At what point do you decide that a plane ticket is worth it ?

Murphy_The_Cat

I originally posted this a couple or so years ago.


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'.

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 £400 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' ?

Given that there is a regular queue of 'rip off' and I paid £500 and its now £400 waah, waah threads on here, I'd be curious to hear other peoples opinions.

(p.s. after booking my flights I regularly go back and see how much the flight prices have changed by )

budgetflyer

Flights this year are ,in general about 33% more expensive than last year when I have looked. It may be, however, the airlines exploiting "early bookers".
I am maybe going to change my booking habits to keep on top.
One compromise we have made in the las few years, is we now go where there is Avios reward saver availability.

duchy

We were discussing flights at the end of August to Vegas and my (less travelled ) OH said flights seemed to be £800-£900 per person and he was fine with that. My reply was "Well I'm not-if we have to pay that-we're not going " so although I couldn't say exactly where my barrier point is -that was over it (with a little creativity I got it down below £600 all in which for August I'm grudgingly admitting is ok

jackieblack

For us, it depends on how much we want to go.
For example, we are paying stupid prices for flights at Christmas, but we REALLY want to go.
We've wanted to go away for Christmas/New Year for quite a few years and have just never got around to it for various reasons. This Christmas is probably our last opportunity so we decided that if we really wanted to do it we'd just got to suck it up and pay whatever the flights cost, then spend the rest of the year scrimping and scraping to pay for the holiday.
But it will be worth it, to us.:)

torbrex

I ended up getting a return flight to Anchorage for £200 less that the price I had seen when I first looked, it involves an extra stopover but the total travel time is actually half an hour less than the first option as it had a long layover between flights.
I leave from Glasgow rather than Edinburgh but that wont be any great hardship other then possibly the traffic on my return to Fife (rush hour)

torbrex

jackieblack wrote: »

For us, it depends on how much we want to go.
For example, we are paying stupid prices for flights at Christmas, but we REALLY want to go.
We've wanted to go away for Christmas/New Year for quite a few years and have just never got around to it for various reasons. This Christmas is probably our last opportunity so we decided that if we really wanted to do it we'd just got to suck it up and pay whatever the flights cost, then spend the rest of the year scrimping and scraping to pay for the holiday.
But it will be worth it, to us.:)

Jackie, I don't know if you have looked but on previous trips, I have saved on flights to America by travelling on 24/25/26 December, not a huge saving but if booked far enough ahead it can be just enough
I had 3 seats to myself on a xmas day flight once and 2 seats on a boxing day flight which just added to the saving in cost

littlereddevil

I always pay over the odd to go away Christmas and New Year just because we really like to be away then.

jackieblack

torbrex wrote: »

Jackie, I don't know if you have looked but on previous trips, I have saved on flights to America by travelling on 24/25/26 December, not a huge saving but if booked far enough ahead it can be just enough
I had 3 seats to myself on a xmas day flight once and 2 seats on a boxing day flight which just added to the saving in cost

Thanks, we did think about this but being limited to the school hols we have to be back by a certain date and we'd have only ended up with 8-10 days, which wouldn't have been worth it for us.
So our outbound flights are first day of the school hols which is the last Saturday before Christmas - I don't think there is a more expensive day to fly! :eek:

littlereddevil wrote: »

I always pay over the odd to go away Christmas and New Year just because we really like to be away then.

TBH the trade off of not having all the usual hassle/stress of Christmas is almost worth paying any price for!

Murphy_The_Cat

jackieblack wrote: »

Thanks, we did think about this but being limited to the school hols we have to be back by a certain date and we'd have only ended up with 8-10 days, which wouldn't have been worth it for us.

It will be interesting to see what effect Head Teachers having the ability to give the 10 days extra discretionary abscence removed will have (awful grammar, but you know what I mean !)

The Cats will be having a quiet wrd with the kittens head teacher in the near future to see how the land lies on that one -- I've a feeling that we'll be advised about the consequences of our actions. C'est la vie.;)

jackieblack

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

It will be interesting to see what effect Head Teachers having the ability to give the 10 days extra discretionary abscence removed will have (awful grammar, but you know what I mean !)

It won't make any difference to us, I'm the one who is restricted to school hols

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

The Cats will be having a quiet wrd with the kittens head teacher in the near future to see how the land lies on that one -- I've a feeling that we'll be advised about the consequences of our actions. C'est la vie.;)

Unauthorised absences will be considered truancy.
It may vary slightly in differents areas, so may be worth checking out the guidance on your county council's website.
In this area:

Penalty Notices for term time holidays can be issued if:

There have been 10 sessions (5 consecutive days) or more of unauthorised absence due to a holiday taken during an academic year; and
Attendance is below 90% during the preceding 12 school weeks before the holiday was taken; or
The holiday was taken during the month of September; or
The holiday was taken during tests or examinations; or
It is the second holiday taken in any one academic year; or
The pupil is in Year 6 or Year 11

I guess it's up to each parent to decide whether it's 'worth it'