at what point do you decide that a flight ticket is 'worth it' ?

Murphy_The_Cat

I'm sure that we all have differing ideas on this, but I was curious as to how people decide that a flight ticket is 'worth it' or whether it is 'to dear'. (inspired by sickles thread).

Quite a few posts are made in the travel section that focus on the price of a ticket, but rarely on the value, i.e what is the cheapest price of a ticket to X, making no mention of long stopovers or numerous connections,
or, I can't believe how much flights are to X - this time last year the flights were £400 and this year they are nearly double that (type of thing).

So, how do MSEers decide if a flight ticket is well priced and what is the thing that makes them pull the trigger and buy it ?

For me this year, I'd done my research and found out what the going rate for tickets was, realised that it was a lot more than I expected and kissed goodbye to a USA holiday.
I then slowly realised that it wasn't that the flights were to expensive, it was that my expectations of flight costs were unrealistic. So< I started my research again and over a period tracked down the airline, destinations, flying dates and route that I wanted to take, and then started to look at the prices and it was an interesting exercise.
The airline that I eventually plumped for was one that I usually wouldn't touch with a bargepole.
The destination was one of a choice of 3 and by choosing this one I saved myself some potential hirecar hassles.
The flying date/s was fairly easy to change/amend, but added a great deal of flexability.
The route was possibly the biggest difference to my usual planning and has worked out very well indeed.
For once I got a plethora of flight times to choose from

To summarise, I'm now travelling on an airline that I wouldn't usually contemplate, from my first choice departure airport, to my first choice destination airport, on dates that now suit me very well, on a route that is nigh on perfect for my purposes with flight times that in effect give me an extra days holiday, so happy, happy times.

I'm booked and ready to roll (& very much looking forward to it), but if I'd taken a dogmatic 'how much!!!! I'm not paying more than £300 to go to America' approach, I'd be going nowhere -- so. at what point do you decide that a flight ticket is 'worth it' or 'to much' ?

eslick

hey Murphy, living in the north east and really having no option but to fly from NCL, we over the years have gone with any airline as long the price was right and always with a stop over as there is no other way. Used to travel to Manchester but with the kids its just to trashy. 5 years ago said I wouldnt give BA another penny, this year its KLM AF turn after the way they messed us about with the ash cloud. But if we dont do KLM AF it has to be BA so stuck between a rock and a hard place we either go BA and worry about all of the problems with strikes and heathrow or we go down the KLM AF route. didnt think I would ever say this but expect the flight we will take will probably be a KLM AF one, really because of lack of choice. However nearly booked with BA a couple of weeks ago when found good prices and wished we had booked now looking back.

So over my airline issues but what other considerations, wont do 2 stops, far to long with small kids. Try to avoid paris as they leave the NCL plane miles away from the terminal and it takes to long to get back. Cost well, has to be no more that 2,500 for all of us 4 as this tends to be what we pay every year except last when we went for 1100 over easter, the wife tries to refuse to pay more this year and digs her heals in but in reality she wants to go more than me so will pay the higher figure. will take the kids out of school for a week so happy to add this on to one of the kids weeks but as the kids get older this wont happen. Wont normally go in August due to the prices but oddly this year we have seen some good prices for then so who knows.

Think for us going is more important than the actual price, would pay more but prefer to pay as little as we can, ah those days of £129 each to orlando before sept 11

dmg24

I'm pretty random with travel, whereas I normally go for the 'five a year' approach this year I am doing one big trip and several short breaks. Hence, my budget has changed. I also use airmiles to upgrade flights, so their availability comes into play as well.

So basically for this year I have the following budget, and if anyone wants to work out how I should use it feel free!

£1500 for flights
£1500 for accom
200,000 BAEC miles
25,000 BMI miles
30,000 AMEX MR miles

So far I have had a trip to Malta (£30 flights + £130 hotel), and have booked a one way ticket to Oz (£350 + 100,000 BAEC miles). The rest ... who knows!

(Sorry, have gone off at a complete tangent! )

Murphy_The_Cat

eslick wrote: »

hey Murphy, living in the north east and really having no option but to fly from NCL, we over the years have gone with any airline as long the price was right and always with a stop over as there is no other way.

Think for us going is more important than the actual price, would pay more but prefer to pay as little as we can, ah those days of £129 each to orlando before sept 11

I'm in a slightly more fortunate position in that I fly from MAN, but I know what you are saying (BTW, now that AA/BA/Iberia have tied up closer, choices have improved from MAN).

I'm like you in that my holiday is a 'big deal' for me and it is something that we all look forward to enormously, but I still have an inbuilt 'howmuchyou'vegottobekidingmeometer' that would stop me paying (say) £800 for a flight to the West Coast of the US.

Moonchild

I always used to work on the £10 per flying hour as being good value - however, this has undoubtably grown to around £15+ in the last couple of years (i.e. return to Singapore £390, Bangkok £360).

However this reflects that almost all of my flying is long haul to Asia, with little in Europe or Westbound. My most expensive flight in 2010 was with Air Asia (using the £ vs flying time - at about £70 per flying hour for Penang - Hong Kong - but that was my own fault as it was a last minute trip). I did manage to get a Hong Kong / Bali open jaw trip at the ticket desk for Singapore Airlines for flying that day for less than £17 per flying hour - which amazed me.

I have no loyalty to mileage schemes, so they don't come into the equation. I guess a similar equation would work for most people who are regulars to certain parts of the world.

mum2one

dmg24 wrote: »

I'm pretty random with travel, whereas I normally go for the 'five a year' approach this year I am doing one big trip and several short breaks. Hence, my budget has changed. I also use airmiles to upgrade flights, so their availability comes into play as well.

So basically for this year I have the following budget, and if anyone wants to work out how I should use it feel free!

£1500 for flights
£1500 for accom
200,000 BAEC miles
25,000 BMI miles
30,000 AMEX MR miles

So far I have had a trip to Malta (£30 flights + £130 hotel), and have booked a one way ticket to Oz (£350 + 100,000 BAEC miles). The rest ... who knows!

(Sorry, have gone off at a complete tangent! )

Don't forget your return ticket from OZ, or make sure you have the internet....... we'd miss you x

KarenG

Wow, great question.

For me, it depends on a number of things. Living down in the South West means we have a reasonble trek to London which increases costs and inconvenience slightly.

I would always have paid a slight premium when Continental did their Bristol -Newark route, alas no longer operating.

I tend to be brave enough to hang back and wait for a glitch type rate - there was one spotted last night to Orlando for £400pp in school summer holidays, and earlier this year Miami with VA miles plus money for £432 which are incredibly good priced for summer holidays.

This year we are going to the West Coast (first weekend of school holidays) and as such after much research I had started to resign myself to £700 plus each. So, when I spotted direct flights for £600 each it was a no brainer and I booked immediately. Had I resigned myself to a lower or higher price that would have impacted my decision.

So I think it's about expectations.....

PS For non school holidays my target price would be significantly reduced.

jackieblack

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

I'm like you in that my holiday is a 'big deal' for me and it is something that we all look forward to enormously, but I still have an inbuilt 'howmuchyou'vegottobekidingmeometer' that would stop me paying (say) £800 for a flight to the West Coast of the US.

For us, our holiday is the most important thing we do as a family each year and, in truth, to be able to afford this is the reason I work. With teenage DD, the number of years we have left as a family to visit some of the places we all want to visit are limited - at some point she is not going to want to holiday with Mum & Dad anymore (:sad:) so for us it is a question of 'how much do we want to visit this destination' vs 'how much can we afford to spend?'

This year's trip is going to be the most expensive we've ever taken but it incorporates somewhere that we've all wanted to visit for several years and if we don't do it this year I'm not sure the opportunity will arise again. I never thought we'd pay this much for a holiday, but it is more than just a holiday to us - it is a shared experience that we will never get again.

We are restricted to school holidays and both DD & DH get really bad ear pains on descent/landing so its direct flights only for us (as indirect flights mean multiple landings), both of which make it more expensive!

miamoo

I generally know what the 'going rate' is for the destination, so when I see something alot cheaper then I get it booked.
I dont care who I fly with, the cheaper the better. I wouldnt pay more to fly with a 'better' airline just because you might get more legroom,free meal etc.
I have been flying short haul alot recently because we have a dog that we wont leave for more than a week or so.
If I was flying longhaul it would be a different matter, comfort matters more then!

littlereddevil

I like to get bargain flights but if I am desperate to go somewhere at a certain time like I was at Christmas after all my flights were cancelled because of the snow then I will happily pay top whack for business class seats at last minute.

Hastobe_Katt

We home swap (sometimes include our car) and use hospitality clubs so the flight is the only real expense of the holiday. Last year we went to NY at Easter and paid £250 each return for the flights - our swap partners had a 4 Bed 4 Bath house in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn (just 20mins walk from downtown Manhattan). In the summer we went to Aruba for three weeks again on a home exchange - flights were £620 each return and car hire was under £300.

This year the kids (two boys aged 17 & 18) have asked for a short haul / European destination so we are going to Hvar in Croatia for our main summer holiday (swapping homes and cars) so total holiday cost is the cost of the flights - i.e. ~£700 for the four of us for 2 weeks. Feb we 'couchsurfed' near the french ski resort and at Easter we are doing a hospitality exchange in Bath. The ski holiday cost £240 for the flights plus another £180 for car hire. The ski hire and ski passes were £25 per person per day.

I honestly can't remember when we last booked a 'conventional' holiday!

The sites we use to book flights (apart from the flightchecker tool on this site) are www.skyscanner.net and www.bravofly.com. We also use hostels / pensions when travelling around and have stayed in some great (and very cheap!) places.

Edit - I would also add we have met some fantastic people travelling this way - many of whom are now lifetime friends.