Flights and Fares ex Europe and the United Kingdom

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§ When private or discount fares are not available on the travel dates of a trip you must take or want strongly to make, pulling connecting airports into service will often put that discount back in your wallet.

¶ Using any Internet booking engine, input the long haul flight itinerary you want to price from origin airport A to destination airport B. Select the lowest price for an acceptable itinerary displayed in the flight search results. Examine that itinerary and note the connecting airport C immediately before your destination. Now input for A to C and check that price. Then input for C to B and check that price. Total the two ticket prices and compare it with the one ticket price.

¶ Example: Zurich, Switzerland to Nadi, Fiji at 2,007.74 total cost British Pounds which connects via Sydney, Australia. Compare Zurich to Sydney at 1,181.04 total cost GBP and Sydney to Nadi at 460.80 total cost GBP. Tally is 2,007.74 minus 1641.84 which equals a savings of 365.90 Pounds when using the approach airport strategy. Be certain that you allow at least four or more hours layover at Sydney between the cross ticket flights. Be certain that you document passport, visa and transit requirements before buying air tickets. Consider buying cover in case you miss connections. Consider a relaxing overnight stay in Sydney between tickets in at least one direction. With all considered and spent, you still have money left over for something more than airplane seats.

¶ Another example is cutting cost by booking ZRH SEL 913,71, SEL SPN 465,40 instead of ZRH SPN 1.727,47 saving 348.36. Both examples use the same Internet booking engine throughout.

¶ You might learn that one public or private flight search engine has a specially low price to an approach airport A to C and a different engine is showing a promotional fare for C to B. Expanding this strategy even further, a person might come to know that a particular airport always has good prices or better flights to a certain region or country and shop that for the A to C approach even when it is not shown as a connecting airport in the initial flight search results for A to B. An outside in helper could come from scanning special airfare lists to spot a potential approach airport.

¶ This strategy will not be of great value for intra-regional european and mediterranean flights. It will often have an appreciable to great value going long haul to hundreds of destinations worldwide. This tactic will not work with every flight search engine or with every departure airport or with every approach airport or with every destination. Where and when it does work, it will not work every time. Nonetheless, it is worthy of a studious attempt. Each try will add knowledge toward perfecting the next flight and fare search.

¶ Note: Sometimes you can use the multiple city function of an Internet booking engine to route a flight via the approach airport and get the same price reduction put on one ticket.

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