Several recent posts here and in hotel deals relate to the interesting fact that these kinds of ultra-low cost offers seem to be more prevalent in Europe (and especially the UK) than America for both flights and hotels. People often ask how, for example, Ryanair can offer 0.02c fares over almost 1000 mile distances, BMIBaby free flights over 800 miles, or how budget but reasonable hotel chains such as Travelodge can offer rooms at $15, or Thomson at around $2 (all offers I've taken advantage of over the last year).

It's true that the European low cost airlines get hidden profit by adding inflated tax/airport fee charges, and charging high prices for in-flight catering and other extras - see http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/arti...088820,00.html in this week's Times. Nonetheless, they can still be incredibly cheap on occasion.

The business logic seems to be that only a proportion of capacity is available at this price but the ability to advertise it - and the subsequent 'word of mouth' publicity - creates a perception that the 'low cost' providers are always cheap. Of course, they tend to be cheaper than full service providers overall, but can be surprisingly expensive sometimes, and not only at peak times. As an example, I have just been pricing a single Manchester-Edinburgh for a future, fairly ordinary, Sunday night and the cost order is very different from what you might expect - British Airways cheapest, and BMI (rough equivalent of America West) and Jet2 (Southwest equivalent) both about the same at 50% more than BA.

So a question to our travel industry experts - if this is such a great marketing wheeze (as Ryanair's profits suggest) why isn't it more prevalent in North America?

Incidentally, lest anyone suggest that this isn't a 'mileage run' topic the ability to do either 1 or 2 trips combining a single or return with a full service provider with a cheap low cost fare means that some of the date restrictions on mileage run fares in Europe can be overcome (eg for the recent I code business class offers to Spain by BA).

The other MR point is to think carefully before posting very cheap fares or hotel rooms with budget operators in the UK or Europe - such deals are surprisingly common.