Live data from Hacker News

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

travel.stackexchange.com

301–310 of 339 posts

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

#301
post #27

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 in…

Do you know if there is anything like this in the US? I've considered 1-3 month "trips" in the US, but the car rental ends up being quite expensive (to the point at which I've considered just buying and reselling the car). I'd be happy to front the full cost of the car if I was able to get some guarantee on the resale value, and didn't have to deal with selling the car itself.

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

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a lovely benefit of remote working for me - any time I travel, I can shift the days around to significantly save on flight costs, but without losing the day's wage. I can just work from wherever I am without taking any time off. Usually saves at least €100 each way, every time I travel, and occasionally much more. And as a bonus, it's quite nice to spend a day working from a coworking space in a random city e…

What's the advantage of a coworking space over a library?

It keeps techies out of comfy libraries.

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

#304

There is a "lowest price guarantee" on Google flights now, wherein they will reimburse you the difference if the flight goes lower in price than if you buy it at that time (through their platform / booking, at least). To me, this is a signal that Google has used all of its price history data for flights to say "this is a bottom in price", and given they don't want to lose money hand over fist from mispredictions, the…

More likely it's just a scheme to increase usage and they'll figure out the rest later, once they have more data to work with

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

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chase Sapphire travel insurance is limited only to evacuation and transport anywhere >100km from home state.

Yup, I have separate travel insurance from a reputable domestic insuracne company that I trust. My credit card also has a travel insurance from a multinational insurance company that I had never heard of before. The bank didn't even bother sending me the insurance policy terms when issuing the card. I would never dare depend on the credit card's travel insurance. Because travel insurance is one of those things that y…

Agreed that travel insurance is a must. It is not that expensive.

Be aware of the limitations though. For example, you rent a scooter in Vietnam. Well, you're not covered in an accident because you are only covered if you have a license. The only way to get a license is to live in Vietnam and they don't recognize a US IDP.

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

#306

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 used to do the same about 15 years ago. I was living in DC area but was traveling to Bay Area every week (mon to fri) for work. I always booked fare in reverse with Friday evening departure (from sfo) and Monday morning ( from DCA) return. A Saturday night “stay” apparently made it a leisure fare which was way cheaper than Monday to Friday fare which was way more expensive. (Like 4x more). [ this was United Airline…

I used to have the same itinerary more recently, and managed to lower the costs on United by 20-40% by booking overlapping itineraries >7 days long, where I'd:

1.Kick off Itinerary 1 on Sunday 1 (To SFO),

2.Kick off Itinerary 2 on Friday 1 (DC return),

3.Kick off Itinerary 3 on Sunday 2 (To SFO),

4.Close Itinerary 1 on Friday 2 (DC return),

5.Close Itinerary 2 on Sunday 3 (To SFO),

6.Close Itinerary 3 on Friday 3 (DC Return)

...ad infinitum

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

#307
post #67

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 determi…

> travel carry-on luggage only That is impossible if one wishes to carry a pocketknife or handgun at one’s destination. The latter is fairly uncommon, but the former is very common, right? Not to mention if one is bringing back a bottles of beer, wine or spirits.

You can literally buy a couple of pocket knives for the price of a checked bag if it's that important to you.

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

#308
post #67

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 determi…

Another hack is timing. Often I've taken a day off on either Friday or Monday when I'm travelling over the weekend -- the difference in cost can be as much as a day's wage.

Does this actually work in your experience? IME whenever I tried this, I spent more kn the extra day’s accommodation that I saved on the plane ticket…

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

#309
post #67

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 determi…

> travel carry-on luggage only That is impossible if one wishes to carry a pocketknife or handgun at one’s destination. The latter is fairly uncommon, but the former is very common, right? Not to mention if one is bringing back a bottles of beer, wine or spirits.

I can't imagine a place where both:

1) I require a pocketknife and a handgun immediately upon arrival, and

2) I'd also like to pick up some bottles of fine wine while I'm there.

Sounds like a very interesting vacation, though.

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

#310
post #67

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 determi…

> travel carry-on luggage only That is impossible if one wishes to carry a pocketknife or handgun at one’s destination. The latter is fairly uncommon, but the former is very common, right? Not to mention if one is bringing back a bottles of beer, wine or spirits.

If one's flying enough, ideally they have status with an airline to have some baggage allowance.

I hear you, though, I frequently bring back some knickknacks from abroad and will check in a small bag of booze.

Post reply on HN