Can you buy the same flight for less if you use a VPN?

Re:Can you buy the same flight for less if you use a VPN? by fwlr on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:32AM (#35336322)

The poster lives in SFO and wants to visit XYZ for a week once a year. Rather than buy SFO->XYZ->SFO tickets (which are packages that consist of “a flight from SFO to XYZ on the 1st of April” and “a flight from XYZ to SFO on the 8th of April”), the poster instead buys XYZ->SFO->XYZ tickets (which are packages that consist of “a flight from XYZ to SFO on the 8th of April” and “a flight from SFO to XYZ on the 1st of April next year”).

Because the poster is repeating this purchase every year, it results in the same long-term flight pattern. However, because they have shifted the airline’s window into those travel patterns by a half step, all of the flights look cheaper to the airline’s pricing algorithm.

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Re:Can you buy the same flight for less if you use a VPN? by tcmb on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @02:30AM (#35336733)

Couldn’t the price difference be due to booking so far in advance?

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Re:Can you buy the same flight for less if you use a VPN? by selcuka on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @02:58AM (#35336898)

I'm sure they compared the prices for SFO -> XYZ -> SFO with XYZ -> SFO -> XYZ for the same dates.

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Re:Can you buy the same flight for less if you use a VPN? by atdrummond on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @03:20AM (#35337039)

Possibly but my flights to SF from Europe are routinely half the price for a round trip the other direction on the same dates/airline.

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Re:Can you buy the same flight for less if you use a VPN? by fwlr on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @03:47AM (#35337202)

Maybe. My experience with booking international flights at various schedules from “tomorrow” to “1 year in advance” is that airlines don’t give a discount for booking far in advance, past about one week out it’s all the same. I haven’t investigated thoroughly, though.

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Re:Can you buy the same flight for less if you use a VPN? by AdamN on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @04:41AM (#35337551)

I find 2 and 4 weeks to be the magic cutoff points for discounts but maybe I'm just seeing a pattern where none exists.

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Re:Can you buy the same flight for less if you use a VPN? by fwlr on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @05:33AM (#35337962)

Also plausible. Given that even when you book a year in advance you are booking a specific flight time, I don’t see many big efficiency wins for airlines here.

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Re:Can you buy the same flight for less if you use a VPN? by leviathant on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:15AM (#35342428)

Trade and tariff negotiations between countries comes into play, too. It was a while ago now, but I remember looking at a round trip flight to Sydney from the US. The same two planes, in different order (round to the US from Sydney) was half the price. I hadn't planned a year in advance, so I couldn't pull the trick mentioned above.

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Re:Can you buy the same flight for less if you use a VPN? by prpl on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @03:19AM (#35337026)

The downside of doing this is that, If you have to cancel your delayed flight and it’s been a year since purchase, you will likely forfeit the ticket. If you rebook it immediately, that might not happen.

I had this happen on AA. for legal reasons, I had to book a flight in advance (9 months). had to cancel, but did not immediately rebook. went to rebook 14 months after purchase date and credit has evaporated. (

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