Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Beat High Airfares

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 137 posts

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#71

Post by somebear »

sandipc wrote: post #27
OstiaAntica wrote: post #5

This is unethical, basically he calls for jumping off of flights at layovers, which violates the terms of the ticket. There's even a security issue for the airlines, because they need to check if your bags are flying unaccompanied. Ironic that the NYT cracks down on people evading its paywall but is selling content on doing the same for air travel.

"they need to check if your bags are flying unaccompanied" For those traveling with checked luggage, this "hop off" tactic won't work, unless passengers want to lose their bags. For those without checked luggage, the airlines have no way of determining whether your carry-on bags are still on the plane or not, short of emptying the plane and reboarding (which I have never seen before).

The times I've had a multi-leg flight (internationally), it's always been the same plane. The airline still makes everyone get off, bring in new clean blankets and pillows, and ensure that no one left anything behind. Feels a bit annoying when you just go back to the same seat, but I understand why.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#72

Post by rinkjustice »

What's wrong with paying pilots and airline workers a decent wage? Beating high costs of some consumer goods and services is reasonable, but must we 'nickel and dime' trained professionals who safely transport your loved ones?

Pretty screwed up priorities if you ask me.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#73

Post by spc476 »

kijinbear wrote: post #67
rexreed wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $4 a gallon, I might even challenge that. I recently calculated the cost of driving from DC to Boston, which is regularly a $240 or so ROUNDTRIP on many airlines. It takes 2 tanks of gas each way (about a 350 mile trip, 20 miles per gallon, 15 gallons per tank). The gas cost alone is close to $240. Even if you managed to burn 3 tanks instead of 4 during the trip, you're talking 45 gallons @ $4 a gallon, which is $…

Driving can still be cheaper than flying if you have 2 or more people traveling together. It would be tough to beat trains and buses, though.

I'm not sure about trains. I actually looked into this, getting a train from Tuscaloosa to Las Vegas. The two cheapest round trip train tickets were more than twice the price of a round trip plane ticket. Also, both train routes took four days, both of which involved a bus ride on the last day. That's not to mention both train routes going through Chicago. It was crazy.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#74

Post by Jach »

hugh3 wrote: post #41
aboodman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article has an example of saving $189 (about 50% of the published price of the ticket in question), and a post in this thread had an example of saving 500 euro on a transatlantic flight. So it's not always trivial amount of money.

How many man-minutes of inconvenience are you willing to create for random strangers for every dollar you can save for yourself? Come to think of it, this question is about as close to an objective measure of an individual's level of morality as we can get. Screw all theories of moral relativism; I can tell whether you're a good person or not by knowing how much money it would take to tempt you to leave an entire pla…

For those who like to calculate: valuing one hour at $8, ten minutes is $1.33 that the delay you caused is costing per person on board.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#75

Post by shadowfox »

rdtsc wrote: post #63
alienfluid wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your name is even remotely "exotic" (and mine seems to be), good luck checking in online - apparently one way tickets trigger some alarm in the depths of DHS.

That is true. And that basically tells us how stupid and ridiculous our security theater is. Someone planning to blow themselves up will supposedly save a couple of hundreds dollars in order to attract attention to themselves by buying a one-way ticket.

I suppose their assumption is that people planning to do that don't know this/are dumb.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#76

Post by meric »

kelnos wrote: post #45
hugh3 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you prefer that they raised the prices of the Montreal to Paris trip so that you can pay more? Or do you want them to lower the price of the Newark to Paris trip so that it sells out early and people who would have been willing to pay $1400 for that trip can't get to where they want to go?

False dichotomy. If there are really that many people who want to fly EWR->CDG, but don't due to cost considerations, the airlines will add more flights to fill extra demand caused by lower prices.

If they can charge that much, "theoretically" it means they would make more money adding an extra flight on that route.

They didn't, that means adding an extra flight might have been a lot more expensive. (due to, e.g. regulation limiting the number of planes in that route).

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#77

Post by Jach »

The second way to beat high airfares: buy early.

I'm going on a trip next week. About three weeks ago a round trip 2-hour flight trip was $250, a week later it was $350, but I found a 6-hour round-trip flight (that overshoots my destination, has me wait a while, then backtracks) for $256.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#78

Post by vandalizeit »

Jach wrote: post #77

The second way to beat high airfares: buy early. I'm going on a trip next week. About three weeks ago a round trip 2-hour flight trip was $250, a week later it was $350, but I found a 6-hour round-trip flight (that overshoots my destination, has me wait a while, then backtracks) for $256.

Counter example: my next flight.

I check fares one month ago - $599. Two weeks ago - $549. Yesterday - $499.

Tulsa to DC.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#79

Post by sliverstorm »

kirubakaran wrote: post #57
hugh3 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many man-minutes of inconvenience are you willing to create for random strangers for every dollar you can save for yourself? Come to think of it, this question is about as close to an objective measure of an individual's level of morality as we can get. Screw all theories of moral relativism; I can tell whether you're a good person or not by knowing how much money it would take to tempt you to leave an entire pla…

"Screw all theories of moral relativism; I can tell whether you're a good person or not by knowing how much money it would take to tempt you to leave an entire planeload of people sitting on the tarmac for an extra ten minutes." Lets consider a few hypothetical scenarios: 1. You can get 50 dollars but it may potentially result in 60 minutes of delay for 100 people. Would you turn it down? 2. You can get 1000 dollars…

$100 Million, 3 minutes, 100 people? I might simply take the $100 Mil, and then track down all 100 people and give them a few tens of thousands.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#80

Post by jeza »

OstiaAntica wrote: post #5

This is unethical, basically he calls for jumping off of flights at layovers, which violates the terms of the ticket. There's even a security issue for the airlines, because they need to check if your bags are flying unaccompanied. Ironic that the NYT cracks down on people evading its paywall but is selling content on doing the same for air travel.

Isn't it unethical to create this scenario in the first place? Charging people more to travel a shorter distance than a longer distance on the same route. It just doesn't seem logical in any sense. Perhaps the coverage in NYT will force the airlines to clean up their act.
Post reply on HN