Booking a flight to the USA.

ronnyb

Excuse this if I haven't thought of an obvious answer but I've been checking prices of flights to San Francisco in April 2017. The searches I did were mainly from London but then when I checked nationwide a flight came up from Edinburgh which was nearly £300 cheaper for 2 travellers but with a stop over on both the outward and return journeys in London. British Airways from Edinburgh to Heathrow and then Virgin from Heathrow to San Francisco. On the return it's San Francisco to London City with Virgin and then on to Edinburgh with British Airways again. What's to stop you joining the outward trip at Heathrow and then ending your journey back at London City? 

HAL9000

Ah, a friend's daughter had something similar. As she had missed the first leg of a journey, the second leg was automatically cancelled by the airline. As a matter of interest, have you looked at Aer Lingus? Heathrow to Dublin, then Dublin to SF. When we flew to NY a couple of years back, this was not only the cheapest option, but also US immigration is done in Dublin, so you arrive on a 'domestic' flight and can walk straight out of the airport once in the US.

octatonic

If you miss one leg of a multi-leg journey then the rest of your flights will be cancelled as well.
At least that is what has happened to me in the past.

ToneControl

cheapest flights to SF from  Manchester for me were from  Faregeek, found via jetcost,co,uk
Virgin  ticket, BA to London, Virgin to SF,  Delta back via JFK

they were way cheaper than any other,  under £500 compared to £700
good flight times and connections in May this was, with short notice
Then it was £800 for August, now about £1000

oaf

I think the price reductions are to encourage you to use a carrier's "hub" (not sure of the terminology). We had a similar experience where it was substantially cheaper to fly to Hong Kong, see relatives, then fly on to Tokyo, versus flying London to Tokyo direct. We wanted to spend time in HK anyway so it worked for us, but it didn't seem to make sense economically (for the airline!)

I remember a case involving day return tickets on the Eurotunnel where people were buying returns with the intention of only using the outbound trip. I guess it is a marketing/promotions versus actual cost thing. If I recall correctly Eurotunnel tried to charge people who didn't use the day return part of the ticket, but don't quote me!

ArchtopDave

This happened for my daughter a couple of years ago. Flying from Newcastle to South Africa via Heathrow was cheaper than flying direct to South Africa from Heathrow. Very convenient as she and I live outside Newcastle , and you have to transfer somewhere when flying from Newcastle.

ronnyb

Thanks all, yes aer lingus do come up cheaper but with a stop in Dublin requiring an overnight stop in Dublin which we don't really want to do. Flew this year with Norwegian airlines which were great. They haven't published they're fares yet for next April so I'll keep looking.