Booking Offshore.

[stroudie]

Hello,
Had a crazy idea. I read often that some airlines are much cheaper to book if the journey starts, for example in Colombo (Business class) That being the case, is it possible to book the complete trip originating Sydney return, to Europe etc. using the airlines website in another country ?
I tried playing around with this today with QF websites, they only redirect me back to the Australian site.
Has anyone been successful booking cheaper airfares from Australia using this or similar method ?
Stroudie.

 

[TomVexille]

Using the CMB example, the journey has to originate at CMB. So you need a positioning flights there.

 

[dairyfloss]

You can use a VPN or even a free, simple web proxy to spoof a site into thinking you are visiting from some other place than you really are (e.g. the country of the site that you are wanting to book from), however as TomVexille has already stated, it's the origin of the flight, and not the origin of the booking, that creates the difference, in 99.999999% of cases.

Cheers,
Matt.

 

[burmans]

There have been reports in the past that some overseas websites can provide better deals. As noted you need a web proxy to fool the site. South America, Ireland, Hong Kong and Japan have been successful in the past but I believe some of these have been closed down, the reason these countries would appear to be good seems to be because at least some of them have laws against airline surcharges.

 

[dairyfloss]

There have been reports in the past that some overseas websites can provide better deals. As noted you need a web proxy to fool the site. South America, Ireland, Hong Kong and Japan have been successful in the past but I believe some of these have been closed down, the reason these countries would appear to be good seems to be because at least some of them have laws against airline surcharges.

Yes, these are the other 0.000001%, with the Expedia.br bookings bonanza on Qantas a while back being one of the most well known ones!

Cheers,
Matt.

 

[stroudie]

Thanks all. Thought that might be the case.

 

[CaptJCool]

I've Accidentally Discovered A Way To Save Up To 75% On American Tickets - One Mile at a Time

using Italian AA WEBSITE to purchase iNternal US Domestic fares...
All airlines offer the SAME routes for DIFFERENT prices even inside a country - consider restricted and flexible fares.

airlines offer lower prices ex different countries. I hadn't seen this particular Option ( Cheaper fare bought in a different country) since the days of Expedia.br where fare differentials were because fuel surcharges are banned by law in Brazil Some airlines like Qantas get around it by adding conditions like you can only purchase Walkabout fares (used for internal Aussie routes) as an add-on to a transpacific fare. Qantas Walkabout Air Pass| See more of Australia for less

As it goes, if it's too good to be true, it's likely a mistake fare that'll get cancelled. Australia is a high wage country so our ex Australia fares are notoriously expensive except like earlier in 2016 when AA wanted to penetrate the market and offered $3900 return Auckland via Sydney business fares when the going rate was $7500-$10000.

Morale of the story... get yourself to a low fare country (locals can't afford it, or too many other competitors or the airline is half a world away from that country and is trying to get tics sold from that far flung country) and take advantage of same route heavily reduced price.

Could Use points for a one way tic.... then book ex the other end.
other option is to check out options on a consolidator site eg the google flights or ITA or momondo.com.au
and make sure you really check what you are being offered for what you pay for (sometimes mixed cabin fares get thrown up hence why the price is much lower)
oh, I gather the AA Advantage program offers miles for flight options including from origin ports outside Australia.

i will yield to other more knowledgable AFFers on that topic

and yes Qantas does default you to the origin port QF Website

 

[ozbeachbabe]

The only time I've ever seen a situation where you could purchase a fare offshore through an OTA and actually depart from AU (thus avoiding having to position AU to whatever country it was to commence your journey) was the Expedia Brazil deal. As it was illegal to charge fuel surcharges for tickets in Brazil people were able to take advantage of this deal and buy ridiculously cheap fares eg BNE/SIN/BNE for AUD400.00 return.

That loophole was closed a while back so as mentioned above if you purchase a cheap deal eg in CMB then you must position there first by some other means like a one way award ticket SYD/xSIN/CMB or SYD/SIN then a cheap SIN/CMB paid ticket.

 

[puppysparkes]

The only time I've ever seen a situation where you could purchase a fare offshore through an OTA and actually depart from AU (thus avoiding having to position AU to whatever country it was to commence your journey) was the Expedia Brazil deal. As it was illegal to charge fuel surcharges for tickets in Brazil people were able to take advantage of this deal and buy ridiculously cheap fares eg BNE/SIN/BNE for AUD400.00 return.

That loophole was closed a while back so as mentioned above if you purchase a cheap deal eg in CMB then you must position there first by some other means like a one way award ticket SYD/xSIN/CMB or SYD/SIN then a cheap SIN/CMB paid ticket.

I'm still kicking myself for not booking multiple fares. I'm still very happy with the one I did jag. BNE-SGN return for 2 pax, $1050.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

I'm still kicking myself for not booking multiple fares. I'm still very happy with the one I did jag. BNE-SGN return for 2 pax, $1050.

Was that the recent QF sale a few days ago or an Expedia.BR one?

 

[puppysparkes]

Was that the recent QF sale a few days ago or an Expedia.BR one?

Expedia.BR