterdam > Seattle > Honolulu. - £900/person
It's the EXACT same flight number as the 2 stop option for the part from Amsterdam but it's £178/person more expensive and i'd also pay extra to make my own way into Amsterdam.


I just don't get it, i'd be doing less flying with KLM but they'd charge more for a ticket with a single stop instead of 2.

Obviously going to take the cheap choice but is there a logical reason for this pricing? A reason that can justify a saving of £178/person by taking an extra flight on a single ticket :confused:
 
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I have seen this happen a lot. I once took a return flight via london which was cheaper than starting in london and just did not take the onwards leg on my way home.
 
Depends on the fees at the starting airport. I had to fly from Cincinnati to Baltimore, and Dayton-Cincinnati-Baltimore was substantially cheaper than Cincinnati-Baltimore, even though it was the same flight with an extra leg. Apparently Cincinnati has the highest fees of all US airports.
 
It's very simple - KLM has no competition flying out of AMS.
It's the same if you book with LH out of FRA or MUC, or Swiss out of ZRH. The flights will always be cheaper if you start somewhere else and get a feeder flight into their hub.


It's a shame that you're looking for September now. There were some crazy offers out of CPH with LH and Swiss last month - £1200 for business class to Hawaii. Get an easyjet flight to CPH for peanuts and you're laughing.
 
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It's a complicated mix of supply, demand, competition, buying habbits of customers, revenue maximisation, craft movement and legislation, all mixed up with seasonal, day of week and time of day variations, then stretched out over a booking time curve.

Having had a glimpse into the the world of Revenue Management as used at places like BA, don't try to make sense of it, especially by just taking 2 flights in isolation. There's whole teams of people and lots of computer modeling that drives pricing strategies that you simply won't be able to distinguish from outside.

Just book the cheapest flight you can, and enjoy your holiday :).
 
Thanks for all the replies, kinda got an answer I think :)

Just on the surface, it makes little sense but as mentioned, there will be loads of behind the scenes variables.

mjt said:
It's a shame that you're looking for September now. There were some crazy offers out of CPH with LH and Swiss last month - £1200 for business class to Hawaii. Get an easyjet flight to CPH for peanuts and you're laughing.
Click to expand...

As nice as business class for £1200 would be, i'm then into Tahiti flight prices and would just go economy into Papeete :D

craptakular said:
How do you get your bags back if you don't complete the journey?
Click to expand...

Why wouldn't you complete the journey, in essence even though it's got 2 stops, it's still an A to B journey.

Or do you mean if for some reason you got stuck indefinitely at one point?
 
I think craptakular was asking Dr House how he got his bags back in London when his flight was a stop over in London rather than terminating.
 
Happens all the time. Flying from Dublin to London then London to Florida cost us £150 per person less than flying straight to London to catch that exact same flight.
 
Funny thing is with those code sharing, etc. KLM flights - you'll probably end up sitting on i.e. a BA plane with people who've paid 2-3x what you've paid for the same trip as well heh.

Had a few times where it was (significantly) cheaper for me to make my own way from London to Bristol, fly Bristol > Amsterdam > Detroit on KLM than either flying from London or making my own way to Amsterdam and then getting the same flight to Detroit (Looks like its £100-200 more expensive though for your trip).
 
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My brother is taking advantage of one of these situations next month, by flying from Dublin with Virgin he got business class flight to Florida for under 1k each

He wont be taking the last leg to Dublin though and has got round the bag issue by booking at as Florida to Heathrow and Gatwick to Dublin so has the collect bags at Heathrow
 
Yup I booked flights for San Fransisco a few months ago, Edinburgh -> London -> San Fransisco with BA, £540. Removing the Edinburgh to London part of the trip (with the rest being the exact same flights, times, operator etc) ADDED £200.

Luckily that's in my favour but i'd be super annoyed if I lived in London and figured this out.

BTW, that's a pretty good price for Hawaii. Might look for myself next year.
 
Sometimes it's cheaper to go to a different airport too.

I was going to Michigan and the flight to Detroit was £300 more than a flight to Chicago, even though Chicago is further. Then it worked out even cheaper to go by Amsterdam. Think we saved about £450 each in the end. Then we spent a bit of what we saved to spend a few days in Chicago on the way home.

Just booked a cheap bus from Chicago to Ann Arbor and had a nice sleep :D
 
apparently there are all sorts of tricks to cheaper tickets, things like booking a longer flight w/ the place you want as a mid-stop and getting off there etc, but i haven't investigated them all.
one tip is to clear your cookies, apparently sites recognise you keep returnig and start putting prices up, presumably to get you to panic buy.
 
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