Budget flights promise but AI delivers a headache

I used AI to find $664 savings on a return trip to Paris. But with lots of waiting around and airline changes I’m not convinced the suffering would be worth it.

Have you used ChatGPT to help plan a trip? A recent Facebook post by Logan Miller, a digital creator with millions of online followers, would suggest you can find incredible savings.

Miller claimed to pay just $138 for a $1420 flight by using “seven powerful prompts that broke the system”.

It goes something like this: ask ChatGPT to find the lowest fare from city A to city B, including nearby airports and multi-leg routes within a certain date range. Then – with a few key prompts – include low-cost carriers, layover options and round-trip one-way combos (even if it means flying with a different airline). Shazam! You have a bargain.

Inspired by our recent story on the best historic hotels in Europe, I try out some of these prompts to find a flight to Paris in October/November. Qantas is offering a direct return economy flight from Perth to Paris for $1960, with a total return travel time of just under 34 hours. Can ChatGPT help me find a better deal?

The prompting part is easy but investigating ChatGPT’s suggestions is a tedious exercise that sends me off to numerous flight search engines, round and round and back again. Part of me wonders if going direct to the search engines is a more efficient approach (after all, I have to go to Skyscanner to find the exact flights then to the booking page of budgetair.com.au).

After a couple of hours I find a $654 economy flight from Perth to Paris, via Singapore and Shanghai with Jetstar and China Eastern Airlines.

The total flight time is 28 hours and 40 minutes and I can check a bag. I find a return flight from Paris (flying out of Orly instead of Charles de Gaulle, where I arrive) to Perth for $573 but there is only the option of adding 10kg of cabin baggage to the booking for $69. I guess I’ll have to pay extra for my suitcase later? It looks like I won’t be doing much shopping? The total flight time is 27 hours and 10 minutes, via Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur, where there is a five-hour 30-minute wait. I’m flying with Dutch low-cost airline Transavia and AirAsia and it costs $642.

I have saved $664 overall. But is it worth 22 hours-plus of my time? I probably could have found cheaper options if I was willing to spend even more time searching. And I was advised to set up flight alerts to notify me of sale fares, which is something definitely worth exploring.

What Miller doesn’t mention about his $138 flight is how long he spent wandering airports, changing airlines and re-checking his baggage. There’s no consideration of loyalty programs, airport lounges or, crucially, the cost of all this tomfoolery. Booking direct with an airline or using a travel agent still sounds pretty good to me.