Travel Agent Question- Airline booking oddity

[ken0042]

I was just going to PM Axel, but thought this might be of interest to all of you, plus I think we have a couple more travel agents in our group.

So, we are planning a trip to the US for a weekend of sports. I was poking around with air travel rates, and because of my situation it turns out I'll be flying down with Air Canada and flying back with Westjet. But here's the weird part that I discovered, if I book both flights with Wesjet, the 2 one-way tickets are cheaper than booking a return flight. Anybody know why?

As an example. Flying Westjet from Calgary to Phoenix, leave November 21 and return on the 26th.

Return ticket: $465.32 CDN

Seperate tickets:
Nov 21 $250.59 CDN
Nov 26 $163.10 US- or about $176.15 CDN
Total for seperate tickets- $413.69

$40 price difference by booking seperately.

[BlackEleven]

Maybe its a tax thing? When you pay in USD maybe you're skipping the GST (and possibly other taxes, since the GST alone wouldn't be $40 on a $200 ticket)...

Total guess....

[ken0042]

Yeah, and a few times when I tried, it was only a $20 savings. And I also tried the same thing on Air Canada's site and got the same result.

Might be some good info if anybody is booking a flight and wants to save a few bucks.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

That happend for us too last year.
Me and three buddies flew down to California for some Flames games and it was cheaper for us to book one way flights than round trips.
I didn't ask why, I just booked the flights.

[firebug]

I looked at tickets for the same weekend to catch a football game in Phoenix.

We instead found it cheaper to go to San Francisco Nov 16- 18. $525/person for flight & Hotel including taxes.

Best regards,

~bug

[Sample00]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I was just going to PM Axel, but thought this might be of interest to all of you, plus I think we have a couple more travel agents in our group.

So, we are planning a trip to the US for a weekend of sports. I was poking around with air travel rates, and because of my situation it turns out I'll be flying down with Air Canada and flying back with Westjet. But here's the weird part that I discovered, if I book both flights with Wesjet, the 2 one-way tickets are cheaper than booking a return flight. Anybody know why?

As an example. Flying Westjet from Calgary to Phoenix, leave November 21 and return on the 26th.

Return ticket: $465.32 CDN

Seperate tickets:
Nov 21 $250.59 CDN
Nov 26 $163.10 US- or about $176.15 CDN
Total for seperate tickets- $413.69

$40 price difference by booking seperately.

unfortunately, nothing in the airline industry surprises me anymore, ken
the taxes in the US are much cheaper than in Canada and that could be part of the situation.
westjet does tend to be better in the regards that no matter if you book a one way or return, they price each trip out by segment, which means to the layman, each way.
westjet is also different in the fact, that when the plane first comes into service, thats when prices tend to be cheaper. as the plane fills up, thats when prices start to go higher. in your return flight, there may be some space available in the different class which could give you the cheaper price.
aircanada's pricing is umm..er..ahh, well its air canada. NUFF SAID!
hope that helps

[Sample00]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Yeah, and a few times when I tried, it was only a $20 savings. And I also tried the same thing on Air Canada's site and got the same result.

Might be some good info if anybody is booking a flight and wants to save a few bucks.

booking westjet through our site, www.yellowheadtravel.com would allow me to make a couple of bucks and the price is the same as if you were to book trhough westjet directly. any help to feed my children would be appreciated!!

[ken0042]

Aw crap. I thought I had to call you to get in on the deal. This all went down Sunday evening, and I didn't want to risk losing the seat price I had by waiting until Monday.

Now I know.

Originally Posted by firebug

We instead found it cheaper to go to San Francisco Nov 16- 18. $525/person for flight & Hotel including taxes.

Yeah, we looked at going to SF. One of the advantages is I know my way around the BA pretty well. But it looked like 49ers tickets would be harder to get; and the same thing for Sharks tickets. Plus the way it lucked out for us being Thanksgiving; there is also a college football game to go see. So in 4 days we will see 4 major US sports; including my first ever NBA game. (Crossing my fingers that its better in person than on TV.)