Budget Travel - 4 Legs to Flight: Cut off 2, and it's MORE expensive?

I was recently trying to book a flight from Memphis to NYC, and unsatisified with the deals that I was finding, I searched out of Nashville.

Strangely, I found a roundtrip flight on Northwest that departed Nashville to Memphis and then to New York. And this flight was $150 less than the same flight #s that departed Memphis and went straight to New York.

Is there some way that you can get around this and just leave from Memphis? Or even a way to explain it?

I'm new to all of this, so if this is a waaay newbie question, oh well.

Memphis is a hub for Northwest. Although the airlines deny it, it is quite common for fares to be higher flying directly out of hub cities. Nashville is also served by Southwest Airlines. Since they are a discount carrier, it keeps fares in general just a tad lower out of Nashville.

Not possible to book a flight out of Nashville and simply hop on in Memphis. Your best way around it would be to try and use a bid-for-travel site such as Priceline or Hotwire.

Hope that helps.

They often don't deny it. Higher prices on nonstop flights is known as the "Nonstop premium" or "Hub penalty". Because the flights are shorter and more convenient than connecting, the belief is that people who value their time will pay more to take them.

Flights that require connections are at least two to three hours longer than any nonstop and can be cheaper because of the inconvenience. I recently booked a ticket from new orleans to houston through cincinnati, which was over $100 cheaper than the nonstop. My travel time is almost five hours longer, but at this point, I value my time at less than $20/hr.

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

You have found the great inequity in airfares. It does not follow conventional logic that a 4 flight trip would be less expensive than 2 flights, but that is the way of airlines. It is frequently cheaper to take the roundabout way of getting places, and taking best advantage of those multi-leg trips is an obsession among many here on FT.

To answer your specific question about Memphis vs Nashville - Memphis is a hub for Northwest and fares out of any airline hub tend to stay artificially high. Nashville is cheaper thanks to the Southwest effect, where their lower fares force others to match in order to stay competitive. Check fares on airlines other than NWA - competitors commonly offer lower fares out of other airline hubs. Even with NWA, sales will pop up but they may not last long. Keep checking and it helps if your travel dates are flexible.

Unfortunately for you, there is no way that you can buy a Nashville to NY tickest and simply get on in Memphis. As soon as you miss one leg of an itinerary, the rest of the trip is cancelled.

Good luck with your travel planning. Believe it or not, it can be fun!

Earlier this year, I flew from the US to Tokyo to Manila to Tokyo to the US. My friend met me in Tokyo and we flew to Manila, together, and back to Tokyo, together. Then I flew back to the US.

Her ticket cost more than mine.

Yup,

living in a hub city with a virtual monopoly and being held hostage by CO, we pay the hub penalty .... er, non-stop premium :rolleyes:

Of course it does not always work that way. For example I spent a lot of time looking to maximize my mileage between IAH and FLL or MIA, but all connecting flights except those that involved CO Connection or whatever the name of CO branded cropduster airline is in Florida, they were a lot more expensive than the nonstop.

What some people have been know to do in Southwest served cities, is to buy a OW ticket to city A, fly there, and then fly A-B-C C-B and miss the return connection. That is of course technically against some of the fine print somewhere on your ticket or eticket agreement, but I'm told if you don't do it too often you will probably be OK.

Oh, and welcome to FT CheyennePress !

EmailKid

Thanks for your posts, everyone!

I have friends in Nashville, so I guess that I have an excuse to visit now. Works for me!

(And yeah, was kind of hoping that I could just take a carry-on and skip the Nashville to Memphis leg, but it doesn't look like that's going to work. Oh well...) :D

Bear in mind, if you only have carry-on, you can skip the final Memphis to Nashville leg.