Air fare madness

DiscoStu

My mate has invited me to San Francisco so I'm pricing up flights.

Using the same dates and filters (including airlines) on both searches: 

Heathrow to San Francisco £649.

Dublin to San Francisco.... £439. Via Heathrow!!!!

Madness!

rocktron

If you do several searches, the airline's system remembers your searches. Always clear your browser history before doing another search.

Try other agencies. During one flight check, I found Expedia to be cheaper than Virgin for the same Outbound/Inbound.flights, on the same dates.

The other thing to note is that USA airlines may not have priced up 2015 fares as yet. 

Wait for a sale - they always come up, and do book at least 3 months in advance to get the best deal, though this is not always, necessarily true. One thing that I am aware of is that the nearer the Outbound flight date, the higher the fare goes up.

 

HAL9000

Check out Gatwick or Heathrow to SF via Dublin with Aer Lingus. Prob around the £440 mark. Plus you do US immigration at Dublin which is quicker than doing it at SF. Also means when you land at SF you're straight out the door (as Dublin to SF is considered 'internal').

BigMonka

HAL9000 said:

Check out Gatwick or Heathrow to SF via Dublin with Aer Lingus. Prob around the £440 mark. Plus you do US immigration at Dublin which is quicker than doing it at SF. Also means when you land at SF you're straight out the door (as Dublin to SF is considered 'internal').

I think he's talking about the USA San Francisco rather than the Irish one ;-) 

DiscoStu

I use skyscanner for pricing, have done for a few years now. The Dublin price WAS Aer Lingus as it happens.

My mate reckoned it is because of Air Passenger Duty but that doesn't account for the difference. The highest APD for an economy flight from London is £97. APD was abolished in Eire last April. So that still leaves £113 less for a longer journey on the same route! 

chrispy108

BigMonka said:

HAL9000 said:

Check out Gatwick or Heathrow to SF via Dublin with Aer Lingus. Prob around the £440 mark. Plus you do US immigration at Dublin which is quicker than doing it at SF. Also means when you land at SF you're straight out the door (as Dublin to SF is considered 'internal').

I think he's talking about the USA San Francisco rather than the Irish one ;-) 

Indeed http://www.dublinairport.com/gns/at-the-airport/US-Preclearance.aspx

Dublin Airport has a US customs pre-clerance, so you clear customs there, and arrive in SF at the domestic terminal.

chrispy108

DiscoStu said:

I use skyscanner for pricing, have done for a few years now. The Dublin price WAS Aer Lingus as it happens.

My mate reckoned it is because of Air Passenger Duty but that doesn't account for the difference. The highest APD for an economy flight from London is £97. APD was abolished in Eire last April. So that still leaves £113 less for a longer journey on the same route! 

No need to be loyal to a price-checker! Look at Kayak and Expedia too.

Airline pricing isn't based on costs + %profit, it's all supply and demand, so there's no "reason" for the difference, they're charging what they think they can to get the maximum price for the journey.

RaymondLin

DiscoStu said:

My mate has invited me to San Francisco so I'm pricing up flights.

Using the same dates and filters (including airlines) on both searches: 

Heathrow to San Francisco £649.

Dublin to San Francisco.... £439. Via Heathrow!!!!

Madness!

So you have to get to Dublin to get on this flight ?

joeyowen

Ring the airline maybe and see if they can help? Surely they will be willing to lower the price if you are only doing part of the journey

Snap

we used aerlingus for New York flights via Dublin, last year. THe pre clearance immigration thing is v good, though it takes about an hour or so at Dublin, so make sure you have enough time in your connection. Landing in dmoestic was great though, very quick.

If you have the budget, business class on aerlingus is good and affordable, its a long flight to SF. We're going this summer, california road trip planned, into SF, out from LA, well that's the plan.

joeyowen

I do have a good friend who is currently living north or NY for a year,  He found it a lot cheaper to fly to Scandinavia, wait for a few (6ish) hours, then fly across from there

It saved him hundreds

HAL9000

RaymondLin said:

DiscoStu said:

My mate has invited me to San Francisco so I'm pricing up flights.

Using the same dates and filters (including airlines) on both searches: 

Heathrow to San Francisco £649.

Dublin to San Francisco.... £439. Via Heathrow!!!!

Madness!

So you have to get to Dublin to get on this flight ?

No, there are flights that start from Heathrow and Gatwick which go via Dublin. Not sure when DiscoStu is thinking of travelling but March prices are around the £440 mark.

DiscoStu

I'm in north east Scotland so I need to get to a connecting flight to an international airport to get to SF, so looking at options, Heathrow being the obvious one.

I flew Dublin to New York with Aer Lingus just after 9/11 and I remember going through US immigration at Dublin now that it's been mentioned. I was flying with friends from Dublin and they had booked the flights, hence the airport. I have no recollection of going via Heathrow on that one.

I've tried other sites but Skyscanner picks those up anyway (eg Expedia) and often beats them on price.

It's like getting on a train one station earlier and getting the ticket 30% cheaper! Mind you, I think that does actually happen with train tickets!!!

RaymondLin

I'll remember that, via Dublin to SF....

 

I want to do a road trip too in the west coast, an extra £100 or so could be spent on a better car !

Clarky

I'm going to see my dad and lil' bro in Oz this year.. flight prices are mental..

interestingly, the price drops a lot if you do 18 flight changes, two laps of the planet and take a week to get there..

mart

joeyowen said:

Ring the airline maybe and see if they can help? Surely they will be willing to lower the price if you are only doing part of the journey

I very much doubt they'd do that. Years ago I wanted a one-way flight from Heathrow to Barcelona. BA quoted £200 for one-way but £170 for a return. Yes, cheaper to travel twice as far! Back then I said I'd just book a return and not use the other leg, but the BA guy said in that case he wouldn't sell me the return ticket because I'd said I was only going one way. Complete madness. 

Amusingly (in case anyone didn't realize they were fixing prices), Iberia also charged exactly the same prices: £200 for one-way and £170 for return.  

joeyowen

Deary me... sometimes common sense goes out of the window eh

I guess I was naive in thinking they could be useful and helpful haha

ICBM

It's impossible to make sense of air fares if you apply any normal logic to it based on distance or anything rational like that - there are so many market distortions, subsidies, hidden costs etc that it's a complete nonsense, and you'll drive yourself nuts if you try to work out why some are the price they are.

Sambostar

I was looking at going with United to the east coast and on to another east coast destination from Heathrow over Christmas.  Only United because they were doing deal to/via Washington and all the other US carriers had hit the ceiling already.  Looked at travelling on the 23rd, two weeks in advance £610 return with a connecting flight from Washington.  On the Friday prior to Christmas week that price was £1020 and you had to camp at the airport in Washington and get a connection the next day.  Looked on Monday, with Christmas in three days time and the price was £635 and the direct connection, which supposedly had 'Sold out' was offered on the same day.

You know damn well the plane will be half empty too and if you bargained with them for a flight at the desk on the day of departure, they'd only offer you a £1200 ticket.

US carriers ditch their prices on a Monday and steadily put them up through the week, inter continental is no exception it seems.

Anyway, I stayed here, East coast is freezing, sod that.

chillidoggy

If you have the time, and don't like flying, I think there are still some shipping companies that will take a limited amount of passengers on their ships. There's a website around somewhere. When I was a bit younger, I quite fancied being a passenger on a tramp steamer around the China Seas as a holiday.

chrispy108

Yeah, and it's chuffing expensive @chillidoggy!

http://cargoshipvoyages.com/