Round trip airfare, San Diego to London. (and if it makes a difference, it’s actually London to San Diego)
I go onto Travelocity and pick a departure date of tomorrow. Fares range from $1,900 to $3,100. I assume this is for a coach ticket.
So if someone claims to need $9K-$10K for airfare for such a trip, what’s the deal? Are they flying first class?
I’m not a traveller, so I don’t have travel websites that I use, nor do I know how to specify what class I travel in, otherwise I’d have done it at Travelocity while I was there. So seasoned travel Dopers…is it possible to really spend this much on a plane trip? I figure the tickets were booked last minute, so I know it’s pricey that way…but this is ridiculous!
:: sigh :: Jesus, I’m such a tight wad.
London to San Diego, round trip, non-stop, very short notice (departing 3/14 returning 3/17) during primo departure time (around 9am).
On British Airways, this will cost you $10,813.30. On United Airlines, it will cost you $12,492.00 and you have a stop in San Francisco on the way to San Diego.
So yes, under the worst conditions, $10,000 seems to be a real number. But it should be possible to avoid those worst conditions.
If so, this flight would almost have to be at least business class.
10 grand for a round trip, even a last minute round trip, is almost impossible unless you are flying business or 1st class, at least in my experience.
Just for info, I went on travelocity and found a London-San Diego flight with one stop in San Fran for for tomorrow for $610, and $5798 non-stop.
I would check this person’s flight plan, if I were you.
In looking at obfusciatrist 's post, I guess I should give you the parameters of mine. I assumed a week stay (probably not for a business meeting), and didn’t specify departure/arrival times.
I did another search and found London-Newark-San Diego from March 13-17 departing at 11 AM, and got $721. For non-stop, I again got $5793 (arrive on United, leave on BA).
I also did some internal poking around, and found out that our travel policy allows business class flights on international travel. So that’s probably what really is driving the price up.
As for avoiding worst case scenarios, I now realize just how valuable booking a ticket in advance is! Cripes. My cube neighbor said he was just looking at the best fares to London for personal travel. He found a fare as low as $488. Now we’re talkin’!
I’d say it’s not an isolated problem around here. People NEVER book their tickets far enough in advance to get decent fares. And if they do, seems like they often have to change itineraries, so that doesn’t help. And while I realize it’s sometimes unavoidable, I personally believe we could do a bit better with planning ahead.
[sarcasm]
Good thing I’m not working for a biotech company trying to breakthrough to profitability!
[/sarcasm]
Thanks for the help, guys. Unfortunately it was the answer I was afraid of.
FWIW I just got back from a business trip to Sweden. I flew via London. It was business class as my company allows this for intercontinental flights.
LAX to LHR and then on to Sweden was a total fare of $4200. Couse I did have a 1 month advance purchase and a two week stay.
From my experience, the price goes way up if you don’t hit the advance purchase window (2-3 weeks varies) and or have a one week stay. The cheapest fares are leave on Saturday and return on Saturday. The airlines like this cause it fill other wise not so full planes.
From a bean counters perspective, it is cheaper for a company to pay for an employee to go play tourist for a couple of days then to have them fly back early and bump the fare by $$$.