Back in the eighties I flew from the US to Switzerland for–well, I forget what, but it was a lot cheaper than the ordinary published rates for standard commercial airlines at the time. I believe the flight was technically a charter of some kind that sold seats to the general public (e.g., me), though I forget exactly how it worked.
Anyway, the flights there and back took off and landed just fine, more or less on time, and the plane didn’t fall apart. So it turned out to be a pretty decent deal.
Now it’s 2013 and I may be looking to get to the UK. The published airline prices are --well, we’ll just say they’re more than I’d like to pay. That’s true on the websites, but also on kayak and similar things. My question is, do those charter-type flights still exist? If so, how do I find them?
[Or did I imagine or invent the whole charter thing? Always possible, especially as my cousin actually made the arrangements back when we went to Switzerland.]
And if the answer is no, they don’t exist, or never did exist–are there other potential cheaper flights to be found, and if so, how? Or am I pretty much stuck with the kayak etc. fares? My experience with online sites for travel in general is somewhat limited.
Back in 1984 I flew on a chartered flight from the US to the UK, and, yeah, the plane didn’t fall into the ocean so it went OK. It was some outfit called “Charter Travel Corp”. This might be one area where it would be good to ask a travel agent, IRC my parents had one make arrangements
If you can live with more flying time and a layover in Reykjavik Icelandair often has cheaper rates than the US legacy carriers.
[QUOTE=Ulf the Unwashed]
And if the answer is no, they don’t exist, or never did exist–are there other potential cheaper flights to be found, and if so, how? Or am I pretty much stuck with the kayak etc. fares? My experience with online sites for travel in general is somewhat limited.
[/QUOTE]
The best way to find the best fare is to be as flexible as possible. Last year we went to Estonia and Latvia for vacation. It was $250 cheaper to go there from Minneapolis with a stop in Amsterdam than it was to fly directly to Amsterdam. I’m sure there’s rhyme and reason, but from the outsider’s point of view, it’s really stupid.
So here are my (IMHO not GQ) tips:
Stay flexible. Dates and when you book can have large fluctuations in price. Keep looking and keep a log of prices over time to see if the prices are good to snap up or if they’re currently bad.
I live in a HUB city. Unfortunately, there are better hub cities for other locations. Let’s say I want to go to Israel. Atlanta and New York are better connecting cities for that destination. Knowing that I can wait and get a good deal domestically, I will keep an eye on deals from ATL or JFK to Tel Aviv and then book my domestic leg separately. I’ve been looking at prices to go back to Istanbul. A couple months ago it was $600 roundtrip from JFK to IST and $220 from MSP to JFK if I booked them separately. Booking together (and using the same flights oddly enough) and the price was $950.
This is my favorite website. Learn it, love it, live it. You can’t book there but the searching abilities are EXTRAORDINARY. Put in your starting city and your destination city. Then click “NEARBY”. Let’s say you’re going to London (LHR), enter that as your destination and then click nearby and you’ll see airports up to 50 miles away you can select. You can then expand the radius up to 2000 miles and it can search all of those airports as destinations. It will also allow you to do a range of dates or length of travel. It really is a superior way to search if you are flexible.
We have seen that doing combinations like into London and out of Paris or Amsterdam sometimes have a flight that ends up a couple of hundred dollars cheaper. Or just a little cheaper but you get to do two cities easily on your trip.
Otherwise, we’ve had some luck using national airline websites that aren’t in the U.S. centric websites like Aeroflot, Turkish Airlines, TAP, etc. However, going to the UK, I suspect you are out of luck.
Prices have gone up, and they don’t seem to be going down. Pricing a RT to Menorca is about $1200 on just about all airlines. Departing on a Tuesday, Weds, or Thurs might save $100 bucks or so.
Back in the 80’s, or at least until Freddy laker came along, the Atlantic flights were a cartel with government approval to rip off the consumer. Today, most of that is gone. Instead, you are looking for specials offered by all the different airlines in a cut-throat market.
As mentioned, there is no rhyme or reason. A flight onward to Estonia via Amsterdam might be cheaper than just to Amsterdam. That’s because they want to capture that extra traffic that might go to a competitor, and also fill those empty seats to Amsterdam and on to Estonia.
The e-ticket is the airlines’ friend. If you don’t check in at Amsterdam and fly the Estonia leg, they will cancel the whole ticket and you have to pay full, a second fare, to get home. this guarantees you aren’t playing games with their prices.
Plus, one airline is toying with charging for carry-on; many charge for checked baggage, even 1 bag. After all, those extra charges don’t appear in Expeda, so you book based on a $40 savings, only to pay $25 each way to check your luggage.
I think there are still a few airfare consolidators around. Perhaps some still advertise in the New York Times Travel section, or the back pages of Budget Travel. FlightCentre has offices in major cities.