Airline tickets
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For those well travelled CPians... Say you live in country A and want to travel to country B. The exchange rate is such that A's currency is much stronger than B's. (That is, the same thing would cost much less in B than in A.) So can you buy a return air ticket from A to B (and back to A, of course) from a vendor in B and travel at a much lower cost? To my knowledge, that's not possible.:confused: Just curious...
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
Taking into consideration your income related to country B income, yes, you might get cheaper. For instance, say a ticket from ChinaAir to the US costs 10000 CHY (random number for demo purposes, although 42 would've been fine as well). Now, say your income/month is 2500 USD. 1 CHY ~ 0.15 USD, => ~ 1587 USD for a plane ticket => half a months' pay for a plane ticket for you. A Chinese programmer earns about 2250 CHY per month (taken from here[^]). 1 CHY ~ 0.15 USD, => ~ 397 USD income per month => ~ 5 months' pay for a Chinese programmer. So taking into account relative income per country, yes, you'll get cheaper. Now, with real-world data, and air companies (talking about raw prices, no relative income): China Airlines[^] says a flight costs about 1000 dollars (between 998 and 1058 for a flight with dates around 27th Sep - 3d October), while US Airways[^] says it costs 1878 USD :omg: :omg: :omg: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: for the same dates. I'm actually dumbstruck by this, I was expecting the prices to be similar after converting to USD. So yes, you may get much, much cheaper.
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Taking into consideration your income related to country B income, yes, you might get cheaper. For instance, say a ticket from ChinaAir to the US costs 10000 CHY (random number for demo purposes, although 42 would've been fine as well). Now, say your income/month is 2500 USD. 1 CHY ~ 0.15 USD, => ~ 1587 USD for a plane ticket => half a months' pay for a plane ticket for you. A Chinese programmer earns about 2250 CHY per month (taken from here[^]). 1 CHY ~ 0.15 USD, => ~ 397 USD income per month => ~ 5 months' pay for a Chinese programmer. So taking into account relative income per country, yes, you'll get cheaper. Now, with real-world data, and air companies (talking about raw prices, no relative income): China Airlines[^] says a flight costs about 1000 dollars (between 998 and 1058 for a flight with dates around 27th Sep - 3d October), while US Airways[^] says it costs 1878 USD :omg: :omg: :omg: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: for the same dates. I'm actually dumbstruck by this, I was expecting the prices to be similar after converting to USD. So yes, you may get much, much cheaper.
Full-fledged Java/.NET lover, full-fledged PHP hater. Full-fledged Google/Microsoft lover, full-fledged Apple hater. Full-fledged Skype lover, full-fledged YM hater.
Hmmm... let's leave earnings out of the equation. So it appears China Airlines does let you search for a round trip starting in the US. I tried doing a similar thing with Lufthansa. For me, country A is Japan and country B is the UK. Then, the Lufthansa website shoved me to the Japanese site even if I claimed to be in the UK and only gave me prices in JPY. So I guess it depends on the company.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
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Hmmm... let's leave earnings out of the equation. So it appears China Airlines does let you search for a round trip starting in the US. I tried doing a similar thing with Lufthansa. For me, country A is Japan and country B is the UK. Then, the Lufthansa website shoved me to the Japanese site even if I claimed to be in the UK and only gave me prices in JPY. So I guess it depends on the company.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
Yes, it was just an example. I'm thinking that it'll work for Japan-UK as it worked for US-China, but you'll have to see that for yourself.
PaulowniaK wrote:
So I guess it depends on the company
Yes, I thought they would level the prices between them as well. I proved myself wrong.
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For those well travelled CPians... Say you live in country A and want to travel to country B. The exchange rate is such that A's currency is much stronger than B's. (That is, the same thing would cost much less in B than in A.) So can you buy a return air ticket from A to B (and back to A, of course) from a vendor in B and travel at a much lower cost? To my knowledge, that's not possible.:confused: Just curious...
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
Most airlines won't let you buy the return the 'wrong' way around, i.e. A-B-A and B-A-B are different products and can be priced differently. Plus, if they don't, the actual cost of providing A-B-A to you is the same whichever currency they sell it in, so I wouldn't expect the price to be very different anyway. You can possibly get a cheaper flight by using an airline based in the cheaper country, but that will also result in cheaper service in most cases (though throughout Europe at least, the service is at a decent level from everyone these days).
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Most airlines won't let you buy the return the 'wrong' way around, i.e. A-B-A and B-A-B are different products and can be priced differently. Plus, if they don't, the actual cost of providing A-B-A to you is the same whichever currency they sell it in, so I wouldn't expect the price to be very different anyway. You can possibly get a cheaper flight by using an airline based in the cheaper country, but that will also result in cheaper service in most cases (though throughout Europe at least, the service is at a decent level from everyone these days).
BobJanova wrote:
throughout Europe at least, the service is at a decent level from everyone these days
Have you ever flown with BlueAir? Or were you not including low-cost?
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BobJanova wrote:
throughout Europe at least, the service is at a decent level from everyone these days
Have you ever flown with BlueAir? Or were you not including low-cost?
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While I assume you were joking, you wouldn't have been wrong in the slightest if you were serious. Their call-center number for Romania is taxed with 0.62 EUR/minute, and average waiting time is about 10-15 minutes. UK number is taxed with 0.77 GBP, and I have no reason to assume there would be less waiting involved.
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BobJanova wrote:
throughout Europe at least, the service is at a decent level from everyone these days
Have you ever flown with BlueAir? Or were you not including low-cost?
Full-fledged Java/.NET lover, full-fledged PHP hater. Full-fledged Google/Microsoft lover, full-fledged Apple hater. Full-fledged Skype lover, full-fledged YM hater.
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I haven't, but is it really worse than Western low cost operations like Ryanair or EasyJet?
I don't know, I haven't flown with those. Let's just say that the stewardesses flight attendants have been seen and heard (yes, I have seen and heard them) yelling at passengers. Not to mention that take-off times are more of an orientative information, and not definite times. And 50% of them have only a basic idea about the English language (although it doesn't personally affect me, as they all speak Romanian, I can understand how other passengers may find it difficult to communicate with them).
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For those well travelled CPians... Say you live in country A and want to travel to country B. The exchange rate is such that A's currency is much stronger than B's. (That is, the same thing would cost much less in B than in A.) So can you buy a return air ticket from A to B (and back to A, of course) from a vendor in B and travel at a much lower cost? To my knowledge, that's not possible.:confused: Just curious...
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
Where I'm actually living, during one of my too often trip I had the opportunity to look at an advertise, which explained a bit how is determined the price of a plane-ticket. You'll be surprised to learn than more of the half is only taxes (either from departure airport/country or from destination airport/country). So for the question, as far as the strictly speaking cost of the plane is the same, their shouldn't be any difference. By saying this, their could be in fact a difference: taxes from the departure airport of your travel when you're buying a go and back plane ticket. I saw cases, when you go back first (not a mistake), taxes are less on the overall flight and the overall plane ticket is less expensive ; but local regulations don't allow you very often to do such a trip ;) Regards, Eric