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Can you buy the same ticket at a lower price if you buy it from another country?

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Re: Can you buy the same ticket at a lower price if you buy it from another country?

#21

Post by hunter2_ »

Zircom wrote: post #15
judge2020 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also curious, since I imagine airlines try to cancel subsequent flights if you didn’t get on the initial flight to ensure someone gets in that seat (at a higher price)

He isn't skipping any flights. He presumably bought a one-way ticket to XYZ years ago, and since then each year he books an XYS->SFO->XYZ roundtrip for a year long "visit" to SFO before returning "home" to XYZ for a little bit before booking another round trip for another year long "visit" back in SFO, and so on.

Yes, except...

> returning "home" to XYZ for a little bit before booking another

More likely, "booking another" actually happens before landing in XYZ, closer to 6 months out (seeking the best price), but otherwise you've got it.

Re: Can you buy the same ticket at a lower price if you buy it from another country?

#22

Post by sprite »

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #3

I travel to my home country once a year to visit family, but have it set up so that my origin for the round trip is the home country (ie XYZ-SFO-XYZ rather than SFO-XYZ-SFO). The ticket is generally half the cost, which adds up when you're traveling with family. I can only do this because I consistently travel to that same place every year, otherwise I wouldn't be able to swap the origin. It also requires you knowing…

I do the same traveling between US and Europe. I know I will go back every summer and xmas so my trip originates out of Europe with return trip 6 months later, always cheaper than same flights with origin in USA.

Re: Can you buy the same ticket at a lower price if you buy it from another country?

#23

Post by TylerE »

choeger wrote: post #16

Absolutely. I had a 25% discount offer for the same flight when booking through the American site vs. the European one. Unfortunately, they also asked for an invoice address in the states. So I opted out of that airline altogether. Just wait for the day when airlines buy hotel booking data and increase your price because you already booked a non-refundable room. Or they look into your messaging service or social netw…

Sounds like VAT? We do t have that in the US, so our prices are about 20% lower. You still get taxed, it’s just not rolled into the advertised price.

Re: Can you buy the same ticket at a lower price if you buy it from another country?

#24

Post by matsur »

TylerE wrote: post #23
choeger wrote: post #16

Absolutely. I had a 25% discount offer for the same flight when booking through the American site vs. the European one. Unfortunately, they also asked for an invoice address in the states. So I opted out of that airline altogether. Just wait for the day when airlines buy hotel booking data and increase your price because you already booked a non-refundable room. Or they look into your messaging service or social netw…

Sounds like VAT? We do t have that in the US, so our prices are about 20% lower. You still get taxed, it’s just not rolled into the advertised price.

Quoted airfares are required by law to include taxes in the US.

Re: Can you buy the same ticket at a lower price if you buy it from another country?

#26

Post by htag »

harry8 wrote: post #17

The theory of Price Discrimination, simple stuff, for anyone who isn't up on the econs 101 jargon, looks like it's here: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/price_discrimination.as... Everyone including you will do it whenever you can when selling. The logical place surveillance capitalism is going isn't pretty. Will regulation protect consumers or will Goog, FB, Apple etc capture a good amount of everyone's consume…

This type of price discrimination isn't powered by surveillance capitalism. Using the example in the first answer on the stackexchange, this is nothing more than selling the same ticket at a different price to someone walking up to a United counter in USA compared to someone walking up to a United counter in AU.

Surveillance capitalism powering price discrimination sounds scary, but there seems to be few examples of ML powered price discrimination. Currently we are paying massive amounts for simple price discrimination. You can save a ton of money (for things in general) by searching for discounts, booking ahead of time, accepting slower shipment, waiting for off-season/off-peak, buying in bulk, haggling, etc.

Re: Can you buy the same ticket at a lower price if you buy it from another country?

#27

Post by r00fus »

thrdbndndn wrote: post #13

It can work, but rarely. The international flight price has been very well globalized. What used to work very well is to rent a car through a foreign website. I live(d) in the US and was planning a trip in California for a few weeks back in ~2015. By going through a major car rental company's UK website, I literally halved my cost. I didn't have much luck with this trick last time I travelled though, unfortunately.

We visit France every year-ish and French automakers [1][2] vastly undercut long-term rentals from rental agencies by selling you a car with your promise to sell it back to them at nearly the same price (difference is the rental price). You are only ever out the actual rental price. We regularly save 1-2k EUR on a 3+ week rental unless we book the rental literally 6m+ beforehand. Kicker is that $0 deducible CDW is included, and the terms are quite generous.

The only downside is last-minute cancellations will cost a non-trivial fee, but even those can be mitigated through insurance.

[1] https://www.ttcar.com/en/ttcar [2] https://www.autoeurope.com

Re: Can you buy the same ticket at a lower price if you buy it from another country?

#28

Post by rtpg »

People say this and it always sounds a bit like a myth, so here's a concrete search. Tokyo to Seattle, May 18th to June 8th. first link ([0]) with the sales city set to Seattle, the other time set to Tokyo ([1]).

Most of the airlines price the flight roughly the same (writing up the differences in pricing to currency conversions, like ~1%) but Singapore Airlines is offering the same flight at 3x the cost!

I feel like I've read in the past about how flight tickets are priced based on many rules, that are shared between various companies that sell tickets. My inference is thus that these rules might be dynamic, but they aren't like.... "price will change minute to minute based on all of the cookies in your browser" dynamic. Which then leads me to wondering: what sort of pricing rules are kicking in for these pricing differences? Because it feels to me a lot more like "lack of a discounting mechanism" rather than "rule that triples singapore airline flights out of Tokyo for Tokyo-based pruchases"

[0]: https://matrix.itasoftware.com/flights?search=eyJ0eXBlIjoicm...

[1]: https://matrix.itasoftware.com/flights?search=eyJ0eXBlIjoicm...

Re: Can you buy the same ticket at a lower price if you buy it from another country?

#29

Post by raverbashing »

choeger wrote: post #16

Absolutely. I had a 25% discount offer for the same flight when booking through the American site vs. the European one. Unfortunately, they also asked for an invoice address in the states. So I opted out of that airline altogether. Just wait for the day when airlines buy hotel booking data and increase your price because you already booked a non-refundable room. Or they look into your messaging service or social netw…

> buy hotel booking data and increase your price because you already booked a non-refundable room

Actually this is (usually) the opposite

Tickets sold for tourism are usually cheaper than a non-tourism ticket to the same place, so the ticket might be conditioned to being sold together with a hotel booking (travel agents like selling those combos)

Re: Can you buy the same ticket at a lower price if you buy it from another country?

#30

Post by raverbashing »

sacnoradhq wrote: post #2

Virgin Atlantic counter @ LHR. If you ask very very nicely when it's not too busy, someone may teach you the query terminal and let you have a look at fares across airlines if you happen to be more/less stranded.

You don't need those. There are online systems that lets you check those details at home (can't remember the name now)

But https://matrix.itasoftware.com/search is a close second, if you know how to play around

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