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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?

#61

Post by toolslive »

bunabhucan wrote: post #19
AnonC wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please elaborate since this is not clear. Are you actually doing a round trip on SFO-XYZ-SFO but buying two half priced (or lower than half priced) tickets for XYZ-SFO-XYZ (date 1) and XYZ-SFO-XYZ (date 2) and not using one leg on each of those tickets ? Long ago I’d read that airlines don’t take this well.

This is a common hack with business travel where prices of flights including a Saturday stay are much cheaper (aimed at holidaymakers) than weekday flights (business travel). If you know you will need to travel to XYZ every second week M-F for two months then you buy one two month return SFO-XYZ-SFO and then buy the rest of the flights as 11 day flights back from XYZ Friday to the Monday of the following week (XYZ-SF…

Absolutely! I once had my company offer me to stay the weekend (hotel paid by them) extra, as it would be cheaper.

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

#62

Post by selcuka »

tcmb wrote: post #50
fwlr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poster lives in SFO and wants to visit XYZ for a week once a year. Rather than buy SFO->XYZ->SFO tickets (which are packages that consist of “a flight from SFO to XYZ on the 1st of April” and “a flight from XYZ to SFO on the 8th of April”), the poster instead buys XYZ->SFO->XYZ tickets (which are packages that consist of “a flight from XYZ to SFO on the 8th of April” and “a flight from SFO to XYZ on the 1st of Ap…

Couldn’t the price difference be due to booking so far in advance?

I'm sure they compared the prices for SFO -> XYZ -> SFO with XYZ -> SFO -> XYZ for the same dates.

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

#63

Post by jen729w »

habitue wrote: post #37

Do travel agents have some benefit when travelling internationally or something? I have not heard about travel agents since the 90s. Maybe I'm missing some incredible deals? I kinda expected them to not exist any more

They can use Sabre to look this stuff up. Funnily enough I was in a TA just yesterday trying to book a 4 week multi-city flight.

Her banging away magical codes in Sabre was a lot easier than me trying to use the shambles which is currently Qantas’ website.

But yeah, first time I’ve been in a TA in perhaps 20 years.

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

#64

Post by kleene_op »

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 just looked at the prices for the cheapest ticket next month from France to Japan, first from the airfrance french website and then from their japanese one.

Cheapest ones in France are around 700-800€ when japanese ones are around 41,000¥ (~300€). This is crazy.

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

#65

Post by Ekaros »

raverbashing wrote: post #29
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)

Wouldn't combo be more expensive? As there is increased risks to travel agents. Flight+Hotel is considered a package and you have to provide, replace or refund both if one falls through.

The difference with tourism is that usually they are not refundable or have quite limited refundability and these all thus sold for less.

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

#66

Post by EntrePrescott »

martin-adams wrote: post #45

I had to rebook more expensive flights due to a cancellation. My wife has it open on her phone for £500 less than the same flights on my phone.

lemme guess: your phone is an iphone whereas your wife's phone is an android phone?

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

#67

Post by yosito »

I've been flying internationally 10-15 times a year for ~10 years. Different routes and destinations each time. I've spent a lot of time searching for hacks like this that let me save a few bucks on flight tickets. Sometimes it works. Sometimes you find that a flight is cheaper depending on which country's website or currency you use to book. Flight tickets are priced dynamically using a variety of factors to determine the price. By manipulating those factors you can get different prices. However, the factors that are used to determine price are generally not publicized and change frequently, so there is no predictable rule.

In the end, I've realized that my time is better spent not chasing these elusive deals. I can spend all day searching for the cheapest flight somewhere, or I can just book the cheapest thing on Kiwi or SkyScanner in 10 minutes and spend the rest of my day writing code for a project that is paying me far more money than I would have saved searching for flight deals.

The best hacks to save money on plane tickets: travel carry-on luggage only, fly economy, and book with a credit card that provides travel insurance and accumulates rewards. Chase Sapphire cards are pretty much the standard for travelers.

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

#68

Post by prpl »

fwlr wrote: post #20
AnonC wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please elaborate since this is not clear. Are you actually doing a round trip on SFO-XYZ-SFO but buying two half priced (or lower than half priced) tickets for XYZ-SFO-XYZ (date 1) and XYZ-SFO-XYZ (date 2) and not using one leg on each of those tickets ? Long ago I’d read that airlines don’t take this well.

The poster lives in SFO and wants to visit XYZ for a week once a year. Rather than buy SFO->XYZ->SFO tickets (which are packages that consist of “a flight from SFO to XYZ on the 1st of April” and “a flight from XYZ to SFO on the 8th of April”), the poster instead buys XYZ->SFO->XYZ tickets (which are packages that consist of “a flight from XYZ to SFO on the 8th of April” and “a flight from SFO to XYZ on the 1st of Ap…

The downside of doing this is that, If you have to cancel your delayed flight and it’s been a year since purchase, you will likely forfeit the ticket. If you rebook it immediately, that might not happen.

I had this happen on AA. for legal reasons, I had to book a flight in advance (9 months). had to cancel, but did not immediately rebook. went to rebook 14 months after purchase date and credit has evaporated. (

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

#69

Post by postdb »

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…

>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 network for clues in how determined you are to go (e.g., to a funeral or job interview). Privacy is valuable, indeed. Even in hard cash.

Glad someone mentioned it, one of reasons to NOT use any social media. Pretty sure, this is already in the plans for all the big social media companies.

Most people use social media platform, or messenger owned by those companies to communicate between friends and family not realising the side effects. Please, use some kind of E2E app and make sure the people who are running the server doesn't have access to your data and meta data.

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

#70

Post by atdrummond »

tcmb wrote: post #50
fwlr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poster lives in SFO and wants to visit XYZ for a week once a year. Rather than buy SFO->XYZ->SFO tickets (which are packages that consist of “a flight from SFO to XYZ on the 1st of April” and “a flight from XYZ to SFO on the 8th of April”), the poster instead buys XYZ->SFO->XYZ tickets (which are packages that consist of “a flight from XYZ to SFO on the 8th of April” and “a flight from SFO to XYZ on the 1st of Ap…

Couldn’t the price difference be due to booking so far in advance?

Possibly but my flights to SF from Europe are routinely half the price for a round trip the other direction on the same dates/airline.
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