Plane ticket question! - Page 2 - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

**jengt** · 01-12-2008, 07:34 AM

^ Clear your cookies. The price will go down again. That's their way of making you buy a higher price ticket. They know you've already seen the lower price & weren't spontaneous so they're going to dig more money out of you!

SGRHewitt · 01-12-2008, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jengt

^ Clear your cookies. The price will go down again. That's their way of making you buy a higher price ticket. They know you've already seen the lower price & weren't spontaneous so they're going to dig more money out of you!

Anyone have mozilla and know how to clear cookies lol? I don't think I ever have... (And I consider myself a computer guru, ha)

**jengt** · 01-12-2008, 07:44 AM

Click on HELP & search for cookies.

SGRHewitt · 01-12-2008, 07:46 AM

Nevermind, figured it out... Unfortunately that price is gone, but I found 454 on priceline....

Here's my question.

It goes from Indy to Chicago, Chicago to London, London to Frankfurt.

Basically the same but in reverse order on the way back.

Can I "miss" my flight to Frankfurt and stay in london(for a few days)... And then on the way back just take the normal flight... Will there be any fuss because of international rules and such? It's cheaper to fly through london, than to just stop my trip in london, by nearly 200 dollars now...

Any ideas?

**pinknic38** · 01-12-2008, 08:45 AM

I was considering a similar scenario when traveling with my sister to London cos it was cheaper to fly to Frankfurt but it stopped over at LHR, and we were just going to get off at LHR and shit can Frankfurt all together, then take a low cost carrier to Frankfurt at the end, but I didn't want it to cancel my return flight. I know on some airlines RTW tickets if you miss one flight it will cancel the whole slew of flights.

I am anxious to see who this works. I considered calling the airline, but I'm not sure it's wise to ask them that because of course they won't condone such things, as to maximize their profit.

So I have no idea, but if you find out, let us know!

**pinknic38** · 01-12-2008, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jengt

^ Clear your cookies. The price will go down again. That's their way of making you buy a higher price ticket. They know you've already seen the lower price & weren't spontaneous so they're going to dig more money out of you!

OMG OMG Jenny I had no idea about this!! I just clear my cookies and looked for tix to Moscow and they dropped like 200 bucks!

holyyyyyyyy!

not that I am going to buy yet, but now I know how to play hard ball.

SGRHewitt · 01-12-2008, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinknic38

I was considering a similar scenario when traveling with my sister to London cos it was cheaper to fly to Frankfurt but it stopped over at LHR, and we were just going to get off at LHR and shit can Frankfurt all together, then take a low cost carrier to Frankfurt at the end, but I didn't want it to cancel my return flight. I know on some airlines RTW tickets if you miss one flight it will cancel the whole slew of flights.

I am anxious to see who this works. I considered calling the airline, but I'm not sure it's wise to ask them that because of course they won't condone such things, as to maximize their profit.

So I have no idea, but if you find out, let us know!

Yeah good point about the airlines possibly cancelling. Ryan Air is only 20gbp round trip from Frankfurt to London, but it would just be much easier to start it it London and go from there(and save 10 pounds)...

Not sure if I'm going to do it, I think I might wait a bit longer. I still have everything booked for New York City. But I hate to pass up a 400 dollar trip to Europe.

xanthuos · 01-13-2008, 08:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SGRHewitt

Can I "miss" my flight to Frankfurt and stay in london(for a few days)... And then on the way back just take the normal flight... Will there be any fuss because of international rules and such? It's cheaper to fly through london, than to just stop my trip in london, by nearly 200 dollars now...

Any ideas?

The most direct answer is "no" unfortunately. Every airline that I know of will cancel all remaining segments in a reservation if a segment is missed. So if you don't take your LHR-FRA segment, your return flights will all be cancelled.
If you want to go to London, you can always try creating an open-jaw trip. Most search engines allow you to do this by doing a "Multi-City" itinerary.

Look into flying CHI-LON for your first trip, then FRA-CHI for the second. Then you can take advantage of the low cost carrier to fly from London to Frankfurt, and you already have your return flight out of Frankfurt all set to go.

SGRHewitt · 01-14-2008, 07:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xanthuos

The most direct answer is "no" unfortunately. Every airline that I know of will cancel all remaining segments in a reservation if a segment is missed. So if you don't take your LHR-FRA segment, your return flights will all be cancelled.
If you want to go to London, you can always try creating an open-jaw trip. Most search engines allow you to do this by doing a "Multi-City" itinerary.

Look into flying CHI-LON for your first trip, then FRA-CHI for the second. Then you can take advantage of the low cost carrier to fly from London to Frankfurt, and you already have your return flight out of Frankfurt all set to go.

Yeah I tried that. I'm set an "alert" on kayak.com to send me an email if a flight comes available for under 500 dollars... I didn't know they had this feature, but I'm definitely taking advantage of it. Granted this trip isn't a necessity as I already have Spring Break plans, I can however cancel them and jet off to Europe, if the price is right of course.

Priceline has it for under 500, unfortunately I have to use my Discover Card to pay for it, and they don't accept Discover.

**pinknic38** · 01-14-2008, 09:22 AM

I have never had good luck with priceline.com. We bought out tix to Vegas from C-bus on priceline and they changed our flights several times before we left so it was hard to make any definite plans at the beginning. And then they changed out return flight in the middle of our trip and the flight didn't depart Vegas until 11:30pm and we couldn't book another hotel room to chill there until it was time to go to the airport... and we had to check out of Caesar's Palace at like 11am anyway so we went to the airport and literately sat there for 12 hours because we'd exhausted all of our options.

So it was pretty shitty, so keep that in mind with priceline. You get what you pay for I suppose, but our tix ended up being 450 apiece anyway so they weren't even that cheap.

xanthuos · 01-15-2008, 05:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SGRHewitt

Priceline has it for under 500, unfortunately I have to use my Discover Card to pay for it, and they don't accept Discover.

What's the flight information (dates, times, airlines, flight numbers, routing) that Priceline gives you for the one that's pricing out under $500? I'll see if I can find an alternative way for you to book it using your Discover card.

SGRHewitt · 01-16-2008, 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xanthuos

What's the flight information (dates, times, airlines, flight numbers, routing) that Priceline gives you for the one that's pricing out under $500? I'll see if I can find an alternative way for you to book it using your Discover card.

Well I didn't save the information... I believe for that price I was leaving Indianapolis(IND) on Friday March 7 and returning Saturday or Sunday March 15/16 via Frankfurt(FRA). Most of the cheaper flights now include basically a 24 hour stay over it seems. This one I was looking at via United or US, was Indy to Atlanta, then a 23 hour layover until the next day. To bad it isn't a 24 hour layover in London, it would be nice to have a Chicken Shwarma from Lolitas in Paddington

.

xanthuos · 01-16-2008, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SGRHewitt

Well I didn't save the information... I believe for that price I was leaving Indianapolis(IND) on Friday March 7 and returning Saturday or Sunday March 15/16 via Frankfurt(FRA). Most of the cheaper flights now include basically a 24 hour stay over it seems. This one I was looking at via United or US, was Indy to Atlanta, then a 23 hour layover until the next day. To bad it isn't a 24 hour layover in London, it would be nice to have a Chicken Shwarma from Lolitas in Paddington

.

Well, after doing a bit of searching and playing with routings...here are your various options as close to your dates as I could manage...I hope this isn't too confusing...

Without traveling with a London-stopover:
$480
Depart IND Thu 03/06 5:26PM Arrive ORD 03/06 5:48PM
Depart ORD Thu 03/06 6:53PM Arrive FRA 03/07 10:15AM
Depart FRA Sun 03/16 10:20AM Arrive ORD 03/16 2:00PM
Depart ORD Sun 03/16 5:05PM Arrive IND 03/16 7:07
Each of the following includes an overnight in London:
$531
Depart IND Thu 03/06 6:51PM Arrive ORD 03/06 7:13PM
Depart ORD Thu 03/06 9:14PM Arrive LHR 03/07 11:00AM
Depart LHR Fri 03/07 1:55PM Arrive FRA 03/07 4:30PM
Depart FRA Thu 03/13 8:15PM Arrive LHR 03/13 8:50PM
Depart LHR Fri 03/14 9:25AM Arrive ORD 03/14 1:17PM
Depart ORD Fri 03/14 4:23PM Arrive IND 03/14 6:25PM
$531
Depart IND Fri 03/07 7:43PM Arrive ORD 03/07 8:05PM
Depart ORD Fri 03/07 9:14PM Arrive LHR 03/08 11:00AM
Depart LHR Sat 03/08 1:55PM Arrive FRA 03/16 4:30PM
Depart FRA Sun 03/16 8:15PM Arrive LHR 03/16 8:50PM
Depart LHR Mon 03/17 9:25AM Arrive ORD 03/17 1:17PM
Depart ORD Mon 03/17 4:23PM Arrive IND 03/17 6:25PM
$546
Depart IND Fri 03/07 7:43PM Arrive ORD 03/07 8:05PM
Depart ORD Fri 03/07 9:14PM Arrive LHR 03/08 11:00AM
Depart LHR Sat 03/08 1:55PM Arrive FRA 03/16 4:30PM
Depart FRA Thu 03/13 8:15PM Arrive LHR 03/13 8:50PM
Depart LHR Fri 03/14 9:25AM Arrive ORD 03/14 1:17PM
Depart ORD Fri 03/14 4:23PM Arrive IND 03/14 6:25PM
$590
Depart IND Fri 03/07 6:51PM Arrive ORD 03/07 7:13PM
Depart ORD Fri 03/07 9:14PM Arrive LHR 03/08 11:00AM
Depart LHR Sar 03/08 1:55PM Arrive FRA 03/08 4:30PM
Depart FRA Sat 03/15 6:10PM Arrive LHR 03/15 6:45PM
Depart LHR Sun 03/16 9:25AM Arrive ORD 03/16 1:17PM
Depart ORD Sun 03/16 2:45PM Arrive IND 03/16 4:52PM

One other option that you could also do is flying to Frankfurt via Amsterdam with an evening stopover in AMS on the return flight. You could leave Friday or Saturday at 2:50 PM, arriving in Frankfurt at 7:20 AM the next morning. Then you would depart Frankfurt a week later on Saturday at 3:35 PM, landing in Amsterdam at 4:50 PM and having until 8:00 AM the next morning to explore. You'd eventually land in Chicago at 2:42 PM on Sunday the 16th. All for $511.

In any case, doing research like this continually improves my understanding of airline fare rules, routings, etc...so I don't mind spending the time. Hopefully this information helps you as well! I saw your other post regarding spring break travel. Out of curiosity, why not still go to NYC? Hostelling it for a week will cost you much less than $1,000 and there's so much to see!