Cheapest fares from Vancouver, Canada to Europe?

Thanks, WT! :-)

It's kind of weird, the price from Seattle-Frankfurt is cheaper than Seattle-London - even if it seems to be the same flights, the Germany fare states "change planes in London"! What I'm wondering is, should I buy the one for Germany, and simply not fly the London-Germany bit? Could I even sell it to someone else? I guess they would just assume I missed my connection, but how about on the way back - would I have a problem boarding the connecting flight in London? I don't see why, but I guess I'll have to call the airline to make sure... I would just hop onto another cheap flight to/from London / Italy with Ryanair or something like that instead...

Your luggage will be checked through and you cannot be sure you won't have to check a bag unless you aren't taking any at all. The airlines (particularly in the USA) have all started cracking down on carry-on luggage. One piece of carry-on now means a woman's purse is considered 1 piece by some airlines.

Airlines frown on this leaving a flight at a stop point. They have a specific name for it which I don't recall at the moment. In any case, they cancel ALL subsequent legs of your ticket automatically. You would have no return flight reservation. Better to go to Frankfurt and take the train to Italy from there.

What you had in mind is called "hidden city ticketing", and it's definitely not possible nowadays, for the reasons given by BPGuruAgain. So annoying as it is, you will have to follow the itinerary provided by the ticket.

The airline sells cheaper tickets to Frankfurt, because of competition issues (with Lufthansa), and also because it's very expensive to have LHR as the end point, due to taxes.

Munich puts you closer to Italy than Frankfurt. Look for cheap train tickets at www.bahn.de - the best deals are located on the German site, which makes life a little more difficult for us non-German-speaking Canadians, but persevere.

Also look for cheap flights within Europe here: http://www.whichbudget.com

I would arrive back at the German city a day or two before you need to fly, because it would be very expensive to miss your ticket, and transport snafus can happen.

Again, very valuable infos, guys! Guru, I didn't think about the luggage! Mmmmm... I'm not leaving with much, but I always have overflowing bags of goodies on the way back! My "leaving" bag could pass as a carry-on, it has before...

I guess I could just get the flight to Germany, Ryanair and the others fly back from there too, and my german-speaking friends can help with technical questions (as my college german is shamefully rusty, especially since I must admit most of the girls took the class because the teacher was red-hot), but I disgress, ahem. And this could be a good excuse to spend a few days catching up in germany!

So, what happens if a person, say, falls asleep, or didn't check the time right - and misses a connecting flight, then? Do they lose all the rest of the ticket, with all airlines? Because I only missed a flight once, when former mr miaou (being Serbian, therefore, automatically almost treated like a dangerous criminal at the border, idiots) could not get to Seattle: we luckily found a very good last minute one-way deal from Vancouver instead. On the way back, we had to go to the counter to explain that we missed the original outbound flight and why, but we didn't lose our return flight - ? Maybe it depends on the airline?

Anyway, you guys are right, not worth risking it... Too bad Harmony no longer exist - do they?? - I'm also looking into flying to NYC, and then hop onto a cheap flight to Italy, as I've done in the past. Always a good excuse to spend a day or two in the big apple!

Airlines are into revenue protection in a big way, so anything might happen if you "inadvertently" missed a connecting flight, but you could definitely end up being out thousands of dollars.

Harmony doesn't exist anymore.

If you want a route that includes a stop in NYC, consider taking Continental. You would fly a redeye SEA-EWR, then you have about 12 hours before the flight to your next destination (say CGN Cologne - this is often available cheaply), so in practice about 8 hours in NYC, considering the times to and from the airport. The only drawback is two redeyes in a row. Just go to the Continental site, and enter SEA-CGN, and these itineraries may pop up as the cheapest options.

Mmmmm, that sounds interesting, Will... especially since I actually manage to sleep on anything in motion, including planes - esp if no screeching and kicking babies around! I usually get window seats, bring earplugs and this neck pillow thingie, an zzzz away until I smell food...

Revenue protection? But, what do they care if I don't fly a part of my trip, as long as my tickets were paid in full? I mean, they can even sell the place again to someone else waiting for a last-minute seat at the airport! Just saying this out of curiosity, because I agree that it's not worth losing a whole ticket trying to swindle away for a few 100$ difference...

Plane fares are very complicated, and I'm not an expert, but it's basically like this:
Most people prefer nonstop flights, and are willing to pay more for them.

British Airways offers nonstop flights to London from Seattle and Vancouver, but BA cannot offer nonstop flights to Germany.

The only advantage BA has over airlines that do fly nonstop to Germany is that BA can offer cheaper flights.

So BA is trying to capture the market that wants to fly to Germany cheaply, but they also want to capture the market that is willing to pay more to fly nonstop to London.

Thus, if BA allows people to get off the plane in London and not fly to Germany, they've lost out, because they "should" have charged the nonstop to London fare.

Plus, the London airport charges huge taxes for people who actually arrive in London, as opposed to connecting there, so there's a large tax difference in the price also.

WillTravel has outlined the basic idea. Prices are based on competition, not the actual cost of flying the plane. So a destination that is farther away (and therefore will cost more in fuel) does not necessarily mean the airline can charge more to get you there.

That's why you can fly Vancouver to London or Glasgow on a LCC for $99 +tax but can't get a flight to Toronto for anywhere near that price. No real competition on the Toronto flight but lots on the flight to the UK.

One reason we bp freaks book planes at least 22 days ahead; The airlines want to have early "butts in seats factor", as they say in the trade. They can count on it being more full by take off day.

Then those prices change during the day. Some folks call the airline ticketters several times during a day, to get the best bid. That's the hard way.

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Cheap beds and free breakfast is not the best part of them.

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Welcome to the cheapest, most fun and creative way to travel.

Thanks for all the infos again, boys: I booked my direct flight online with british airways for less than 600$, return seattle/london... and that's a pretty good price to me :-)

I'll spend the weekend shopping in seattle and seeing friends, then, and off on monday to seatac!

Anyone flew with British Airways before? It's going to be my first (ba virgin, you may dub me): anyone cares to share experiences with them?