How to Beat High Airfares • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#81

Post by kulkarnic » Fri, May 06, 2011, 3:56 AM 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.

Not so. The specific tactic the NYC recommends is questionable, but it is possible to surrender your boarding pass for the onward flight. (Say you no longer want to fly: there's nothing they can do to stop you).

Note this is also possible if you check luggage: the airline is not obligated to let you get the luggage off the onward flight, but there's no airline that wants to carry baggage for a passenger who's not on the flight anymore (for security reasons).

If you're planning such a stunt (with baggage), try to have around 3 hours hop-time; else you WILL be delaying the onward flight with your luggage.

Layovers > 4 hours are considered as off-the-airport stopovers (domestically, US). That means the fare you'll get for SFO->DFW->BOS = SFO->DFW + DFW->BOS (made up routing). Exceptions: DEN for UA, ORD for AA, SEA and ORD for AS etc ("transit hubs", that is); where stopovers are free.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#82

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 06, 2011, 4:02 AM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #41

aboodman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article has an example of saving $189 (about 50% of the published price of the ticket in question), and a post in this thread had an example of saving 500 euro on a transatlantic flight. So it's not always trivial amount of money.

How many man-minutes of inconvenience are you willing to create for random strangers for every dollar you can save for yourself? Come to think of it, this question is about as close to an objective measure of an individual's level of morality as we can get. Screw all theories of moral relativism; I can tell whether you're a good person or not by knowing how much money it would take to tempt you to leave an entire pla…

[deleted]

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#83

Post by aterimperator » Fri, May 06, 2011, 4:04 AM UTC

Jach wrote: post #74

hugh3 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many man-minutes of inconvenience are you willing to create for random strangers for every dollar you can save for yourself? Come to think of it, this question is about as close to an objective measure of an individual's level of morality as we can get. Screw all theories of moral relativism; I can tell whether you're a good person or not by knowing how much money it would take to tempt you to leave an entire pla…

For those who like to calculate: valuing one hour at $8, ten minutes is $1.33 that the delay you caused is costing per person on board.

So with a Full boeing 747 (probably a large overestimate), that's about 366 people (with wikipedia as source). At 10 minutes you're wasting 61 man hours (did I make a mistake? That seems way too large). Taking a low estimate on the value of people's time of about $10 per hour, you should be saving $610 to justify it...

Let's go with a smaller plane... My friend who is into airplanes tells me that 40 is a good estimate for shuttle planes from small cities to bigger hubs (30ish to 50ish, I just averaged them). So every 10 minutes you waste is about 6.5 man hours. Again valuing people's time at $10 per hour, you'd have to save $65 to break even (though that relies on pretty low valuation of the value of people's time).

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#84

Post by aterimperator » Fri, May 06, 2011, 4:08 AM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #41

aboodman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article has an example of saving $189 (about 50% of the published price of the ticket in question), and a post in this thread had an example of saving 500 euro on a transatlantic flight. So it's not always trivial amount of money.

How many man-minutes of inconvenience are you willing to create for random strangers for every dollar you can save for yourself? Come to think of it, this question is about as close to an objective measure of an individual's level of morality as we can get. Screw all theories of moral relativism; I can tell whether you're a good person or not by knowing how much money it would take to tempt you to leave an entire pla…

To be fair... money has different value to different people. I doubt any billionaires would care to waste 10 minutes of other people's time to save much money, because money doesn't have that much value to them. On the other hand, college students that eat lots of ramen are already valuing money more than their own health, so it seems natural that they'd place far more value on the money, even if they place the same value on other people's time.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#85

Post by aterimperator » Fri, May 06, 2011, 4:14 AM UTC

wnoise wrote: post #46

hugh3 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly this is the attitude that some people really have. And if challenged on it, they'll rationalize it by blaming the airline for setting their prices that way. It's much like the drug user's rationalization of the fact that the money he spends goes to support organized crime. "Well," he says, "that's the government's fault for not legalizing the drugs I wish to take!"

In both cases they are right too: the people creating the messed-up market (government via drug laws) and (airlines via schedules) are creating incentives that have built-in externalities.

I agree with both of you. I'm not entirely sure where that leaves me. Conflicted. On the one hand I fully agree that these markets are kind of silly and incentivize dickish behavior. On the other hand, both the drug users and the time-wasters are knowingly inflicting those evils upon the world and other people through their own behavior.

I think I've decided where it leaves me: upset at both the bad-market creators and at the individuals who make choices knowing the ill-effects of those choices.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#86

Post by vivekian » Fri, May 06, 2011, 4:33 AM UTC

I have used this strategy twice, to get off at ORD while buying tickets till MKE. Both times I have approached airlines representatives to let them know that I will not be taking the last leg to save other passengers the inconvenience of waiting. Both times I have been told politely that I will be considered a no-show and it doesn't matter and they refuse to notify the boarding gate.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#87

Post by yid » Fri, May 06, 2011, 4:47 AM UTC

alienfluid wrote: post #48

georgieporgie wrote: post #4

Book your itinerary as a set of two one-way flights, rather than as a round trip. Every time I have looked, a single one-way is more expensive than a round-trip between the same locations. Maybe I've just been 'lucky'. Edit: no, I'm just ignorant. Turns out domestic one-ways are more proportionally priced versus round-trips.

If your name is even remotely "exotic" (and mine seems to be), good luck checking in online - apparently one way tickets trigger some alarm in the depths of DHS.

Is it the alien or the fluid that's more exotic? Or are we talking Mohammed or Ahmed?

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#88

Post by kirubakaran » Fri, May 06, 2011, 5:13 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #79

kirubakaran wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Screw all theories of moral relativism; I can tell whether you're a good person or not by knowing how much money it would take to tempt you to leave an entire planeload of people sitting on the tarmac for an extra ten minutes." Lets consider a few hypothetical scenarios: 1. You can get 50 dollars but it may potentially result in 60 minutes of delay for 100 people. Would you turn it down? 2. You can get 1000 dollars…

$100 Million, 3 minutes, 100 people? I might simply take the $100 Mil, and then track down all 100 people and give them a few tens of thousands.

Intent of the hypothetical, addressing its parent's thought about moral relativism, clearly supposes that you are inconveniencing people for monetary gain without possibility of compensating or otherwise being able to undo that.

Your reply is the equivalent of answering "If a genie grants you one single wish, what would it be?" with "I'll wish for a million wishes" :-)

And your reply subscribes to moral relativism too ('If I give them $x each, then it is okay to delay them. What is a few minutes anyway?'). Also note that $x that you are suggesting to give per person times 100 is just 1% of your gain. You don't know how much you cost them with the few minutes of delay that you caused. Perhaps someone missed a connecting flight and lost the chance to see his mom before she passed away.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#89

Post by rdtsc » Fri, May 06, 2011, 6:00 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #33

enjo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya there are. I've had planes take off fairly delayed because of folks doing just this. We just sit there as the airline tries to reconcile why the number of checked-in passengers doesn't match their passenger count. I'm guessing this is some sort of security rule? It doesn't matter tho, it absolutely sucks for everyone else on the flight.

Who cares about delaying an entire plane of busy people when you can save $20? [/bitter]

A lot of people already see traveling as a big hassle and they feel they have been nickel-and-dimed by the airlines (no more hot meals like back in the day), they are groped and blasted with X-rays by TSA as if they are some tiny terrorists. (This is regardless that there are 2 separate entities involved, people see it as just one traveling experience).

So most people will do this ticket hack even if it saves them just $5, or even just out of spite ("You made me jump through hoops? OK, now you sit and wait for me, haha!" kind of reaction). I am not justifying it or saying they are right, just illustrating the possible thought process.

Now from a market point of view, airlines are trying to solve this insanely complicated problem on how to maximize their profits from all these seats on their flights. It is almost like trying to do central planning on an economy of a small country -- this seat on this flight should cost X because we think demand for it is Y, unless demand changes and then we can increase the price, and then there are different legs, through different hubs, other partner airlines that try to do the same, it is just so complicated. So they end up creating these inefficiencies with inadvertent arbitrage possibilities. And people are taking advantage. Apparently they know about it and they are trying to put all kind of threatening legal mumbo-jumbo in their fine print. But they can't enforce it.

I think as more people start finding out and doing this they could: 1) ban customers in the future, 2) make them pay a fee next time they purchase, 3) lobby the govt. to declare this a grave security concern and make TSA chase these people down 4) try to adjust their pricing and fair structure to do away with this inefficiency.

Re: How to Beat High Airfares

#90

Post by rexreed » Fri, May 06, 2011, 6:15 AM UTC

kd0amg wrote: post #66

rexreed wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $4 a gallon, I might even challenge that. I recently calculated the cost of driving from DC to Boston, which is regularly a $240 or so ROUNDTRIP on many airlines. It takes 2 tanks of gas each way (about a 350 mile trip, 20 miles per gallon, 15 gallons per tank). The gas cost alone is close to $240. Even if you managed to burn 3 tanks instead of 4 during the trip, you're talking 45 gallons @ $4 a gallon, which is $…

about a 350 mile trip, 20 miles per gallon That would be 17.5 gallons each way, not 30. The round trip is then 35 gallons, which should easily be less than three 15-gallon tanks. Even 450 miles each way fits in three tanks. Only for short trips does driving beat the cost of flying I don't know how much you can stick to highways on that DC-Boston route, but when I drive down to visit my parents, each way is 400 miles…

In my case, I need to refill my 15 gallon tank 3 times for the whole roundtrip. So, my best case is 45 gallons, which at $4/gal is $180. It's true I'm left with some gas at the end, so perhaps that skews the calculation. If I could refill it with just enough, I could shave some bucks. But I prefer not to return home on empty fumes.

Next time you do the trip - calculate the cost. You'll see it's closer to the best airfare you can get on that route than you might think.

If you prefer to fully-load the airport commute and wait time, then you can equalize the time cost. And then you'll be comparing the actual costs against the benefits. I've found that the driving cost even not factoring in time and food / other stuff, is remarkably close to the airfare.

And don't forget the tolls. That adds close to $40. Blame the NJ Turnpike for much of that.