billyb750

Hi all,

I was hoping that someone might be able to explain why booking an outbound and inbound ticket on the same day is often much more expensive than having the inbound flight on a different day?

I only ask as it makes doing a day trip holiday with BA (e.g LHR-AMS-LHR) prohibitively expensive, unless using Avios to pay for the flights.

I note that a few years ago BA used to market same day weekend return flights for reasonable prices. I wonder why they stopped this?

Any thoughts welcome.

flatlander

They still do have these flights. They typically book into booking class G and require a departure on Sunday and a return on the same day. Occasionally they can be found with a Saturday departure also.

You can search ba.com for a cheap fare on a Sunday for a day return. If you have access to ExpertFlyer or similar service you can look for flights with availability in the G bucket which are likely to offer these fares also.

For example right now I can book this for £81.60:
Heathrow (London) - Amsterdam - Saturday 04 March 2017 Departs 06:45 04 Mar Arrives 09:05 04 Mar Cabin Euro Traveller Flight BA0428
Amsterdam - Heathrow (London) - Saturday 04 March 2017 Departs 19:35 04 Mar Arrives 19:50 04 Mar Cabin Euro Traveller Flight BA0441

corporate-wage-slave

Depending on the route, it is sometimes cheaper to buy two singles, perhaps mixing-matching with LCY. LGW-AMS shouldn't be too dear on this route since they are competing against easyJet.

Scots_Al

Because typically, people travelling on same day returns aren't paying for them themselves - see also Saturday night stay requirements, APEX, Super APEX, etc.

mmxbreaks

LON-AMS same day is only about £5 more than overnight tbh. Or book with easyJet instead.

Same day short-haul is a supply and demand business scheme really. Likely cheaper than booking a hotel plus the flight overall, so that's how the model works I s'pose.
Return long-haul flights tend to be cheaper than one-way tickets too, in a bid to retain same carrier status I would think.

Globaliser

In general, I suspect that this is mainly due to supply and demand, as reflected in availability in the different booking classes on the flights that actually you're looking at.

If you're looking at a route like AMS, in economy there is normally no minimum stay requirement even on the cheapest fares. So if the cheapest valid fare is in O class (usually the lowest economy booking class) and you find an outbound flight and an inbound flight on the same day that both have O class availability, you should get that cheapest fare even though it's a same-day return; it will be the same fare as if you return the next day.

For example, if you look at LHR-AMS on Wed 13 September on BA428 (0640) and AMS-LHR on 13 September on BA443 (2120), the fare is £128.30. If you return instead on the same AMS-LHR flight the next day (Thu 14 September) the fare is the same. So forget all this APEX, Super APEX, Saturday night stuff - on most short-haul it simply doesn't exist any more.

However, the impact of availability can be seen on the same flights. There's only one O class seat left on BA443 on Thu 14 September. So if you price this itinerary for two people, you will get a cheaper price for the same-day return than for returning the next day, all because of availability.

And this, I suspect, is likely to account for every instance you see of the same-day return being more expensive than a return the following day. You often find that if you buy a same-day return, you have to come back on a flight which is more in demand and therefore more expensive because of the limited number of flights that work for a same-day trip. In contrast, if you book to fly back the next day, you may have a wider choice of flights including some cheaper ones.

Cymro

My main work route is FRA and the lowest fare there does have a three-day minimum stay... so it's horses for courses. A colleague has just booked LGW-AMS for £79 on less than two weeks' notice and a one-night, midweek stay.

TyneTraveller

If you can be flexible there is usually something decently cheap about for either the "hello weekend" or "day trip fares. Good options are usually AMS/BCN/MAD/FCO and most domestic routes. In my experience they also invariably only release the G bucket 5-6 weeks out.

techie

Not uncommon for me to do same-day returns for work-related reasons. To echo what Globalisersaid, I find it that it's the late inbound that is more expensive than the early outbound. Makes sense to me: it's the likes of me coming back from a day at that location + folks who want to stay the night before going about their business. My same-day returns tend to be booked days rather than weeks in advance, so that probably pushes up the cost too.