Shaz88

Hi all.

Can anyone tell me whether I can book a flight online from a city that is not in the country I reside in. For example, if I live in Australia, can I book online a flight from Singapore to London return to Singapore?

Cheers

SirJman

Of course you can book it, but whether you are allow to board the flight depends on your destination country immigration regulations

bankops

In most cases, the fare you pay will be based on both the route you want to fly but the ticketing city can sometimes play a role if the airline is offering some targeted fares.

SIN-LON for the next month doesn't appear to be the case, but apparently, buying your ticket down under is the most expensive solution. Taking a EUR reference:

EUR 976
USD 990 (in EUR) -1.4%
AUD 1019 (in EUR) -4.4%
THB 985 (in EUR) -0.9%

Christopher

Yes, but unless you can show evidence of a flight out of Singapore after the return flight from London to there, you might have trouble at check-in in London, since airlines do not want to run the risk of carrying passengers who will not be admitted to the destination country by the immigration authorities there. [I don't know if Singapore has a requirement that non-residents entering the country have an onward or return ticket out of Singapore, but I imagine that this might be the case (although it's not usually asked for at passport control).]

There is also the possibility that you would have similar problems at check-in for the first flight, although that would require some lateral thinking on the part of the airline staff.

If, however, you have a future flight out of Singapore to country of which you are are resident (or a citizen), then these problems should not arise.

cbn42

Where you book is irrelevant, but as Christopher mentioned, make sure you have appropriate visas/itineraries to show. Travel requirements are based on your country of citizenship, not country of residence or country of departure.

Another issue is currency. On some websites, if the site detects that you are in Singapore, it may bill you in Singapore dollars, and if you use an Australian credit card, you may get hit with a conversion fee.

slawecki

does one not have to be in country of trip origin to get ticket? when i booked turkey to italy(single ticket). i could not pick ticket up in usa. alitalia had a specialsuper cheap fare, ist-fco. i flew open jaw iad-ist, and vce-iad. i just went to a local travel office, and was able to buy the ticket for turky lira.

Often1

This is incorrect information. Entry requirements are based on the following variables: 1) Country of residence/domicile; 2) Country of nationality; 3) Country of Departure; 4) Countries where connections may occur; and, of course 5) Country of Destination.

Air carriers use TIMATIC to sort these variables. It is maintained by IATA for a fee, but DL makes it available on DL.COM without charge.

It does not matter where you are when you book, but various fares may be limited to payment in certain currencies and for residents of certain countries.

milepig

Your example is for INTL travel, but I do this all the time inter-Europe with no problem. Similarly I've booked many internal Australian flights with no issues. Other countries as well.

I did fail when in an idle moment I tried to book a flight from Toronto to Havana (just to see what would happen) and the response was that as a US Citizen I was not allowed to complete the booking.

cbn42

That's true in general, but not in this case. The UK is going to treat an Australian citizen as an Australian citizen. Whether he's coming from Australia or Singapore, and whether he lives in Australia or Singapore, doesn't make any difference.

Shaz88

Basically I am doing this to save money. As bankops pointed out...fares from Australia are the highest. I am planning to use Singapore Airlines Krisflyer points to book Business Class seats from Oz-Singapore return. Then plan to purchase SIN-LHR-SIN business class online. So I will have tickets that show I will be leaving Singapore.

This is for 2 adults + 2 kids. And by doing it this way stand to save maybe about AUD 26,000 for the trip. I have plenty of Krisflyer points to burn so that is no issue.

So as far as I can see I should be able to do this...unless anyone has an opposing opinion.

acunningham

Yes. I'm a global nomad, and live my life as a series of one-way moves every few weeks to few months, and generally book 2 or 3 countries in advance. It's trivial.

As others have pointed out, watch out for countries that require you to have an onward ticket before you take the inbound flight to them.