Can’t believe how cheap it is to fly huge distances for relatively cheap prices, 20 odd quid to fly to the south of France, (over 600 miles).
Anyone have any experience of using budget airlines ( good or bad ) and any favourites that you’ve done again and again.
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Boeing 787 so brand new plane. Dead quiet. Very comfortable. Food decent.
We live in the golden age of travel.
Only different between the two is the fact that one has blue seats - Honestly find them both better than British Airways who are a joke of a National Carrier in my opinion
Ive heard very good things about Norwegian Air Shuttle and would use them if they went to a destination I was planning on visiting
Unfortunately Ive found it to be a game of chance, you can sometimes hold out for a better price than what is being offered whereas the price its already at is the cheapest it'll ever be... Kayak though will usually give you a graph and say if its worth buying or not
if you fly Wednesday afternoon, you'll get cheaper tickets than Friday evening for example
The budget airlines get a lot of stick but generally I love them. Would not have been to half the places I have been able to afford to go to if it wasn't for them. Were now also getting transatlantic flights cheap thanks to companies like Norwegian and Westjet.
Quite often though BA might be a cheaper for a family of 4 to go somewhere like Tenerife when you factor in luggage, seat costs etc.
Started using Flybe a bit more as they have a route from Dublin to Southend and its pretty cheap and cheerful - return flights for £30 on turboprop planes that are a bit dated.
Despite flying on that type of plane I personally wouldn’t book a cheaper plane for a transatlantic flight or other long haul flight, but each to their own.
Tuesday, Weds, Thurs are usually the cheapest days ..... I live on a very tight budget, so usually book a month in advance, and find it's essential to be flexible with the days I travel - I select the 3 week option and choose the very cheapest dates, if I can make them fit.
If you are booking a couple of months ahead, you can quite often find a Monday or Friday that's a bargain.
I've just booked one-way for a Monday in early November for £24.
Obviously school holidays and summer months can be scarily expensive if you book late, but other times of year are rock bottom - again don't leave it late though, or you'll get stung.
The other thing to watch for is flight times at silly o'clock ...... you know, leaving Gatwick at 06.55 am, which is a sod if you have to catch a train from Cornwall.
Our daughter flew out with United to Chicago in August, coming back in December. Booked in March so only £630 return PLUS $100 each way for a second suitcase.United plane 25 years old.Had been flying 4 years before she was born! Sagging seat with non working recline, all entertainment system broken, and food that she, and she is a student, said was rubbish!
All Norwegian planes, apart from one on the New York run are new Dreamliners and they are very, very good. Only problem if your plane cannot fly is there is no back up. Also as they are outside EU delay compensation rules, so can be a bit dodgy if you get delayed.
Wife and i are going to Chicago in October with Norwegian so will give an update if the thread is still running afterwards. DILLY DILLY.
Finding the "best" price is a very, very complicated process. Systems can interrogate millions of fares on any route. The amount of data held is astonishing. Typically, GDS businesses (the "global distribution systems" which power most sites and travel agents) are among the biggest, most powerful in the world. One of them (there are three main ones in the word) is described as the biggest non-military data servers in north America.
Several years ago, British Airways went through a huge process of reducing the number of fares they publish. After several months editing, combining, consolidating and reducing their range of fares, they proudly announced that they had managed to reduce the number of fares they publish to just one million.
When you enter your request, the system interrogates live data across hundreds of airlines to determine which ones have seats available, then compare the results with the international database of published fares. There are millions and millions of fare! And each of them can change several times an hour. So it's a massive task for them to present a useful, usable fare.
Any system makes money out of the fares it sells. But usually, not from the airline. In fact, in an increasing number of cases, the airline (say Lufthansa) will charge the system you use (say Kayak) a fee for booking that flight. However, the GDS systems pay systems and travel agents for each booking that's made. No-one earns commission for selling flights any more. So you are often better shopping round real travel agents to make sure you're getting a good price (because systems have to pass on their fees).
Also, many travel agents do deals with airlines so that they can sell "net fares". These are discounted fares that the airline makes available only to certain agents. The agent is allowed to mark up the fare and so make some money on that booking.
So, use the fare finding features that systems like Kayak offer, book at the "right" time, shop around and try and find an agent that sells net fares and see if they will do a deal.
And, don't go anywhere near Trainline if you are looking to pay the least for trains. Buying tickets on Trainline is a very expensive way of doing so!
A little story about BA, some time ago, i flew with a low cost airline to Cape Town who subsequently went bust while my family and i were there, and BA subsequently could not do enough for us, and gave us the lowest possible price , (110 pounds each) to return home - it was almost like the Dunkirk spirit. Also, anyone who has experienced the Stansted customer experience (as i have today) versus Terminal 5 , will laugh at that comment.T5 is magnificent - easily the best and most relaxing Terminal i have ever flown to or from.
Also, anyone that has been sitting in his seat on the plane only for the Pilot to come on and say the flight is cancelled 'due to operational reasons' on TWO separate occasions, with.....yes, you guessed, Ryanair, wont have many good things to say about Lyingair - in actual fact imo they are the pits.
If BA are flying to the same destination , then there is no way i am booking Ryanair,regardless of the cost.
How much was the booking fee?
So me and the missus just went for the £1 deals whenever we could and get the time off work. So £4 for us to fly to Copenhagen and back, Prague and back and Amsterdam and back.
Also did some very cheap 2/3/4 day returns (under £40 for both us) to Berlin, Dublin, Rome and to at least four different French airports. Normally our first nights meal in a restaurant cost more.
Of the budget airlines I would also say Norwegian are the best I've used although never had a problem with Ryan Air. Easyjet can just f*ck off!
Be careful with comparing prices because a lot depends on whether you want hold luggage or book a seat.
If you don't pay for a seat Ryanair will actually make sure you sit apart. BA will try and put you together if possible.
With BA don't just go the comparison sites if you want hold luggage. They do special package on their own site which makes it cheaper than booking through a comparison site.
Liked Veuling when I flew with them
WestJet had a load of hidden charges but gave me my first ever upgrade! Norwegian looks good but financially things don't look pretty for them so use them whilst the going is good. Flying on Jetstar next month which was pretty cheap.
However I wouldn’t touch Ryanair with a barge pole.
Used Virgin over BA to fly to USA and Caribbean as they’ve never let me down and were cheaper than BA the first time I booked trans-Atlantic.
However I’m currently in dispute with Virgin over non existing upgrade I bid for and paid for on my flight out here last week.
End of the day if you’re flying Economy they’re all much of a muchness and someone has always got a good or bad experience to tell about all airlines/hotels/pubs/restaurants/ etc etc
I use easyjet and jet2 numerous times a year mainly for work and must admit to never having any issues at all.
As for Ryan air, I would rather walk than use that pile of crap. Awful airline
Had a mate who was a pilot for Ryanair, flew from Bristol to Krakow, he told me 3 times he had to take over the controls when junior qualified pilot's were making a hash of a landing there...And they were 3 different pilots....Runs his own airline company on the IOW now.
I once got charged £60 by Ryanair (double the cost of the original ticket) to print my ticket at the check in desk because I forgot to bring mine from home. I understood that I had had plenty of warning prior so that didn’t negatively effect my view of them. That’s part of their business model and I knew what I signed up for.
The only bad flying experiences I’ve ever been part of have been with BA - more specifically lost luggage on multiple separate occasions while flying transatlantic.