How to Beat High Airfares • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#11

Post by michaelochurch » Thu, May 05, 2011, 10:56 PM UTC

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.

What's unethical is the pricing behavior of the airlines, not taking advantage of the hidden-city phenomenon, which exists because certain routes, though longer, are immune to airline price-gouging on account of a fair market.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#12

Post by r00fus » Thu, May 05, 2011, 10:58 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #2

Sigh. Is there any reliable way to read nytimes articles without having an account, nowadays? I know you can usually do it by googling for a string of text from the article body, but without an extract from the article body there's no way to do that from here. And I'm assuming bugmenot no longer works in the post-paywall world, right? edit: Never mind, I found it by googling "how to beat high airfares" (which I thoug…

Perhaps I just don't read NYT, but I've never been blocked by the paywall.

IIRC, if you use private browsing mode on most browsers, doesn't it defeat the paywall?

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#13

Post by MatthewB » Thu, May 05, 2011, 11:01 PM UTC

How to beat high airfares...drive.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#14

Post by whakojacko » Thu, May 05, 2011, 11:02 PM UTC

bradly wrote: post #8

A couple days a found a round-trip flight from Montreal to Paris with a layover in New Jersey for $762. I tried to book the exact some flight, but starting in New Jersey, and it was over $1,400. This sort of this is crazy. Is anyone really surprised that airlines keep going bankrupt?

Its not that crazy when you look into it more. Montreal to Paris is a low yielding route filled mostly with price-conscious tourists. New York to Paris has, as a percentage, substantially more business travel, which can sustain higher fares. For each route, the airline (presumably Continental) is trying to extract what it sees as the maximum price the market is willing to bear.

As another example, Des Moines to Dallas as discussed in this article. American has the only non-stop flights between those two cities, and any connection is going to add at least 2 hours to your travel time (based on a quick glance). On the other hand, nobody has a nonstop between Des Moines and Los Angeles, so American has no competitive advantage there and cannot command a huge price premium.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#15

Post by georgieporgie » Thu, May 05, 2011, 11:08 PM UTC

whakojacko wrote: post #7

DrJ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is usually the case especially for international flights. You always end up trading flexibility for price.

But it's usually not the case for domestic US flights, which is what the article is about.

I just checked and you're right. One-way's were just about exactly 1/2 the price of a round trip. Shows how much domestic flying I do.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#16

Post by hugh3 » Thu, May 05, 2011, 11:08 PM UTC

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.

This guy was modded down, but are there ethical issues? If I'm booked through from SFO to DFW to MIA and I vanish at DFW, they're going to be calling my name over the PA system and trying to figure out whether or not to hold the DFW-MIA flight. This is especially true if my SFO-DFW leg is delayed -- my vanishing act might well wind up holding up a planeload of people as the airline figures out what the hell has happened to me and whether they should send the flight off to MIA (and then have to book me on a DFW-MIA plane later in the day) or hold it a few more minutes on the assumption that I'm currently dashing across the terminal to try and make it onboard.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#17

Post by Osiris » Thu, May 05, 2011, 11:10 PM UTC

I have a co-worker that does this on a fairly regular basis even for business travel. He's usually able to save up to 50% off the cost of a ticket.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#18

Post by sp_ » Thu, May 05, 2011, 11:10 PM UTC

Just tried it myself with SEA to MSP (hopping off on a SEA->MSP->DFW route) on July 15th. Direct flight is $230, hop-off route is $150 on exactly the same Delta plane.

Now the thing is, if I book SEA->MSP->DFW for Friday and MSP->SEA for Sunday I don't see how Delta could not notice this and block me from flying because of abusing this system.

Actually, I have done something like this before. When I moved from Europe to the US I booked a return ticket because it was 500 Euro cheaper than going one way, knowing fully well that I would never be on that return flight.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#19

Post by hugh3 » Thu, May 05, 2011, 11:12 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #9

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.

Unethical? Hardly. It's just against their specific rules (which only exist so they can gouge you on certain fares). Is it ethical for airlines to charge you more for A->B than a flight going from A->B->C?

Is it ethical for airlines to charge you more for A->B than a flight going from A->B->C?

I don't know. Is it obviously unethical for them to do so?

It's a sensible observation that a subset of X should be priced lower than X, but is it a moral one? Or, if the airline can make more money by charging more for A->B than A->C via B then, heck, it's their airplane, let 'em do what they want!

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#20

Post by CapitalistCartr » Thu, May 05, 2011, 11:12 PM UTC

bradly wrote: post #8

A couple days a found a round-trip flight from Montreal to Paris with a layover in New Jersey for $762. I tried to book the exact some flight, but starting in New Jersey, and it was over $1,400. This sort of this is crazy. Is anyone really surprised that airlines keep going bankrupt?

In any industry, price is not derived from cost. The market sets the price, irrespective of cost, which is why companies go bankrupt, especially airlines.