Again I sat next to a US-person returning to MIA , who had paid almost $6500 for a RT MIA-Germany. His agency used Sabre and even charged him for a HIP (higher intemediate point). That same routing (vice-versa) costs 2/3 LESS , when bought in Germany. First class costs 1/3 LESS than what the US traveller paid. Naturally US Freq Flyers can ONCE buy a oneway to Europe, and then purchase all their transatlantic transportation from Europe, always keeping the return portion to go back to Europe. Since most F/A/C/J/D fares are good for 12 months, why do agencies still don't advise the travelers correctly, and more over , using the totally corrupt sabre system. My agency often must call 5 times, to get Sabre-Autoprincing to be corrected. It is a shame.

As many of us know the fare between two points can vary considerably depending on the origin. The sabre system just does what it was designed to do.

It ain't fair, but what in life is.

The astute traveler can save a lot of money by doing a little research, and with the advice of some friends.

The person sitting next to you wasn't forced at gunpoint to buy that ticket (and the money probably didn't come out of his pocket)

snake's advice:
Don't worry about how much the person next to you paid for his ticket, (unless it was less then what you paid) it'll drive you crazy, if it hasn't already.

That's it right there - it's all about what the market will bear.

NEVER buy a rountrip J or F ticket from USA to Europe. You should always buy two one ways, for the very reason that DeClipper describes.

The travel agent might tell you, "Roundtrip is just double the one way." But if you ask him/ her to price just a one way Europe-USA, the price will usually be much, much cheaper.

For as much good as a great travel agent can do, it's amazing how much harm a bad or indifferent travel agent can cause.

our agent always buy 2 oneway.

now that we have some exclusive contract with AA (the policy is that we cannot fly BA transatlantic now)...on some routes we got 40-50% discount on AA.
e.g. a RT ticket J cost $3400. we got 40%+ discount on AA and issue it in 2 one-ways, the price now is <1300+<800=~2000!

And not only to you but themselves.
Whenever discussions come up about travel agents I like to repeat that when you come across a competent ta do not be careless and lose them the great ones are being more difficult to find.

My new company policy requires us to make a one-way purchase from the US to Europe. Then our international headquarters buys a roundtrip using the European address. We have a full year for changing the return flight. They say they save a lot on business class tickets doing this.

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[This message has been edited by Wiirachay (edited 04-22-2001).]

SFOJFK, for ORD-ARN (the route I used to fly about once a year), the difference is about 40% on the westbound segment. The only problem is that it's usually discounted D inventory instead of J inventory, which means that if you want to make a last minute change you may have some availability challenges.

I second the comment above about starting in Canada if you have the time and are going to the right country. I had a ORD-SMF-ORD round trip about 4 weeks before my last ORD-ARN. Thanks to some ideas on FT, I made a weekend out of it and flew ORD-SMF-SEA-Victoria, and bought my one-way J ticket YYJ-SEA-ORD/ORD-CPH/CPH-ARN for less than the ORD-ARN ticket. My company saved $500 on the difference between SMF-YYJ and SMF-ORD, so they were ecstatic. I got a paid-airfare weekend in YYJ, a free upgrade on SEA-ORD, a free stopover in CPH, and 1500 precious qualifying miles.

Question: what's the value to you of moving from unrestricted Y to unrestricted C -- figuring for business travel and not vacation travel. For example, if I would pay $2000 for an unrestricted round trip between Portland and Tokyo, then to me it's worth about another $1500 or so to be in C. Beyond that it's worth only about another $500 to $750 to be in F. This has nothing to do with how the airline prices the ticket (except for the base Y fare) but represents what I would pay for the added service and increased space.

For comparison, when I last took this run, full Y RT was $2000, C RT was $5000, and F RT was about $7000.

------------------
"If you want to win the game, write the rules."

*On flights.com (tiss.com), CO was offering a Business/First seat for $2,000 round-trip in "Z" class, from EWR-FRA. I know that they also had that offer from other cities connecting through EWR.

* Try connecting through YVR/YYZ (buy a ticket originating in Canada)

* Anyone who purchases full int'l Y and flies in Y needs to be shot.
* J/C: $200 more than full Y
* F: $1,000 more than full Y
Why am I that stingy? Because there are travel agents who'll sell you a full-Y or full-C and upgrade you (legally) to C, sell you a full-J and upgrade you (legally) to F. Sometimes the agency may charge you around $100.

- Pat


[This message has been edited by Wiirachay (edited 04-22-2001).]