stmadfish

Just curious why DL direct flight from AMS to BOS so expensive? (Most eco class=1400 euro one way, buss class= 4500-7000 euro one way)

It is just 8-hour direct flight while sometimes BOS-AMS you may find some much cheaper one way ticket. However, redemption is so crazy but I guess most DL transatlantic flights awards are crazy.

flyerCO

Hub to hub. Plus generally theres surcharges when booking ex-EU. Lastly, flights are full, and are nonstop.

Billy Mumphrey

Also the OP appears to be searching one-way, which is often more expensive than a round-trip. I'm seeing ~$570 economy for round-trip AMS-BOS-AMS on many dates. Would be cheaper to book a round-trip and throw away the return leg than buy as one-way.

xliioper

There are also roundtrip business class fares in the $2100/2100EUR range ex-AMS with a 28-day advance purchase. Partner Skymiles coach awards are 35K miles (120K miles business class) one-way (with 60-day advance purchase) if you can find dates with availability on KL. Skymiles awards on DL metal require roundtrip bookings for cheapest award levels and awards on DL metal will generally be considerably more miles if you are trying to book one-way's. For example, the cheapest coach awards on DL metal are currently 31K miles each-way (62K miles roundtrip) when booking roundtrips and 60K miles for a one-way award booking.

emma dog

To be trite: the economical reason is because Delta can and their goal is to maximize profit.


Yeah... it stinks.

ijgordon

I don’t think that’s expensive at all for a ONE-WAY ticket on a nonstop transatlantic. These types of tickets have always been “expensive.”

jimrpa

Not sure why people are whining about prices ex-BOS. Try looking at prices ex-PHL sometime 😀

MSPeconomist

Try exMSP. BOS has lots of competition and DL fares from PHL should be reasonable because it's a hub for oneworld (AA/BA).

stmadfish

Thanks. I thought nowadays the RT always equals to two one ways.. It looks like this must not be true, at least for international.

stmadfish

For the RT skymiles trick, does this work only for international? A great lesson learned to redeem for DL metal! As I just always search two one-way domestic flights on DL metal.

How much miles seen in DL will you then give a try to see inventory from KLM?

ijgordon

This has never really been the case on international/long-haul, as there is very limited low-cost competition. It was the growth in the LCCs in the domestic market over the past 20+ years that resulted in the near-extinction of round-trip requirements. (That said they still exist, but usually aren't nearly as onerous as on international, or as they were on domestic back in the day.) IIRC, Continental used to be the only airline flying NYC-Houston nonstop and if you didn't buy a round-trip with a Saturday night stay, it was a $1600 coach ticket. (Obviously with cheap one-way fares airlines can't enforce minimum stay requirements.)

MSPeconomist

Airlines can still *enforce* minimum stay requirements, including Saturday night stayovers, if they choose to do so, but the problem is that such requirements aren't competitive in most markets, where most travelers (or their employers) are looking for the lowest applicable fare within reason.

xliioper

Not sure what your point is. The legacies still have roundtrip fares with Saturday night min stay requirements in numerous domestic markets where there is limited LCC competition. As previous poster noted, LCCs are the primary reason they do not have them in competitive markets as the LCCs do not have fares with roundtrip booking and min stay requirements (all their fares are one-way fares) and the legacies tend to match those fares. If you live in a market like BOS or NYC where there is significant competition from B6, you won't see roundtrip fares on many DL routes where they go head-to-head. Markets like DTW and MSP are a different story. Here are DL fare filings for MSP-LAX and the first 15 fares listed have a roundtrip booking with Saturday night stay requirement as seen by the "SA" in the Min/Max Stay column. One-way fares do not start until the XAVQA0BQ fares below. Only Sun Country flies this route non-stop in addition to DL, and the legacies don't really take the smaller LCC/ULCC airline competition all that seriously and feel the need to match their fares.

GUWonder

To answer the headline question:

Because they can, while they are hoping customers bite without investigating and pursuing alternatives to get the same or more for less money.

For such routes, €7000 one-way for business class is expensive.

And I’m from the school where 20-25 years ago CO used to hit my accounts at $1600 for EWR-ORD-EWR in economy class but AA would be charging $1600-$2200 for some fully flexible TATL roundtrip business class trips from/to BOS and NYC.

jimrpa

re PHL: you would think so, but sadly that’s almost never the case. For example, I’m going to CAI for thanksgiving and departing from/returning to IAD was over $1,000 less. Fares are similarly less for NYC, it’s just that getting to NYC area airports is … annoying 🙄