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#1 Tue, 22/04/2014 - 18:35

How far would you go to save money on air flights?

Recently it was reported that a kid in the US hid in the wheel well of a plane going from Miami to Hawaii. Fortunately he survived - amazing given the cold and low oxygen levels for an over 5 hour flight! I definitely, definitely would not recommend anyone trying to replicate that but I wondered how far some people have gone to get a cheap flight. I know people who have flown for over two days with multiple hops to save a few dollars to get to Europe, choosing dinner/night flights to save on meals and accommodation.... me - I'm happy to pay a little more (within reason) to have the shortest flight possible and just get it over with!



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Thu, 24/04/2014 - 10:36

I am happy to spend a few hours in transit and spend the savings on some shopping specially if transiting through Bangkok or KL but I won't take early morning or late night flights as they ruin the whole trip by disturbing your sleep patterns from the onset.

A large company that I used to work for forced employees to take cheaper flights within 3 hours of their desired flight time which meant you had to take a 4 AM flight if you were going to Melbourne from Sydney for a 10 AM meeting and this policy became so unpopular that the new GM who brought this policy had to step down in few months.

The most inconvenient flight path that I have ever taken is NYC - MOSCOW - TOKYO - SINGAPORE and back the same route but this was 2 weeks before Christmas and no other flights were available. To make matters even worse, I was stranded at Moscow Airport for 2 days because of a snowstorm hitting the east coast in 2009 and making all three airports unusable for 2 days.



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Thu, 24/04/2014 - 11:35

Other than the snowstorm, it sounds like we are living duplicate lives.... ;-) Sadly I am *still* with a large company with that 3 hour window, so if you select a slightly more expensive flight you have to justify it - but generally that's fairly easy to do.



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Thu, 24/04/2014 - 16:24

I hate flying long haul, I'd rather pay more and have less stopovers as long as it's not too much more.

KB, a 4am flight is ridiculous. Surely employees would be so tired that it would lower productivity and offset any savings made on the flight cost!



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Thu, 24/04/2014 - 17:28

lisss wrote:

KB, a 4am flight is ridiculous. Surely employees would be so tired that it would lower productivity and offset any savings made on the flight cost!

4am flights are downright cruel, you are asking someone to leave home at 2am to catch a 4am flight. From an employer's perspective though, fare difference between a 4am and 7am flight can be couple of hundred dollars even for domestic routes which can be a big deal if you are talking about 'large' companies who are too big to think 'productivity' impact.



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