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Booking flights using an alternative country


villauk
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Experts,

 

Is there any risk booking flights online using an alternative country to where you reside? I realise there would be a currency exchange rate to consider, however using the UK site of the airline permits less travellers on the booking than using the Irish site. We would prefer to book all travellers on the same reservation. I’m unsure why there is a difference in the maximum number of passengers between countries? Btw, our outbound journey will begin from Ireland anyway.

 

TIA ;).

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In this case I can't see any issue. However, booking through another country's website can cause you problems. In some countries fares are limited to residents. For example, when I travelled within Argentina the fares offered on the Argentinian website for LAN were a fraction of those on LAN's US site. The fare rules indicated the cheaper fares were for Mercosur or Argentinian citizens only.

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I think you are fine. It would be the same as walking into a travel agency in another country and buying a ticket.

 

There may be differences due to local government regulations. Some of the taxes may be different. I know here in Canada, in certain provinces there is a mandatory insurance fund (in case the travel agent goes bankrupt) that you pay into. It is something like 1%.

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I’m unsure why there is a difference in the maximum number of passengers between countries?
I'm not sure whether you mean that the UK site will only allow you to book (say) 4 passengers on any one booking but the Irish site will allow you book (say) 5 or more passengers at once. If that's what you're seeing, that's odd.

 

However, you can find that the UK site will only allow to book 4 passengers on one booking at a particular fare, and that if you add a fifth passenger the fare goes up for all of them; while if you book on the Irish site, you can still get the lower fare for all 5 passengers. If so, that's very common; it's for market segmentation reasons and is one of the tools that the airlines use for revenue/yield management. Why? To understand it fully, you probably need a PhD in maths.

 

But like others, I can't see why you would have a problem booking through the Irish site if that lets you complete the booking. I routinely book tickets through Australian, New Zealand, South African and USA websites of airlines when it makes more sense to do so.

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I'm not sure whether you mean that the UK site will only allow you to book (say) 4 passengers on any one booking but the Irish site will allow you book (say) 5 or more passengers at once. If that's what you're seeing, that's odd.

 

However, you can find that the UK site will only allow to book 4 passengers on one booking at a particular fare, and that if you add a fifth passenger the fare goes up for all of them; while if you book on the Irish site, you can still get the lower fare for all 5 passengers. If so, that's very common; it's for market segmentation reasons and is one of the tools that the airlines use for revenue/yield management. Why? To understand it fully, you probably need a PhD in maths.

 

But like others, I can't see why you would have a problem booking through the Irish site if that lets you complete the booking. I routinely book tickets through Australian, New Zealand, South African and USA websites of airlines when it makes more sense to do so.

 

Thanks for the replies.

 

It’s nothing to do with the costing, Globaliser. When I go on the UK site it only allows a maximum of 6 persons on one reservation, but the Irish site allows a maximum of 7? I’ve noticed that the US permits 8 - unsure why the difference between nations? As you have used various countries’ sites previously, then this provides me with reassurance that there shouldn’t be any problems ;).

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Every time I've tried to use a foreign site to gain some advantage over whatever I was seeing (price, booking class, whatever) on my "home" site, the airline caught me at the payment point, either when I entered my address or my credit card number (which is the giveaway as to my location.) Let us know how it works for you.

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Every time I've tried to use a foreign site to gain some advantage over whatever I was seeing (price, booking class, whatever) on my "home" site, the airline caught me at the payment point, either when I entered my address or my credit card number (which is the giveaway as to my location.) Let us know how it works for you.
Fortunately for villauk, AIUI the Irish site can't refuse to sell to someone in the UK - at least, not this side of Brexit.
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Fortunately for villauk, AIUI the Irish site can't refuse to sell to someone in the UK - at least, not this side of Brexit.

I've never understood how SITI/SOTO (or their replacements or permutations) rules were/are applied in general, and especially wrt the EU. All the more reason to attend Hogwarts Airlines Academy, I suppose.

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I do it all the time on British Airways. Using their North American site, it doesn't allow me to book Gatwick to Greece, I have to go to the UK site and pay in pounds.
When you say it doesn't allow you to book it, do you mean it just refuses and you have to manually set the country to UK before you can get a price?

 

Or is it only that the website automatically prices in pounds?

 

The latter behaviour is by design. When you book on the BA website, it automatically uses the availability shown to the market of the country of the origin of the trip, and prices in that currency. So whatever country you set the BA website to, it will price that trip in pounds. If you want to pay in USD, you have to phone BA or use a different website.

 

I've never known the BA website outright refuse to price an itinerary on the basis of the country that the website was originally set to. That would be odd, and I haven't been able to reproduce that.

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We routinely book foreign air on their local websites. No issues whatsoever. In some instances the savings have been significant

 

 

We frequently book accomodation, packages, in the same manner. We always price cruises this way.

Edited by iancal
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We routinely book foreign air on their local websites. No issues whatsoever. In some instances the savings have been significant

 

 

We frequently book accommodation, packages, in the same manner. We always price cruises this way.

 

i - which 'countries' have you found to be the better for booking sailings? Any one particular line better than another? We usually book Celebrity.

 

Thank you and bon voyage

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We have found that for cruises the best price is typically a North Anmerican price.

 

Having said that my sister booked a Baltic cruise on Celebriy with a TA in the UK. She saved 15 percent on over the best price she could get at home.

 

We booked a 21 day RCI cruise with RCZi Australia. The price we paid was a whopping thirty percent lower than our US on line TA's were quoting. But...you need to beware of the booking conditions in other countries. They are different. We typically book inside the final payment window so we are not as concerned with the booking terms. We live in Canada. We book most cruises with an on line TA who rebates 8-10 percent of the commissioned fare back to us in the form of OBC's

 

If we are booking a Med cruise we check various websites in Europe. For Oz we checked pricing in Oz and NZ. We do the exact same for sir, accomodation, and tours. We booked a Greece trip with a TA in London and a safari in South Africa directly with an agent in that country. In both instances the savings were substantial.

 

Last winter we saved 30 percent on our Aerolineas flights in Argentina by pricing on the Argentine web site and then booking with their BA call centre.

Edited by iancal
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We have found that for cruises the best price is typically a North Anmerican price.

 

Having said that my sister booked a Baltic cruise on Celebriy with a TA in the UK. She saved 15 percent on over the best price she could get at home.

 

We booked a 21 day RCI cruise with RCZi Australia. The price we paid was a whopping thirty percent lower than our US on line TA's were quoting. But...you need to beware of the booking conditions in other countries. They are different. We typically book inside the final payment window so we are not as concerned with the booking terms. We live in Canada. We book most cruises with an on line TA who rebates 8-10 percent of the commissioned fare back to us in the form of OBC's

 

If we are booking a Med cruise we check various websites in Europe. For Oz we checked pricing in Oz and NZ. We do the exact same for sir, accomodation, and tours. We booked a Greece trip with a TA in London and a safari in South Africa directly with an agent in that country. In both instances the savings were substantial.

 

Last winter we saved 30 percent on our Aerolineas flights in Argentina by pricing on the Argentine web site and then booking with their BA call centre.

 

i - thank you for the input and thoughts.

 

bon voyage

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One issue with air is that in many instances the usual air search engines either do not come up with the local country based carriers or they are priced at a higher rate.

 

We have found this to be the case in Europe, Turkey, SEAsia, South America, etc.

 

So we Google discount airlines in countries we are travelling in, the access their sites. Last year we bought a Santiagi-Montevideo flight on Sky for $50 instead of paying the $200 plus that The LAN types were charging.

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One issue with air is that in many instances the usual air search engines either do not come up with the local country based carriers or they are priced at a higher rate.

 

We have found this to be the case in Europe, Turkey, SEAsia, South America, etc.

 

So we Google discount airlines in countries we are travelling in, the access their sites. Last year we bought a Santiagi-Montevideo flight on Sky for $50 instead of paying the $200 plus that The LAN types were charging.

If low price is the top priority, then this is a good strategy.

 

In some cases, though, you may not want to know too much about the airlines that you end up on.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Every time I've tried to use a foreign site to gain some advantage over whatever I was seeing (price, booking class, whatever) on my "home" site, the airline caught me at the payment point, either when I entered my address or my credit card number (which is the giveaway as to my location.) Let us know how it works for you.

 

Booked with no problem. Also the prices dropped considerably this week, so got an even better deal on the business seats. Additionally, it allowed us to prebook our BA flight seats - at a price of course :rolleyes: (rest of flights are on AA which is the site we used to book the trip).

 

Still find it strange that maximum number of passengers you can book for on one reservation are different dependent on country :confused:?

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Booked with no problem. Also the prices dropped considerably this week, so got an even better deal on the business seats. Additionally, it allowed us to prebook our BA flight seats - at a price of course :rolleyes: (rest of flights are on AA which is the site we used to book the trip).

 

 

 

Still find it strange that maximum number of passengers you can book for on one reservation are different dependent on country :confused:?

 

 

 

Hi Jenny, can you let me know how you did this as I am currently looking at flights to Miami for Christmas this year. We were looking at Virgin but their Upper is ridiculously priced but BA /American look far better but it would be great if I could shave a few more quid off -prices are fluctuating like mad. Hope you and the family are all OK!

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
Hi Jenny, can you let me know how you did this as I am currently looking at flights to Miami for Christmas this year. We were looking at Virgin but their Upper is ridiculously priced but BA /American look far better but it would be great if I could shave a few more quid off -prices are fluctuating like mad. Hope you and the family are all OK!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Sorry, not been on line for a while as not been too well.

 

Regarding the booking, we fly to Dublin from our local airport and board there. It’s great because you go through security and immigration before boarding and then don’t have to do it when you land in the US (it’s like arriving on a domestic flight). The business flights are so much cheaper than flying directly from the U.K. ;).

 

Hope you are well?

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Sorry, not been on line for a while as not been too well.

 

 

 

Regarding the booking, we fly to Dublin from our local airport and board there. It’s great because you go through security and immigration before boarding and then don’t have to do it when you land in the US (it’s like arriving on a domestic flight). The business flights are so much cheaper than flying directly from the U.K. ;).

 

 

 

Hope you are well?

 

 

 

Hi Jenny,

 

I’ve only just seen your response so apologies - I usually get an email telling me! That’s great - never thought of Dublin. Hope you’re feeling better now and have a great cruise this summer - that cruise is on my hit list one day. You’ll have to do a review of Princess as Celebrity are now getting really expensive so we’re looking at alternative cruise lines. Take care. Gaynor xx

 

 

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Hi Jenny,

 

I’ve only just seen your response so apologies - I usually get an email telling me! That’s great - never thought of Dublin. Hope you’re feeling better now and have a great cruise this summer - that cruise is on my hit list one day. You’ll have to do a review of Princess as Celebrity are now getting really expensive so we’re looking at alternative cruise lines. Take care. Gaynor xx

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

We’ve been looking for Europe for summer 2019 and X have no itineraries that excite us - same places we’ve been to previously, so we may have to branch out again for next year. I have 2 place holders for X and 1 for Royal and can’t find anything in the school holidays to entice us - even some Oceania sailings were priced less than X :o!

 

Do check out Dublin, I know it’s an extra flight, but we found the business flight prices were so much less than leaving from here. We’ve also flown from Amsterdam, got a cheap budget flight, stayed overnight near the airport and flown out the next day (we did that for HK and our Asia cruise with Qatar). It’s worth being a little imaginative when booking business, especially as we have to pay for the kids too ;).

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