# Flying Frugally



## Barwelle (Feb 23, 2011)

Can anyone tell me if you can still show up at an airport with no pre-bought ticket and expect to get a deal on a last minute flight? I'm looking to fly internationally for really cheap.

I have flights booked but due to commitments I have to change them to several days later. That will cost me $250 per direction on a $1200 round trip from Edmonton to Paris. I would like to figure out a way to make up that cost if possible, so I was thinking of outright cancelling them and just showing up on my day of departure.

Is this possible?


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

Best thing is to call airline directly ,just ask if they will sell last minute tickets at airport and generally price break.Personally if you HAVE to be somewhere by certain date I would not risk it , if you are just back backing through Europe with no restrictions You can take the chance.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

The only source where you can get true last minute deals is priceline, but they don't service origination from non US airports (yet).
Many web sites claim to provide great last minute deals, but not really.
That said, for any sectors, there really isn't a huge difference between advance booking and last minute booking.
The difference may be as little as a couple of hundred $
Depends entirely on the sectors in question, the season and the airline.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

I see no reason to physically show up at the airport, bags packed, and hope for the best. There may not be any seats available. Use the websites of the airlines to check and see when the best price is on. Avoid Fridays and Sundays for best rates.


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## Barwelle (Feb 23, 2011)

Another thing I didn't mention which makes me apprehensive about doing this is that two one-way trips cost way more than round trip when you're flying international... at least, for Air Canada.

Example, Edmonton - Paris one-way would cost around $1600 each way, whereas round trips can be had for $1200. Total.

So if I show up at the airport, are they really going to give me at least a $1000 discount for a last-last-minute international one-way flight?

Harold, I've noticed that too, and it annoys me... Some "last minute" flight/vacation deals are for trips a month in advance! And they offer the same deals that the airlines do on their seat sales... I would have thought that there would be more of a difference. I'll check out priceline.


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## explorer416 (Jun 11, 2010)

I actually expect that it would cost *more* last minute at the airport. My thought process is that people who fly last minute are desperate, and are willing to pay almost any price to go where they want to go... now! Why would the airlines give someone in this state a discount? I would think they would want to encourage the practice of people buying in advance, thus providing the airlines with the proceeds earlier allowing them to plan their capacity, etc. ahead of time. Providing discounts last last minute would be encouraging people to not buy ahead of time, screwing up their planning.

That's what I think.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

It used to be cheaper, I don't know about now. There are certain airlines that don't do it as much as their employees tend to use the stand by first (Westjet, I believe is one of them)

Flying Standby is much higher risk. If you need to be somewhere, you could be bumped for 3 or 4 planes before you get on one. Usually, they go through the whole list, and then if there is someone who just shows up and pays (which then you may as well have gone on line prior), they will bump you. You usually just find out just as everyone is boarding, and there is no chance that they'll be able to sell the ticket to someone else (once the time for security clearance has elasped).

Also, it's really hard if you have more than one person travelling with you.


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## Barwelle (Feb 23, 2011)

Does anyone have recent experience trying this out, or know someone who did?



explorer416 said:


> I actually expect that it would cost *more* last minute at the airport. My thought process is that people who fly last minute are desperate, and are willing to pay almost any price to go where they want to go... now! Why would the airlines give someone in this state a discount? I would think they would want to encourage the practice of people buying in advance, thus providing the airlines with the proceeds earlier allowing them to plan their capacity, etc. ahead of time. Providing discounts last last minute would be encouraging people to not buy ahead of time, screwing up their planning.
> 
> That's what I think.


Interesting view. 



Plugging Along said:


> Flying Standby is much higher risk. If you need to be somewhere, you could be bumped for 3 or 4 planes before you get on one. Usually, they go through the whole list, and then if there is someone who just shows up and pays (which then you may as well have gone on line prior), they will bump you. You usually just find out just as everyone is boarding, and there is no chance that they'll be able to sell the ticket to someone else (once the time for security clearance has elasped).
> 
> Also, it's really hard if you have more than one person travelling with you.


I'll be alone, and I don't have a set itinerary, so I'm good on those fronts.

I once landed in Calgary to transfer to Edmonton and ended up getting on an earlier flight that had a few empty seats... but I already had a boarding pass for the same later flight so it's not quite the same situation.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

explorer416 said:


> I actually expect that it would cost *more* last minute at the airport. My thought process is that people who fly last minute are desperate, and are willing to pay almost any price to go where they want to go... now! Why would the airlines give someone in this state a discount? I would think they would want to encourage the practice of people buying in advance, thus providing the airlines with the proceeds earlier allowing them to plan their capacity, etc. ahead of time. Providing discounts last last minute would be encouraging people to not buy ahead of time, screwing up their planning.
> 
> That's what I think.


Airfare prices make no rhyme or reason to me. They may sell last minute cheap to fill an empty seat, but I don't think they want to encourage this behavior imo of people showing up without tickets clogging the lines. Lots of airline employees fly standby and I don't think they want general public making a habit of it knowing they can save $$ instead of booking ahead

Sometimes small airports are $$$ (Canada) and sometimes they're less to target a different market, thus "hidden city ticketing" was banned. The price varies day to day, generally the earlier the better and flying on certain days of the week is cheaper. The only guaranteed way to save money is to fly out of the USA imo. Oddly my 1 way flight to Düsseldorf costs more than the round trip did. I also tried to change my flight and board at a connection, and found out it cost more + $250 fee to change

I also wish they were more flexible in booking changes, but alas


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

Barwelle said:


> Harold, I've noticed that too, and it annoys me... Some "last minute" flight/vacation deals are for trips a month in advance! And they offer the same deals that the airlines do on their seat sales... I would have thought that there would be more of a difference. I'll check out priceline.


It's too bad you don't live within driving distance of a major US airport.
Here in southern Ontario, we have the choice of Buffalo or Detroit.
Long term airport parking is cheaper in Buffalo, but the deals are better from Detroit.
I'm a big fan of priceline (and to a lesser degree hotwire) and what these sites have done for travel.
I wish you good luck in finding a deal.
Let us know if you discover any great site/deal.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

It never used to be a secret to be able to fly stand by. I haven't done it in at least 10 years, the last friend I knew who did it was close to 8 years ago. Why don't you just call the various airlines, and ask them if they have stand by options any more?


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## Barwelle (Feb 23, 2011)

mode3sour said:


> Airfare prices make no rhyme or reason to me. They may sell last minute cheap to fill an empty seat, but I don't think they want to encourage this behavior imo of people showing up without tickets clogging the lines. Lots of airline employees fly standby and I don't think they want general public making a habit of it knowing they can save $$ instead of booking ahead


It is ridiculous. I've heard that the airlines fluctuate their prices to convince people to buy high with scare tactics (as in, scare them into thinking the prices will only keep going up)... They see low prices for a while, keep thinking it'll go lower, then it'll go up, but they'll think to themselves "oh, it'll drop back down again" but it keeps going higher so they buy... then the price drops down again and they kick themselves for buying at the peak. The airlines managed to sell high priced ticket, and will get some other suckers on the next cycle. 

At least, that's the way they used to do it. I've noticed in the past year or so that prices for flights have actually been relatively stable.



mode3sour said:


> The only guaranteed way to save money is to fly out of the USA imo. Oddly my 1 way flight to Düsseldorf costs more than the round trip did. I also tried to change my flight and board at a connection, and found out it cost more + $250 fee to change.


Yep... the international one-way flights are really expensive relative to round trip, I'm not sure why.



HaroldCrump said:


> It's too bad you don't live within driving distance of a major US airport.
> Here in southern Ontario, we have the choice of Buffalo or Detroit.
> Long term airport parking is cheaper in Buffalo, but the deals are better from Detroit.
> I'm a big fan of priceline (and to a lesser degree hotwire) and what these sites have done for travel.
> ...


I think Seattle would be the closest larger airport to Edmonton. I checked out priceline to see if flying there would net me some savings, then maybe I could bus it to Seattle, stay for a bit, then go to Europe.

Round trip worked out to be $1300, one-way was $720 per direction. Compare that to Round trip of $1200 and one-way of $1600 per direction in Edmonton. Hmm...



Plugging Along said:


> It never used to be a secret to be able to fly stand by. I haven't done it in at least 10 years, the last friend I knew who did it was close to 8 years ago. Why don't you just call the various airlines, and ask them if they have stand by options any more?


Good point. Someone else said that too. I'll see if I can find something out tomorrow.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

I usually see a couple people hanging out after everyone boards trying to get a flight. Cons do this a lot, but non-employees do have priority

You can also ask for the jump seat if you're really desperate. I doubt they'd let you for an international flight though

May also be worth looking into what flights are routinely not packed, it is fairly predictable for the airlines anyways. Some airlines show the status online


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

mode3sour said:


> The only guaranteed way to save money is to fly out of the USA imo.


My daughter and her kids do this a couple of times a year because it is SO Much cheaper. 
She lives in AZ and flies to Rochester NY, and is picked up at the airport as well as driven back to the same airport for the
return flight. Now it's about 3 hours each way from Ottawa, but with 2 small children in tow. she saves hundreds by using US airports for arrivals/departures from her home. 
Yes, there may also be a cost of time waiting at the border crossing to get processed on a busy weekend, 
but compared to the taxes upon taxes here, it's definitely a lot cheaper for her.


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## DavidJD (Sep 27, 2009)

Man this sounds like fun...

I was surprised in Europe how many deals there were from small, local travel agencies. There were a ton of cruises and short haul flights. I think my mom paid $80 bucks to fly from England to Portugal? When I was in Turkey I met people (backpakckers) who had just stumbled onto a ship for a week's cruise around the Greek Islands for some crazy price of $30 US or Euros/day. All they did was eat and claimed their food bill alone was about the same price per day when on land.


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## financialnoob (Feb 26, 2011)

I'm curious as well if the fly-by option is still available. I haven't heard of it in a while now.

On airline pricing, it really doesn't make a lot of sense, but an overly-simplistic way of looking at it is that there are different fare classes even within economy or business class travel. Depending on the fare class, the rate changes. So if the cheapest fare class of economy flights are all booked, you pay more with the next level of fare class, even though they're both economy seats. And the next level of fare class is even more expensive.

If you take a different flight, then it can change the equation again, and maybe a cheaper type is available. This is often why the fare will jump dramatically if you have to change your flight to a different day and that fare class isn't available.

Once a plane is sufficiently full that it will be profitable but the airline doesn't think they'll sell the rest of the seats, the last few seats are often put up as last-minute sales. This is where you often see the last-minute deals popping up. The stand-by option, if it still exists, is where this might apply.

My understanding is that a lot of these online sites buy a few seats well in advance to get the cheapest fare class of economy class seats, plus various bulk discounts also applying. 

Regardless of price though, you'll always have to pay the airport taxes, and Pearson is quite expensive, as are a lot of Canadian airports. That's why you see flights from Toronto to London for $199, plus $482 in taxes. This is one of the reasons flying out of the US is significantly cheaper.

That's as much as I've figured out. The majority still makes no sense to me though, and it seems like every person on an Airbus 330 could have paid a different price for their ticket.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

financialnoob said:


> That's as much as I've figured out. The majority still makes no sense to me though, and it seems like every person on an Airbus 330 could have paid a different price for their ticket.


Pretty much

I agree with a post above that they must purposely cause confusion and irregularity. Damn marketing

Another way to save on short haul dash 8 flights is Air Miles. They are basically 1=1 or 1=2 in my experience. If you redeem Air Miles for anything else they're worth peanuts


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## Barwelle (Feb 23, 2011)

I just called Air Canada about it.

Asked if I can show up to the airport and buy a ticket there if a seat is available on the next flight. Her answer... a sharp and succinct "No."

I asked if there were any standby options for me... same answer.

I asked why that is. She said "because of security and government stuff."

Found this thread by googling, which seems to agree with that idea: http://www.tribemagazine.com/board/tribe-main-forum/150732-has-anyone-ever-tried-fly-standby.html

It seems that the type of stand-by flying we are talking about only exists for airline employees and their immediate family. Shucks!


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

Yes I can believe security would be issue because of the no fly lists etc.We just got back from San Juan two weeks ago and our plane was oversold .Air Canada paid a couple $250 each plus gave a night in a hotel for them to come back the next day.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Barwelle said:


> It seems that the type of stand-by flying we are talking about only exists for airline employees and their immediate family. Shucks!


Yup I used to fly that way, so I always assume those people standing around afterwards are employee/family. I didn't know standby was done though

I doubt it's for security as much as marketing/logistics and the general chaos this creates with luggage etc. I had to go through security just like everyone else as standby, so allowing standby just adds people to clogged security lines for possibly no reason


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Speaking of flying frugally, what are people's favourite sites for getting good deals on tickets? I've been using Kayak.com, which is sort of a meta-search site that checks a large number of travel sites and shows you the full range of ticket prices. I used to use Expedia, but kayak returns consistently lower prices, sometimes 50% lower than the lowest price I can find on Expedia. They've made big improvements to the site in the past couple of years.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

If my schedule is flexible, Hotwire.
Next would be using the flexible schedule feature of Travelocity.
If flying out of the US, Priceline is the best (assuming schedule is totally flexible).


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## canabiz (Apr 4, 2009)

On the topic of flying frugally, one of my acquaintance is working part-time as an aircraft maintenance staff with a major airline (he has a full-time job during the week and only goes to the airport during the weekends)

He gets to buy tickets at 10% of the cost. He has been traveling quite a fair bit since he started working there a few years ago. Pretty sweet gig, if you ask me.


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