This trick could save you heaps on domestic airfares

IT’S a little bit sneaky but if you use this tactic when booking overseas flights, you could stand to save a truckload of money.

THE pricing habits of airlines have always been opportunistic at best, and down right predatory at worst. So when the customer happens upon one of those profitable loopholes, take it.

When booking flights online, the price can often be determined by the location from where you are making the purchase — or at least appear to be making the purchase.

This is because it is all about the point of sale and the pricing practices of airliners. The cheaper offers may be due to a specific sale under way that only applies to the local market, a quota of domestic sales, or sometimes the exchange rate can simply work in your favour.

For instance it is often cheaper to buy tickets “in-country” in places such as South America and in Asia than it is to buy those same tickets abroad. The same phenomenon is true for buying train tickets in Europe versus online in English.

Certain airlines often show dearer fares for international paying customers.

For one travel writer, the discrepancy in pricing from being “inside” the country to being outside the country led to a domestic flight from Bangkok to be offered at US$30 as opposed to the previously stated price of US$300.

Most people don’t realise that some websites, such as Google’s ITA, offer an easy way to change the point of sale so you can see if the pricing changes by varying the city. The Googleservice also has a built-in currency conversion to make things that much easier.

However when purchasing the tickets if you are unable to change the point of sale on the companies website, often it pays to go through the airline’s home site and convert the currency.

While it can take a bit of fishing around and is there is no guarantee that it will yield hugely profitable results, it is certainly a handy trick to think about the next time you’re booking some overseas air travel.