
How to Beat High Airfares - aaronbrethorst
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/magazine/mag-08subversion-t.html
======
sp_
Just tried it myself with SEA to MSP (hopping off on a SEA->MSP->DFW route) on
July 15th. Direct flight is $230, hop-off route is $150 on exactly the same
Delta plane.

Now the thing is, if I book SEA->MSP->DFW for Friday and MSP->SEA for Sunday I
don't see how Delta could not notice this and block me from flying because of
abusing this system.

Actually, I have done something like this before. When I moved from Europe to
the US I booked a return ticket because it was 500 Euro cheaper than going one
way, knowing fully well that I would never be on that return flight.

~~~
tptacek
This is really just a variant of the back-to-back ticket trick, which the
airlines already have some countermeasures for. In particular: when you don't
get on the MSP->DFW leg, any other ticket you had on the same itinerary gets
cancelled. When you show up for your 1W MSP->SEA, they may ask you (annoyed)
questions. I used to do back-to-backs (I had to fly DTW->LGA a _lot_ ) and
they did hassle me about it.

You obviously will have trouble checking baggage doing this, too.

------
OstiaAntica
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.

~~~
hugh3
This guy was modded down, but _are_ there ethical issues? If I'm booked
through from SFO to DFW to MIA and I vanish at DFW, they're going to be
calling my name over the PA system and trying to figure out whether or not to
hold the DFW-MIA flight. This is especially true if my SFO-DFW leg is delayed
-- my vanishing act might well wind up holding up a planeload of people as the
airline figures out what the hell has happened to me and whether they should
send the flight off to MIA (and then have to book me on a DFW-MIA plane later
in the day) or hold it a few more minutes on the assumption that I'm currently
dashing across the terminal to try and make it onboard.

~~~
enjo
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.

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

~~~
aboodman
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.

~~~
hugh3
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 planeload of
people sitting on the tarmac for an extra ten minutes.

~~~
aterimperator
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.

~~~
bad_user
You probably don't know many rich people.

Disregarding the infamous rich brats you see on TV, rich people are in general
very frugal and do care about dimes and nickels. That's how many of them got
rich in the first place.

And regardless, billionaires are in a minority.

    
    
        college students that eat lots of ramen are already 
        valuing money more than their own health
    

On the contrary, I think college students are the ones that don't care about
money.

~~~
aterimperator
Are you really arguing that the marginal value of an extra dollar is more for
a billionaire than for a college student who eats ramen?

~~~
BrandonM
No, he's clearly arguing that the billionaire is more rational with his money.
Even though the marginal value is higher for the college student, that student
is not as smart might not even see the opportunity for monetary gain.

------
vivekian
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.

------
travelemployee
I worked for airlines and one of the big 3 for many years. They have complex
algorithms that try to determine the lowest price. They're competitive, and
want to be the cheapest they can. They're not trying to "hide" any prices.

Doing what the author says will get you banned from the airline. If you don't
fly the itinerary listed, they will tear it up in front of your face as it's
in the terms and conditions.

My point: there's no real secret - the sites like Kayak and any ITA-based
search product are pretty much doing so many creative things to minimize the
price that it's rare to find an exception without cheating.

Finally, the pricing is crazy, but being in the tornado there's a method to
the madness.

------
mthoms
For Canadians you can add government fees, regulations and lesser competition
to the reasons this occurs.

I once bought a ticket from Vancouver to London (UK) on Air Canada. Turns out
I could have saved over $200 by flying via the same airline out of Seattle and
connecting back in Vancouver __to the exact same flight __going on to London.
Absurd.

------
bradly
A couple days a found a round-trip flight from Montreal to Paris with a
layover in New Jersey for $762. I tried to book the exact some flight, but
starting in New Jersey, and it was over $1,400. This sort of this is crazy. Is
anyone really surprised that airlines keep going bankrupt?

~~~
whakojacko
Its not _that_ crazy when you look into it more. Montreal to Paris is a low
yielding route filled mostly with price-conscious tourists. New York to Paris
has, as a percentage, substantially more business travel, which can sustain
higher fares. For each route, the airline (presumably Continental) is trying
to extract what it sees as the maximum price the market is willing to bear.

As another example, Des Moines to Dallas as discussed in this article.
American has the only non-stop flights between those two cities, and any
connection is going to add at least 2 hours to your travel time (based on a
quick glance). On the other hand, nobody has a nonstop between Des Moines and
Los Angeles, so American has no competitive advantage there and cannot command
a huge price premium.

~~~
mthoms
Based on the principle of charging the _maximum price the market is willing to
bear_ , would you consider it ethical for a company like Amazon to charge more
or less based on the affluence of the billing zipcode for each customer?
/honest question

~~~
ars
What's not ethical about it? No one is forcing you to buy.

But it's probably not good business, since people get irritated by things like
that and shop less.

~~~
mavelikara
OK, knowing this strategy employed by the seller, a buyer opened a PO Box at a
near by less-than-affluent neighborhood and shipped her purchase there. Would
you categorize this customer's behavior unethical?

------
AlexC04
Funny thing, my Father used to own a travel agency. This is exactly the sort
of thing that travel agents were paid to know AND search for.

Before the rise of all the internet discount travel sites, travel agents
earned their keep by doing all this for you.

For better or for worse, that world changed over time. People would come into
the agency, sit down for 1 to 2 hours to gather advice and information... then
when it came time to book, they'd say somethign to the effect of "well I can
book it myself online and save 15%". (Then he'd lose the sale).

That or they'd come in, grab one of his travel brochures then book online.

I'm not trying to bemoan anything here. He did well with the agency for a
number of years and sold out to someone at the end who picked up the 'business
travel' (where agents still earn commissions for doing it all for you). Just
trying to shed a bit of light on the story from my real life observation of
the travel industry.

Anyways, kinda interesting way the world has changed.

(edit, oh ... I don't think his travel agents ever advised hopping off mid-
journey, but then I think they knew how to book it so you'd not have to do
that.)

------
hugh3
Sigh. Is there any reliable way to read nytimes articles without having an
account, nowadays?

I know you can usually do it by googling for a string of text from the article
body, but without an extract from the article body there's no way to do that
from here.

And I'm assuming bugmenot no longer works in the post-paywall world, right?

edit: Never mind, I found it by googling "how to beat high airfares" (which I
thought wouldn't work). Turns out it's a Nate Silver article and quite
interesting. The trick is that _sometimes_ you can get to a hub airport more
cheaply by booking a flight to some destination on the other side of the hub
and then just getting off the plane... but of course the more people start
using this trick (after it's published in the New York Times) the less useful
it will be.

~~~
r00fus
Perhaps I just don't read NYT, but I've never been blocked by the paywall.

IIRC, if you use private browsing mode on most browsers, doesn't it defeat the
paywall?

------
Osiris
I have a co-worker that does this on a fairly regular basis even for business
travel. He's usually able to save up to 50% off the cost of a ticket.

------
Jach
The second way to beat high airfares: buy early.

I'm going on a trip next week. About three weeks ago a round trip 2-hour
flight trip was $250, a week later it was $350, but I found a 6-hour round-
trip flight (that _overshoots_ my destination, has me wait a while, then
backtracks) for $256.

~~~
vandalizeit
Counter example: my next flight.

I check fares one month ago - $599. Two weeks ago - $549. Yesterday - $499.

Tulsa to DC.

~~~
flyosity
Yup, there's not a distinct correlation between buying early and getting the
best price. Sometimes the best price doesn't show up until a week before the
departure. Sometimes the best price is attained when purchasing months prior
to departure. The only thing you can bet on is that the cheapest fares are
usually attained when you fly out on a Wednesday. Monday flights are more
expensive as it's typically for business travelers, and Friday/Saturday
flights are expensive as well because of vacationers. If you can fly to your
destination on a Wednesday instead of a few days later, you'll usually save a
bunch of money.

Re: when to purchase a ticket, Farecast (now owned by Bing) was the best
predictor I've seen.

------
strooltz
I just tried the following route - EWR->DES->SFO on 6/10 and returning on 6/18
via the same route back. The price each way was ~$420 (which included 2
layovers).

I priced out EWR->SFO and United/Continental had a direct flight for $369.
Maybe I'm the aberration but I think NYT should have done a few more case
studies before publishing their results.

~~~
RyanGWU82
I think you got it backwards. The trick works when you're ending your trip in
a hub -- you take the first leg, but skip the connection.

So, for example, say you're trying to fly to Chicago (ORD). The article's
point is that it may be cheaper to buy an EWR-ORD-STL ticket, because there's
actually more price competition when flying to St. Louis.

------
georgieporgie
_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.

~~~
alienfluid
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.

~~~
rdtsc
That is true. And that basically tells us how stupid and ridiculous our
security theater is. Someone planning to blow themselves up will supposedly
save a couple of hundreds dollars in order to attract attention to themselves
by buying a one-way ticket.

~~~
shadowfox
I suppose their assumption is that people planning to do that don't know
this/are dumb.

------
VladRussian
why "free market competition" sounds awkward as a mean to beat high airfares?

------
fuscata
Be sure to include the cost of the extra time it takes to accomplish this when
you calculate your savings.

------
MatthewB
How to beat high airfares...drive.

~~~
rexreed
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 $180... and that's just gas.

The tolls are around $20 each way. So, now you're up to $220. And what about
food? Add another $20 or so. More maybe.

So, now it costs the same to drive as it does to fly. And that's not even
factoring in the cost of your TIME. It takes about 7 hours to drive from DC to
Boston. It takes just over 1 hour by plane. Even factoring in the airport wait
and transport, you're doing better... and you can do stuff while the plane
flies while you can't do anything while you're driving. And then there's
traffic. And the wear and tear on your vehicle.

And this is for a relatively short trip.

So, is driving really economically better? I did the math. I did the trip. It
often doesn't make sense. Do the math yourself. Only for short trips does
driving beat the cost of flying, and in which case, why you would be flying
anyways? On the east coast, I just take the train or a bus. $20 gets you from
DC to New York. Another $15 gets you to Boston. You can't beat THAT.

So, the cost of gas has completely changed the economics and argument of drive
vs. fly. Flying is almost always going to be cheaper, if you can book your
flight early enough to get the discounted fares.

~~~
kijinbear
Driving can still be cheaper than flying if you have 2 or more people
traveling together. It would be tough to beat trains and buses, though.

~~~
spc476
I'm not sure about trains. I actually looked into this, getting a train from
Tuscaloosa to Las Vegas. The two cheapest round trip train tickets were more
than twice the price of a round trip plane ticket. Also, both train routes
took four days, both of which involved a bus ride on the last day. That's not
to mention both train routes going through Chicago. It was crazy.

~~~
camiller
Once had a flight from Omaha to Evansville through St. Louis. At the gate in
St. Louis the airline informed us that the flight was being canceled so they
put us (10 passengers in all) in a van and drove us to the Evansville airport,
dropped us off, and the driver drove away. The airport was closed! The only
pay phone you could see was on the other side of locked doors! This was long
enough ago that most of the passengers didn't have cell phones.

------
rinkjustice
What's wrong with paying pilots and airline workers a decent wage? Beating
high costs of some consumer goods and services is reasonable, but must we
'nickel and dime' trained professionals who safely transport your loved ones?

Pretty screwed up priorities if you ask me.

~~~
flyosity
You do realize that by doing this technique you're not physically taking money
out of airline pilots' wallets, right? Airlines already screw over pilots (WSJ
says average starting salary for a commercial airline pilot is ~$30k) so I
don't think this technique will really impact wages of airline employees
either way.

