Flight search engines on the Internet drive me mad; I either get stupid timings, stupid routing or stupid pricing. Yet we are increasingly being forced to book all flights on-line or pay a lot more for telephone booking.
For instance I just looked up on Expedia flights from Birmingham to Miami for later this month. 2 were expensive at close to £500 the third was with Air France to Paris and American Airlines to Miami and return the same route; the price was £8,850.(yes eight thousand)
If I ask for the cheapest flight to Orlando on some search engines it will give me timings that will entail an overnight stop somewhere, or a 10 hour layover. Yet much better flights cost only a couple of pounds more.
However if you ask for their schedule of flights you often get multiple choices for both outward and inward flights. It is a nightmare trying to work out which is the best compromise between convenience and cost.
If you select a multi-stop trip, say Manchester – Boston – Orlando the price can be less than their ‘cheapest return’ option which routes you on exactly the same flights.
Experimenting I have obtained(for the same dates) a cheaper flight Manchester – Chicago – Los Angeles – Orlando, than Manchester-Chicago-Orlando.
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