Don’t start in the UK

Voyager2002

jimi_man said:

Well I find the flights on Google Flights then fine tune them on ITA Matrix (a TA booking tool). If you have that set up properly then it provides a link to booking direct with the airline - usually BA or AA.

Please could you say a little more about how you set up ITA Matrix? I have used it over a number of years, but it always tells me to contact the airline or travel agent to buy the tickets, and usually they cannot sell any particularly good fares that Matrix offers.

Doshwaster

michaels said:

jimi_man said:

My wife and I are doing a two week USA holiday in June, flying into Vegas from Dublin and out of Phoenix to Barcelona (we are doing a fly drive walking holiday if that makes sense!!!!) in Business (BA Club and AA First) for just over £1100 each, which also gives BA Silver Status in one trip. 

We have all the time in the world to do positioning flights and are treating it as part of the holiday. 

We always do hand baggage only on holidays, but also, with three flights each way the chance of your bag making it to the destination at the same time as us, are somewhat slim! It also helps with transferring on the way out at Philadelphia as the wait for bags can be a while sometimes. 

Can I ask how you booked this - surely the booking system does not count Dublin-Vegas and Phoenix-Barcelona as a return?! Thanks

Depends on the airline but many will treat two transatlantic flights on the same booking as an "open jaw" return rather than two singles and if you play around with dates you can get some excellent bargains.

Typically an Open Jaw is closed at one end (A to B, C to A  or A to B, B to C)) but they can be "double open" (A to B, C to D)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-jaw_ticket

https://simpleflying.com/open-jaw-flights-guide/

jimi_man

Voyager2002 said:

jimi_man said:

Well I find the flights on Google Flights then fine tune them on ITA Matrix (a TA booking tool). If you have that set up properly then it provides a link to booking direct with the airline - usually BA or AA.

Please could you say a little more about how you set up ITA Matrix? I have used it over a number of years, but it always tells me to contact the airline or travel agent to buy the tickets, and usually they cannot sell any particularly good fares that Matrix offers.

Yes of course. If you Google (I use Chrome on an Apple MacBook but Windows is fine) ITA Matrix Powertools, it should come up as a Chrome extension. Install it into Chrome ('Add to Chrome' then 'Add Extension') then when you open ITA Matrix again it should have a strip of text on the top right (Settings v4.013: Cabin:Auto or similar). When you do your search now and click and a routing it will come up with a list of options for booking on the right hand side of the page. Various airlines then OTAs. I use AA as it seems to come up with the most reliable results. What it does is send the code of the routing through to the Airline/OTA.

You'll need to play around with it a bit tbh. I tend to go for the routings where there is an AA logo or a BA logo rather than a Mixed Airlines booking as they seem a bit more reliable and work better. It took an evening's work to get the fare and routing that I wanted so be prepared to invest some time!!

(The reason the Airline or TA can't sell you the particularly good fares are probably because you don't specify the fare class. You need 'I' fares for the best value Business Class fares, so if they aren't that - they'll be J, C, D R or I - then they won't be cheap. I is the lowest fare class in Business and usually the cheapest. )

Hope that helps. I don't know if you can post screenshots on MSE otherwise I could show a dummy booking to give you an idea.

Grumpy_chap

I am not sure that this saving is limited to "don't start in the UK".
I have enjoyed substantial savings in the past by selecting an indirect flight rather than direct. 
Rio via Madrid is far cheaper than Rio from Heathrow.
Cape Town via Amsterdam or Paris is far cheaper than Cape Town from Heathrow.
Perhaps the saving is in changing the direct flight from whichever UK airport to an indirect flight from whichever overseas airport rather than the fundamental of starting from abroad.

Another thing that can be worth trying on such flights is to check out rates via associated airlines.  An example I have gained through on several occasions is flights to South America booked via Iberia are cheaper than exactly the same flight booked via British Airways.

alanrowell

Grumpy_chap said:

I am not sure that this saving is limited to "don't start in the UK".
I have enjoyed substantial savings in the past by selecting an indirect flight rather than direct. 
Rio via Madrid is far cheaper than Rio from Heathrow.
Cape Town via Amsterdam or Paris is far cheaper than Cape Town from Heathrow.
Perhaps the saving is in changing the direct flight from whichever UK airport to an indirect flight from whichever overseas airport rather than the fundamental of starting from abroad.

Another thing that can be worth trying on such flights is to check out rates via associated airlines.  An example I have gained through on several occasions is flights to South America booked via Iberia are cheaper than exactly the same flight booked via British Airways.

Correct, direct flights have a premium because it's less hassle for people and quicker, but direct flights don't fill planes so airlines market indirect flights at lower prices to encourage people to use them (if they weren't cheaper no-one would buy them).

Whilst there may be one or two airlines that fly a direct route there can be numerous indirect options - for example take London to Singapore, you can fly direct using either BA or Singapore Airlines, but for half that price (and a third more travel time) you can fly via Istanbul, Doha, Bangkok, Dubai, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Delhi, Beijing...

...so not only do airlines have to price lower than the direct flights they also have to price to make you use their airline rather than someone else's.

Doshwaster

alanrowell said:

Grumpy_chap said:

I am not sure that this saving is limited to "don't start in the UK".
I have enjoyed substantial savings in the past by selecting an indirect flight rather than direct. 
Rio via Madrid is far cheaper than Rio from Heathrow.
Cape Town via Amsterdam or Paris is far cheaper than Cape Town from Heathrow.
Perhaps the saving is in changing the direct flight from whichever UK airport to an indirect flight from whichever overseas airport rather than the fundamental of starting from abroad.

Another thing that can be worth trying on such flights is to check out rates via associated airlines.  An example I have gained through on several occasions is flights to South America booked via Iberia are cheaper than exactly the same flight booked via British Airways.

Correct, direct flights have a premium because it's less hassle for people and quicker, but direct flights don't fill planes so airlines market indirect flights at lower prices to encourage people to use them (if they weren't cheaper no-one would buy them).

Whilst there may be one or two airlines that fly a direct route there can be numerous indirect options - for example take London to Singapore, you can fly direct using either BA or Singapore Airlines, but for half that price (and a third more travel time) you can fly via Istanbul, Doha, Bangkok, Dubai, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Delhi, Beijing...

...so not only do airlines have to price lower than the direct flights they also have to price to make you use their airline rather than someone else's.

Take it to the extreme and you could probably fly from London to Singapore using only budget airlines for around £200 (maybe London to somewhere in Poland to Turkey to India to Bangkok to Singapore) but it could need 4-5 flights, take 3 days and your back will hate you.

Voyager2002

Doshwaster said:

alanrowell said:

Grumpy_chap said:

I am not sure that this saving is limited to "don't start in the UK".
I have enjoyed substantial savings in the past by selecting an indirect flight rather than direct. 
Rio via Madrid is far cheaper than Rio from Heathrow.
Cape Town via Amsterdam or Paris is far cheaper than Cape Town from Heathrow.
Perhaps the saving is in changing the direct flight from whichever UK airport to an indirect flight from whichever overseas airport rather than the fundamental of starting from abroad.

Another thing that can be worth trying on such flights is to check out rates via associated airlines.  An example I have gained through on several occasions is flights to South America booked via Iberia are cheaper than exactly the same flight booked via British Airways.

Correct, direct flights have a premium because it's less hassle for people and quicker, but direct flights don't fill planes so airlines market indirect flights at lower prices to encourage people to use them (if they weren't cheaper no-one would buy them).

Whilst there may be one or two airlines that fly a direct route there can be numerous indirect options - for example take London to Singapore, you can fly direct using either BA or Singapore Airlines, but for half that price (and a third more travel time) you can fly via Istanbul, Doha, Bangkok, Dubai, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Delhi, Beijing...

...so not only do airlines have to price lower than the direct flights they also have to price to make you use their airline rather than someone else's.

Take it to the extreme and you could probably fly from London to Singapore using only budget airlines for around £200 (maybe London to somewhere in Poland to Turkey to India to Bangkok to Singapore) but it could need 4-5 flights, take 3 days and your back will hate you.

I have tried pricing up this kind of journey to Bangkok, and actually it ends up costing just as much as a more sensible indirect routing.

Voyager2002

Grumpy_chap said:

I am not sure that this saving is limited to "don't start in the UK".
I have enjoyed substantial savings in the past by selecting an indirect flight rather than direct. 
Rio via Madrid is far cheaper than Rio from Heathrow.
Cape Town via Amsterdam or Paris is far cheaper than Cape Town from Heathrow.
Perhaps the saving is in changing the direct flight from whichever UK airport to an indirect flight from whichever overseas airport rather than the fundamental of starting from abroad.

I came across a spectacular example of this last year: Madrid to Havana via Paris.

There are several airlines that offer non-stop flights from Madrid to Havana, whereas flying Air France involves going in completely the wrong direction and then changing 'planes in Paris. So tickets on this route are really affordable, far more so than if the journey begins in London.

Doshwaster

Voyager2002 said:

Doshwaster said:

alanrowell said:

Grumpy_chap said:

I am not sure that this saving is limited to "don't start in the UK".
I have enjoyed substantial savings in the past by selecting an indirect flight rather than direct. 
Rio via Madrid is far cheaper than Rio from Heathrow.
Cape Town via Amsterdam or Paris is far cheaper than Cape Town from Heathrow.
Perhaps the saving is in changing the direct flight from whichever UK airport to an indirect flight from whichever overseas airport rather than the fundamental of starting from abroad.

Another thing that can be worth trying on such flights is to check out rates via associated airlines.  An example I have gained through on several occasions is flights to South America booked via Iberia are cheaper than exactly the same flight booked via British Airways.

Correct, direct flights have a premium because it's less hassle for people and quicker, but direct flights don't fill planes so airlines market indirect flights at lower prices to encourage people to use them (if they weren't cheaper no-one would buy them).

Whilst there may be one or two airlines that fly a direct route there can be numerous indirect options - for example take London to Singapore, you can fly direct using either BA or Singapore Airlines, but for half that price (and a third more travel time) you can fly via Istanbul, Doha, Bangkok, Dubai, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Delhi, Beijing...

...so not only do airlines have to price lower than the direct flights they also have to price to make you use their airline rather than someone else's.

Take it to the extreme and you could probably fly from London to Singapore using only budget airlines for around £200 (maybe London to somewhere in Poland to Turkey to India to Bangkok to Singapore) but it could need 4-5 flights, take 3 days and your back will hate you.

I have tried pricing up this kind of journey to Bangkok, and actually it ends up costing just as much as a more sensible indirect routing.

Yes, I suspect it does if you add in the costs of extra meals and maybe a hotel room en-route. Might be an interesting experience if you have plenty of time on your hands and want to visit some random places on the way but it's not going to be a money saving approach.