Transatlantic Air Fares

[MK Tom]

I'm a bit confused as to how translatantic plane fares work. Earlier this year I was able to get a £460 return to Los Angeles from Heathrow with US Airways, changing on route, through an agency. I found that fare through Skyscanner. I'm now doing an appraisal of what flights exist for a trip I may be doing next July to Seattle, and the results are confusing. Skyscanner shows fares in the £790 return region from Delta airlines, even though Delta's own site shows fares in the £1100 region. There are no fares from American at all, who would be able to offer it as a connection, which makes me wonder if I'm trying too far ahead.

Looking at April instead to see what's available for a closer time I find some lower £600 region fares for Seattle from Icelandair, but still nothing as low as most of the LAX ones from last year. That trip was booked a little over a month before leaving.

Do these fares get lower closer to the time? I'm conscious LAX is a bigger and more popular destination than Seattle, so I'd like to have some idea of what fares I can expect to get for Seattle and when so I can budget the trip. While only two carriers (BA and Delta) provide direct services, Icelandair are offering connecting flights and surely United and American will in time as well?

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Airlines work on yield management so the prices are flexing all the time - it's impossible to predict what is going to happen either way I'm afraid.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Airlines work on yield management so the prices are flexing all the time - it's impossible to predict what is going to happen either way I'm afraid.

Agreed. I think the only sensible way to handle it these days is that if the price is acceptable now, book it now. If not you can wait but you're taking a risk of an increase.

 

[Searle]

I can join you in the confusion, trying to book a return to San Francisco in mid July gives me about £1,100 return, or £1,350 for a single! Who knows what's going on there.

My brother found a website that gives flight discounts to under 26 year olds, he managed to find a return for £850, which is surprisingly cheap for July. I'll ask him what the website is.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Airlines are not interested in discounting fares a long way out.
3-6 months out is a better window, but prices still vary wildly.
Indirect flights will often give you a better fare.
You might look at Air Canada via Toronto or Montreal for instance, or AF/KLM via Paris/Amsterdam etc.
The airlines all operate rackets on things like fuel surcharges.
They should be at rock bottom now but unsurprisingly they haven't cut surcharges in line with fuel costs.
They are also determined not to discount their prime business flights, or offer you a cheap one-way flight.
You are also in high season.
I find as each month ticks over, you get a new set of attractive fares on selected routes.
Just now, they are keen to sell winter capacity.
It might be after Christmas before you get a good view of summer fares.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I can join you in the confusion, trying to book a return to San Francisco in mid July gives me about £1,100 return, or £1,350 for a single! Who knows what's going on there.

Singles on airlines are almost always more expensive than returns. Don't be tempted to try to book a return and use only the outward bit though - airlines are getting wise to that and if people do it regularly, they can enforce it. Certainly the US carriers can and do - and when they do they charge a bit more than the single would have cost in the first place; the usual formula is something like 50% the return fare + the full cost of the single fare, usually on the grounds that they could have otherwise sold that empty seat for a single fare...

In Europe enforcement is less likely.

 

[me123]

For flying to America, you'll often only get the best fare if you're staying over a Saturday night (for some reason best known to airlines). As a quick example, a BA flight from LHR-JFK leaving on Monday and returning Saturday comes in at a whopping £1,687.56pp (economy, lowest fares). By contrast, returning one day later on a Sunday (and therefore spending a Saturday night in New York) drops your fares to as low as £446.56! Even at New York hotel prices, you're potentially over £1000 better off staying an extra night in the states!

Most airlines seem to enforce this, one exception that I've used for a Mon-Fri trip to New York being Aer Lingus, probably as they don't have as much business traffic as the other transatlantic carriers. Having said that, Aer Lingus have now joined IAG (who also own BA), so they may very well close this little loophole!

It's certainly worth shopping around lots of carriers for the best fare and definitely consider making a transfer if it gets you a better fare over the direct flights.

And people think rail fares are crazy!

 

[Mojo]

Single-leg pricing is very expensive on most long-haul routes. Fortunately it's possible to get around this by booking an "open jaw" ticket.

I use http://matrix.itasoftware.com. For flights from the UK I always book direct with the Airline as the often minuscule saving isn't worth the credit card fees or other potential hassles with booking through a third party. This shows the official prices charged by the airlines and also the stuff to show to a humanoid travel agent if required.

 

[Greenback]

Definitely book through the airline. Be wary of being taken to dodgy companies when using the likes of Skyscanner. It's a bit too early to be booking for next summer at the moment. There might be some sales later in the year or early next year. It's more likely that airlines will be looking to offer incentives to book if it's six months out and they have a lot of spare seats left. At the moment, they won't care too much as there's a long time left to fill the aircraft up!

 

[WestCoast]

Not all brokers and agencies are sketchy or charge hidden fees. Some have good reputations, just google them. Admittedly I've never booked with one transatlantic.

However, last year I found a bargain fare (€39) for a one way flight from Greece to Germany on Aegean Airlines through Expedia - more than half the price of what the airline directly quoted. Received a booking reference immediately where the reservation could be seen on the airline's website.

Also used Opodo earlier this year from Berlin to London via Düsseldorf on Air Berlin and BA (partner airlines and through ticket) for a good price - neither airline could quote me a price for the routing and charged double for a direct flight. Went without a hitch.

 

[Mojo]

However, last year I found a bargain fare (€39) for a one way flight from Greece to Germany on Aegean Airlines through Expedia - more than half the price of what the airline directly quoted. Received a booking reference immediately where the reservation could be seen on the airline's website.

Also used Opodo earlier this year from Berlin to London via Düsseldorf on Air Berlin and BA (partner airlines and through ticket) for a good price - neither airline could quote me a price for the routing and charged double for a direct flight. Went without a hitch.

Websites like Opodo and Expedia are also good as they allow you to pay for flights starting abroad in GBP rather than a foreign currency.

 

[AM9]

With most international airlines now being in one or more of the major alliances, e.g. Star Alliance, One World, etc., more destinations can be offered on ordinary bookings by using other airlines within the group. When I can't get what I want, I find Travelocity useful as they offer many more routings with various unrelated airlines, even showing multi-sector itineraries.
On the subject of not using all parts of an intinerary, in 2009 we had a holiday in Hong Kong and Bali which involved sector from Heathrow to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Denpasar, Denpasar to Bangkok and Bangkok to Heatrhrow. The tour operator, (won't name them here as I'm in Las Vegas at the moment with the same firm) double-booked the sector from Hong Kong to Denpasar. The flights overlapped by about 2 hours (on a 4 hour sector) so it was actually impossible to use both vouchers. Had we skipped one, the rest of the tickets would have probably been invalidated meaning the we would have needed to buy tickets to get home. Luckily we discovered it when the online seat selection refused to let us in as we had more than 4 sectors on the itinerary.

 

[stut]

If you're headed to LA, look for special offers on the excellent Air New Zealand. Also consider flying on Ethiopian from Dublin to LA, which is very good value.

If you want lower fares, you can quite often find better value from Birmingham than London these days, and certainly from Scandinavian countries (thanks to competition from Norwegian), the low countries and Dublin (Dublin having the advantage that most US-bound flights (not Ethiopian) have very civilised immigration pre-clearance, which makes the whole experience so much more pleasant). A lot of these countries also have excellent Premium Economy fares.

Google Flights is a good tool - you can put in a departure point, and your criteria, and it will draw a map of available fares. If you're considering several west coast cities, this is a good way to determine which will be the best value.

 

[Haydn1971]

Never seen Google Flights - excellent tool, cheers for that

 

[ac6000cw]

Not all brokers and agencies are sketchy or charge hidden fees. Some have good reputations, just google them. Admittedly I've never booked with one transatlantic.

However, last year I found a bargain fare (€39) for a one way flight from Greece to Germany on Aegean Airlines through Expedia - more than half the price of what the airline directly quoted. Received a booking reference immediately where the reservation could be seen on the airline's website.

Also used Opodo earlier this year from Berlin to London via Düsseldorf on Air Berlin and BA (partner airlines and through ticket) for a good price - neither airline could quote me a price for the routing and charged double for a direct flight. Went without a hitch.

I've been using Expedia for years for flights/hotels/car hire bookings - it's usually very good on flight prices, but I always cross-check with the airline website and one of the other 'big' agencies e.g. Opodo or eBookers (and most often end up booking via Expedia...)

One effect that the (low price) Air New Zealand offers to LAX are having is to produce good offers from other airlines on the route - I managed recently to book a Delta (fly on Virgin) LHR-LAX flight for not much more than the Air NZ offer price, but with better fight times in both directions (= more usable time at the destination and not having to pay peak-time train fares into London to get to LHR).

Kayak is useful for setting up 'price alerts' for a journey, and it will also show you historical pricing trends (so you can get an idea of the cheapest months to fly).

If you are thinking about using Icelandair, I've used them a couple of times transatlantic (did LHR-Washington DC last September) and they have been fine. The change at Reykjavik is easy - it's a small airport. Note that their Economy fares don't include food or alcoholic drinks though.

 

[Mojo]

If you are thinking about using Icelandair, I've used them a couple of times transatlantic (did LHR-Washington DC last September) and they have been fine. The change at Reykjavik is easy - it's a small airport. Note that their Economy fares don't include food or alcoholic drinks though.

And as a side point about Icelandair, if you have time, make use of a free stopover for a couple of days in Iceland; one of the best countries in the world as far as tourism goes. Much nicer and more welcoming than most EU countries.

 

[185]

Do these fares get lower closer to the time? I'm conscious LAX is a bigger and more popular destination than Seattle, so I'd like to have some idea of what fares I can expect to get for Seattle and when so I can budget the trip. While only two carriers (BA and Delta) provide direct services, Icelandair are offering connecting flights and surely United and American will in time as well?

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

Wrong side I know, but I'm paying £254 Man-JFK with 1 change in late November (rte KLM/AF) then using budget from Islip.

 

[Stonesourscotty]

Lingus do 199 return from Manc to newyork via dublin atm

 

[DelW]

I think you'll be very lucky to match your previous £460 return. Travelling last June (out to Seattle, back from LA), flights were ~ £400 each way, booked 3 months in advance. We went out with Icelandair via Reykjavik, which worked fine, though the airport there was very busy with lots of flights interchanging passengers within about a 2-hour period. On board refreshments were varied and fairly reasonably priced.

I had wanted to come back from San Diego but direct singles were > £1200. Instead I caught Amtrak to LA ($50 in business class) and flew with Norwegian direct to Gatwick.

 

[anme]

It is sometimes worth booking flights via an agency, e.g. ebookers.com (but not for budget airlines). Airlines sometimes seem to dump cheap tickets this way. For a European trip with a flag carrier, I fairly recently paid 100 pounds from ebookers, compared to over 300 pounds directly from the airline website.

Tools like skyscanner.net are very useful for finding cheap fares, but are not perfect, and it's always worth checking airline websites and a couple of agencies, especially for long haul tickets.

 

[Whistler40145]

Has anyone considered using Netflights, they are very professional.

 

[Airline Man]

Airlines work on yield management so the prices are flexing all the time - it's impossible to predict what is going to happen either way I'm afraid.

That is absolutely correct. I did yield management for BA for about twenty years. BA constantly monitor booking activity on a route / flight. We compare expected demand against what is actually happening and then readjust our forecasts which can either increase the amount of seats sold at lower rates or even reduce and close out seats sold at the same price.

It changes all the time. You may see a price and it could be gone five minutes later.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

For flying to America, you'll often only get the best fare if you're staying over a Saturday night (for some reason best known to airlines). As a quick example, a BA flight from LHR-JFK leaving on Monday and returning Saturday comes in at a whopping £1,687.56pp (economy, lowest fares). By contrast, returning one day later on a Sunday (and therefore spending a Saturday night in New York) drops your fares to as low as £446.56! Even at New York hotel prices, you're potentially over £1000 better off staying an extra night in the states!

Most airlines seem to enforce this, one exception that I've used for a Mon-Fri trip to New York being Aer Lingus, probably as they don't have as much business traffic as the other transatlantic carriers. Having said that, Aer Lingus have now joined IAG (who also own BA), so they may very well close this little loophole!

It's certainly worth shopping around lots of carriers for the best fare and definitely consider making a transfer if it gets you a better fare over the direct flights.

And people think rail fares are crazy!

The Saturday night rule is there to prevent business travellers from using these cheaper fares and diluting yields. Business travellers generally travel from Monday to Friday and relatively few will be travelling involving a Saturday night.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Singles on airlines are almost always more expensive than returns. Don't be tempted to try to book a return and use only the outward bit though - airlines are getting wise to that and if people do it regularly, they can enforce it.

Eh? How can they enforce it? If you book a return ticket, but don't show up for the return flight, what can the airline possibly do about it? (I can see how they could refuse to let you on the return flight if you never showed up for the outward flight, but not the way round you've described).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Zeroing frequent flyer balances isn't I believe unknown. Or often the contract allows a retrospective billing of the card for the higher fare.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Eh? How can they enforce it? If you book a return ticket, but don't show up for the return flight, what can the airline possibly do about it? (I can see how they could refuse to let you on the return flight if you never showed up for the outward flight, but not the way round you've described).

If the same name crops up regularly as travelling outbound only, they can invoice for it. Or, as Neil Williams says, they can charge the card the booking was paid for with.

So far as I know it's just US based airlines which keep tabs on this sort of thing, although I have heard rumours of at least one major European carrier looking at doing it - can't remember which one, though, but they have apparently recently inserted clauses into their T&Cs to the effect...

 

[stut]

BA have been warning about this, for people doing ex-EU routings for cheaper fares and APD avoidance, but dropping the last leg. For example, booking BCN-LHR-BOM-LHR/LGW-BCN can save you a fortune in WT+, and you can even drop the last leg without having to worry about your luggage being checked through. However, I have heard rumours that there have been cases where BA have invoiced third-party agencies for the difference between that and the routing finishing in Heathrow, and as a result, many UK agencies are reluctant to book ex-EU flights.

Still a rumour, but it's possible. They're not as strict as the terms on the old £1 day-trip-to-France ferry specials, though! I am guilty of abusing those heavily in the past...

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Some countries (outside the EU) insist you have a return ticket on arrival, as part of the visa rules.
That's when immigration law impacts on the commercial transport world.

 

[DelW]

If the same name crops up regularly as travelling outbound only, they can invoice for it. Or, as Neil Williams says, they can charge the card the booking was paid for with.

Some years ago my then employer had a subsidiary in Jersey, and I made quite a few day trips there. Initially, we often travelled using the outbound halves of two separate one-week return tickets, one originating from London and one originating from Jersey. After a while that stopped, and I believe the airline (either BA or Jersey European as was) had got shirty with our travel department.

I did suggest that if they picked the dates carefully, I could have a free leisure trip out there a few days after every work trip, but I never managed to persude them to do it.

 

[me123]

The Saturday night rule is there to prevent business travellers from using these cheaper fares and diluting yields. Business travellers generally travel from Monday to Friday and relatively few will be travelling involving a Saturday night.

Causes me problems, though. I can usually only book a calendar week off work at a time, and I'm not able to guarantee that the weekend before is off. So if I'm booking leave from Monday-Sunday, then I can't go to America with my time off

Of course, Aer Lingus don't (didn't?) have such a rule a few years back and I got a cheap Monday-Friday return to JFK with them a couple of years back.

 

[NathanPrior]

Managed to snag a Gatwick to Toronto return for £322 yesterday for 24th June returning on 1st July. That was too good to pass up on.