airline question

[meep_42]

No, the other OW will be cancelled. By no penalty I meant that there's no extra charge you incur -- until you want to leave and have to buy another ticket.

-d

[captZEEbo]

not sure on exact penalty but if you get caught intentionally buying round trip tix with intentions of going only one-way you get some sort of penalty. I'm not sure how they prove it or how much they care, but I know it's against their terms.

[NajdorfDefense]

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yep, basically all the european airlines for international travel, alitalia, lufthansa, british airways, swissair, i could go on and on

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Different ticket classes, obvs. Check the fine print.

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but they don't sell cheap one way tickets at all. the cheapest one way tickets cost more than the "normal" round trip ones.

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Some airlines obviously do, the one I worked at certainly did, this has been discussed in this thread, it's not surprising that airlines keep expensive walk-up 1-way tix around for last minute biz travelers or people who have to switch planes/destinations who are not going to / have no time to shop around.

N.b. "you can't find them on a route today" <> 'they don't exist ever.'

Naj

[RoundTower]

BUYING PAINT FROM A HARDWARE STORE

Customer: Hi. How much is your paint?

Clerk: We have regular quality for $12 a gallon and premium for $18. How many gallons would you like?

Customer: Five gallons of regular quality, please.

Clerk: Great. That will be $60 plus tax.

BUYING PAINT FROM AN AIRLINE

Customer: Hi, how much is your paint?

Clerk: Well, sir, that all depends.

Customer: Depends on what?

Clerk: Actually, a lot of things.

Customer: How about giving me an average price?

Clerk: Wow, that's too hard a question. The lowest price is $9 a gallon, and we have 150 different prices up to $200 a gallon.

Customer: What's the difference in the paint?

Clerk: Oh, there isn't any difference; it's all the same paint.

Customer: Well, then, I'd like some of that $9 paint.

Clerk: Well, first I need to ask you a few questions. When do you intend to use it?

Customer: I want to paint tomorrow, on my day off.

Clerk: Sir, the paint for tomorrow is the $200 paint.

Customer: What? When would I have to paint in order to get the $9 version?

Clerk: That would be in three weeks, but you will also have to agree to start painting before Friday of that week and continue painting until at least Sunday.

Customer: You've got to be kidding!

Clerk: Sir, we don't kid around here. Of course, I'll have to check to see if we have any of that paint available before I can sell it to you.

Customer: What do you mean check to see if you can sell it to me? You have shelves full of that stuff; I can see it right there.

Clerk: Just because you can see it doesn't mean that we have it. It may be the same paint, but we sell only a certain number of gallons on any given weekend. Oh, and by the way, the price just went to $12.

Customer: You mean the price went up while we were talking!

Clerk: Yes, sir. You see, we change prices and rules thousands of times a day, and since you haven't actually walked out of the store with your paint yet, we just decided to change. Unless you want the same thing to happen again, I would suggest that you get on with your purchase. How many gallons do you want?

Customer: I don't know exactly. Maybe five gallons. Maybe I should buy six gallons just to make sure I have enough.

Clerk: Oh, no, sir, you can't do that. If you buy the paint and then don't use it, you will be liable for penalties and possible confiscation of the paint you already have.

Customer: What?

Clerk: That's right. We can sell you enough paint to do your kitchen, bathroom, hall and north bedroom, but if you stop painting before you do the bedroom, you will be in violation of our tariffs.

Customer: But what does it matter to you whether I use all the paint? I already paid you for it!

Clerk: Sir, there's no point in getting upset; that's just the way it is. We make plans based upon the idea that you will use all the paint, and when you don't, it just causes us all sorts of problems.

Customer: This is crazy! I suppose something terrible will happen if I don't keep painting until after Saturday night!

Clerk: Yes, sir, it will.

Customer: Well, that does it! I'm going somewhere else to buy my paint.

Clerk: That won't do you any good, sir. We all have the same rules. Thanks for painting with our airline.

[Arbitrage]

There is a premium on one way tickets because of the increased possibility that you may be a terrorist or drug mule.

[meep_42]

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There is a premium on one way tickets because of the increased possibility that you may be a terrorist or drug mule.

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So you're saying that airlines are willing to accept terrorists on their flights for a 20% premium? That seems like a poor business decision -- besides, isn't that what security checkpoints are for?

Also, why would an airline care if you happen to be a drug mule?

-d

[guids]

For buying One Way tickets it is more expensive mainly for the purpose that most people doing one way international flights are foreign tourists and not locals. If the majority of travellers doing one way international flights were people from your own country, then one way would be half the price of a return ticket. Instead almost anyone who gets a return ticket is a person living in your country or legally working in your country, so they get the better deal than who is most likely a foreigner. Like in Asia if a local gets a taxi they'll pay a cheap price, but as soon as they see you are a foreigner you'll get the price doubled or in some cases a lot more than double. They'd just cancel your return leg and then if they've overbooked the flight which often happens, it would be given to another person.

The main reason why RTW tickets are cheaper per leg than buying all of them as one way tickets, is because when you are buying a RTW ticket you are buying in bulk so giving the company more of a profit in most cases. So say for example if you were from another country so as you could make more stops in America instead of going Frankfurt-Los Angeles and being done with it on American airline, you might be tempted to do Frankfurt-Los Angeles-Chicago-New York-Montego Bay-Miami-Mexico City all on America Airlines using a One World Explorer ticket. Then profit also goes on to the airlines partner companies as well because American doesn't do the other international flights you want like the Sydney-Tokyo flight you may want to do and the others that cover all the 360 degrees of the world. It goes without saying that American Airliens with 6 flights on American airlines like my example gives, they are going to make a considerably larger profit that selling the one flight from Frankfurt-Los Angeles, but if they didn't discount you wouldn't have dreamt about doing all those flights with American Airlines. Usually when you are on a round the world ticket you fly discount economy but on a normal ticket you'd be flying normal economy this is especially the case with American Airlines who like robbing people of frequent flyer points because others are just on RTW Economy.

Another thing that sometimes happens is that a travel agent will approach an airline and say we are going to book ......... amount of tickets through your airline this year. We expect a discount for this so what you you offer us? American airlines then returns with a deal that's 15% cheaper than normal and then you as the customer will be passed on 5% of that special. So in some cases a really big travel firm like Flight Centre will say we will be selling 10,000,000 seats on your planes this year ........ and the discount would be greater so to make sure they fill that given quota and don't need to pay back some of that discount, they'd get rid of them on RTW tickets, so that is why if you go to Flight Centre the price may well be different to if you go to another travel agent and then that price may differ to the next one you go to.

It's like the question why is it often cheaper to buy a packaged holiday than it is to buy the exact same stuff individually on a holiday? That's because of the fact the travel wholesalers (the people who build the tours that Travel agents then sell), approach say Avis and say we making a new brochure which will advertise your company and will hire you a minimum of 2,000,000 cars Australia wide over the next 12 months so we expect a cheaper price. So Avis will then give that wholesaler a price of $30 a day instead of $42 a day, which they then add 10% commission on to making it $33 a day that the eventual customer will be paying per day on that tour. So then when all the components of the tour are put together with the same sort of method, it will be quite a bit cheaper than you could get the exact same thing for assuming you did everything identical and didn't change hotels, hire car companies etc.


--some travel website


i dont think it has anything to do with drugs or terrorism.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

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one way fares are NOT cheaper than round trip fares. everything i've ever seen has them at more than double the cost of a round trip flight. hence my question about is there some penalty for missing a leg. obviously people miss flights all the time, but why would people ever book one way flights?

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I just checked phnx to denver one way = $124
roundtrip= $137

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daryn is probably talking about international travel. It is routinely cheaper to book roundtrip than one way to/from Europe for some unknown (to me) reason.

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Internationally, I believe that airlines are responsible in at least some countries for providing return transport if they fly a foreigner into the country without making sure that that person has a ticket out of the country.

In some multi-country travels, I was required to supply proof of ongoing travel before I was issued a boarding pass.

[bcubed72]

The real reason for the bizzarre fares is basic ECON. In a perfectly competitve mkt, if the equilibrium price for a ticket is $200, the 120 seats in the 'plane all go for $200.

But the airline knows that everyone (while valuing those seats at >=$200, or they wouldn't buy) has a different point of indifference--the max price they would pay. Usually, buisness travelers are willing to pay more than vacationers; those with flexible travel plans less than those who MUST be there by tomorrow 9AM.

So the airline sets up schemes whereby they attempt to discriminate between travelers by using things like weekend stay, advance purchase, etc. These help get the most $$ out of those who value the tickets most highly.

What I DON'T understand is that, because empty seats become useless once the airplane pushes back, why they won't steeply discount seats at the last minute on partially full airplanes. This is how airline employees travel--space available--because it's the cheapest to the airlines. Cannot understand why they'd rather get $0 for empty seats as opposed to some small amount.

And, back in the day, a direct flight to and from a hub costs more than a filght through the same hub. If a LGA-PIT-CLE ticket cost $250 round-trip, and a NYC-PIT costs $400, you could (pre-passenger name manifests) fly to PIT, get off, and take it back to NY as if you were onboard the whole time. Now, your ticket would be void. (although, I wonder: if you only needed to be in PIT overnight, and you catch the last flight into PIT, couldn't you "accidentally" miss the conncetion, and next day fly the supurflous leg to CLE in order to save $150?

[stinkypete]

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What I DON'T understand is that, because empty seats become useless once the airplane pushes back, why they won't steeply discount seats at the last minute on partially full airplanes. This is how airline employees travel--space available--because it's the cheapest to the airlines. Cannot understand why they'd rather get $0 for empty seats as opposed to some small amount.

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it's pretty simple.

when people are traveling somewhere, they only buy one ticket. if they can get it for $100 last minute, they will not pay $500 in advance. the airlines make more money when the traveler pays $500 than when he pays $100. so the airlines don't sell tickets at $100.