Believe it or not, if you live in the UK you get pretty shafted when it comes to buying tickets to fly somewhere, especially if it’s long haul (6+ hours). Factors like Air Passenger Duty (Can be dodged if you fly from Inverness) and even things like flying direct add a good amount of cash onto an airfare. Often, its much cheaper to fly to another country to begin your journey there.
Business Class
As I posted at the beginning of the year SkyTeam had an incredible offer departing from Budapest, Hungary taking you all the way to Hawaii in business class for £450!!! The same fare from the UK, £2,264.
Another example being Qatar Airway
Looking through to the end of the calendar next year (Most airlines the furthest out you can book is 355 days) for some flights to Singapore in Business Class. The cheapest in the UK departs from Cardiff for a measly £1,995.
The same dates and still with Singapore as the destination only this time departing from ARN airport in Stockholm for £1,293. I’ve yet to come across a flight which departs from any UK airport to ARN that cost’s £698 Return…
That’s one example and it isn’t even an extreme one, it was just a search of a flight I actually want to book (You know, because Q-Suite). I sure if you’re wanting to go to places like Oz or NZ the price difference is in the thousands.
Premium Economy
The OneWorld sale recently departing from Paris to The States, starting at £350. Absolute bargain especially if you have a few Avios kicking around to upgrade to business.
Say you wanted to fly out to Washington DC for the cherry blossom season at the end of March. From London Heathrow, you’ll be paying £702 return in premium economy.
With the same dates and destination but flying from Paris you’ll pay £352. For the £350 price difference, you could book a flight to Paris, spend a few days there eating pain au chocolates and croque monsieur they fly to America. Or you could just get a cheap flight in the morning, fly out in the afternoon and save all the extra money.
Economy
Yes, it even works with economy too. For an extreme example, in January I flew out to Martinique with Level from Paris for £146. With my Air France return tickets from Edinburgh added on the whole thing cost £216. Good look finding flights to any of the Caribbean islands for less than £300 not to mention a mini jaunt in Paris.
Moral of the story
As the title says “Fly somewhere to fly somewhere”, you’ll more than likely save a decent amount of cash and can even visit some cool places if you want. If you’re the kind of person who’s thinking “Sounds too much of a faff for me, I’ll just book the direct flight” just think, while you’re bumping Biggie in the back, someone’s up front, lying down, sipping on the bubbly for the same price you paid…