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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?

#31

Post by cwalv »

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…

> if don't think much of the questions it'd be interesting to know why you think that way.

Mostly because you don't have to buy any of this. If it's that unfair, figure a better/cheaper way to do it yourself, otherwise quit complaining that the poor ppl have it so much better

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

#32

Post by Symbiote »

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.

There's no EU VAT on international flights to/from the EU.

(Which is unfortunate, as there usually is VAT on train tickets.)

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

#33

Post by [deleted] »

matsur wrote: post #24
TylerE wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#34

Post by smcl »

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…

Could be due to the added consumer protections and rights you get within the EU - regulations on how the airline should treat you when they cancel flights or when they arrive late etc?

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

#35

Post by aubanel »

rhtgrg wrote: post #4

Recently I paid to book better seats on an Air France flight and since the website was a hot mess (specifically the payment portal) I tried various VPNs to try and get through. To my surprise, prices were significantly different (about ~20% variation) depending on country, and it was most expensive in...France. This was on a flight that had already been booked from the US long ago.

I heard this is a common practice for cars: a french car will be sold at cheaper prices outside France. Home country adds a premium on car prices because they count on nationals to have a slightly higher willingness to pay for local brands.

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

#36

Post by rdlw »

herpderperator wrote: post #25

VPN was added in the HN title but is not present in the actual question title. The act of simply "using" a "VPN" does not make prices cheaper. Let's not abuse the term. It's about purchase location.

If someone asked whether you can drive a nail into a board more easily if you use a hammer, I would say yes, even though the act of simply "using" a "hammer" does not instantly make nearby nails go into boards.

It doesn't seem like an abuse of terms, just not fully explaining what a VPN is or how you should use it in the short title.

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

#39

Post by harry8 »

htag wrote: post #26
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…

> This type of price discrimination isn't powered by surveillance capitalism

Ok in this particular example of price discrimination it isn't. Yet. Sure.

Now imagine you wan't to power it buy surveillance capitalism to get more of that surplus and current laws and norms are no object. What would that look like? How close do you think we will get to that? How fast? [1] Think vendors will keep much of that captured surplus in the face of Goog, FB, Apple, whatever market power?

[1] I'd just refuse to buy any ticket unless your country of birth and residency of your family was known, which holidays you celebrate. By which I mean make dis counts readily available on that basis (with exclusions) to really slug anyone going home for high holidays, for example. Frame it as a discount, whatever.

So that's one way it might go. Can you think of how this is going to work for insurance? Health insurance? What else would really supercharge revenue using techniques like this?

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

#40

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

about 10 years ago, you could buy a a flight lima-cuzco like a local by simply making the reservation online on the correct carrier (lanperu i believe), getting a voucher, then stopping by the main supermarket, presenting the voucher and paying for it in cash.

This decreased the cost of the ticket by approximately 50%

It was important to book on the right local carrier of Lan to do this, as well as entering certain info for the voucher itself

No Peru passport or driver's license required.

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