Longer Route is Cheaper?

[chompalomp2]

I was just looking at one way flights for MEL to LHR around mid-May and found that on MH, it is cheaper by approximately $450 to book two tickets and fly MEL-KUL-SIN followed by SIN-KUL-LHR (altogether ~$950) rather than just the direct MEL-KUL-LHR (~$1400).

Anyone know why this might be?

 

[mella2007]

Just the way it is sometimes (different taxes, hidden ticketing )...hence savings can be made if you're prepared to do that. I've done it many times for various destinations and often split the legs up if I'm not using reward points

 

[Mal]

Yep. Different markets are priced differently. Seat availability can also factor into this. It is strange, but that is the way it works at times.

Generally if doing a mid trip change of ticket, I will stopover. Qantas for example hates people doing similar types of reservations as a through flight and in the event of flight issues, a buffer can help.

 

[Boris spatsky]

I was looking at getting to LAX in May from CBR. VA was cheaper to go CBR-MEL-AKL-SYD-LAX in J than going SYD-LAX. I almost did it, except i have already re-qual'd WP this year so not much point.

 

[medhead]

I was looking at getting to LAX in May from CBR. VA was cheaper to go CBR-MEL-AKL-SYD-LAX in J than going SYD-LAX. I almost did it, except i have already re-qual'd WP this year so not much point.

How do you search that: CBR-AKL, AKL-LAX?

 

[dajop]

I was just looking at one way flights for MEL to LHR around mid-May and found that on MH, it is cheaper by approximately $450 to book two tickets and fly MEL-KUL-SIN followed by SIN-KUL-LHR (altogether ~$950) rather than just the direct MEL-KUL-LHR (~$1400).

Anyone know why this might be?

It makes sense if you think about it. Competition. Malaysian have to compete with a variety of non-stop competitors on both MEL-SIN (QF, SQ, EK, JQ) and SIN-LHR (BA & SQ). The journey is 3-4 hrs longer via KUL for both trips, and for MEL-SIN in particular this adds almost 50% to travel time, so they need to incentivise people to travel with them despite longer travel time (ie make it cheap). Not an issue for MEL-LHR as whatever route you take you need to stop somewhere.

 

[Boris spatsky]

How do you search that: CBR-AKL, AKL-LAX?

Yep, i was looking to see if AirNZ ex AKL was cheapest, but VA popped up!

 

[chompalomp2]

Thanks for all your responses

 

[Alanslegal]

As you are booking MEL-KUL-SIN and then SIN-KUL-LHR you have to fly all sectors otherwise the remainding ticket portions are cancelled.

Currently the routing looks like this MEL-KUL-SIN-KUL-LHR-KUL-SIN-KUL-MEL and you need to fly all sectors.

For example once you arrive into KUL you can't just say I will skip the KUL-SIN flight (on the first ticket) and just check in for the KUL-LHR flight (on the second ticket). You actually have to fly to SIN, otherwise your first tickets gets cancelled and also you can't check in for the second ticket because you have not flown the opening SIN-KUL sector.

 

[Paddy55]

Best one I have seen in the past 5 years is when Mrs Paddy and her 3 junior Paddys were flying to FCO.
Was cheaper to fly SYD-NRT-FCO then SYD-NRT.... would have earned points as well.
Unfortunately would have cost more to cancel the MH Y tickets and reschedule - but that was at the very beginning of my AFF days so learned a valuable, if not painful lesson