Lufthansa single ticket £'s

[zoomy]

Just tried booking a single ticket from Frankfurt to Birmingham.
Flying over a engineer to repair a fault on a engineering machine.
Not sure how long it will take him so looked at flexi return ticket or single.
Price for the cheapest single ticket to fly 27/10/2013 €642 (Flight LH952).
Fly in on 27/10/2013 return 31/10/2013 same flight LH952 return price €183 (includes the return flight).

Why on earth do they do that?

Emailed them earlier and response was equally as frustrating.

"The offered ticket-price always depends on the current availability at the moment of the booking. Due to the fluid nature of inventory and constant changes in worldwide fares, fares are not guaranteed. One way fares are flexible fares thus the price is sometimes more than a round trip fare".

If anyone wants to fly Lufthansa always book a return fare and save ££££££'s

Rant over

[GuyWMD]

Can't say it's fixed to just Lufthansa. Doesn't matter what airline they're all the same. Likewise trains, etc.

Nothing new?

[TVR1]

Frankfurt to Birmingham? Are you kidding?

Who the fk wants to go there?

Try Frankfurt to Luton.

Whilst London Luton sounds glamorous, it's cheap. Only because people actually think Luton is 'just North of London'

It isn't .

But it is only half an hour to Birmingham.

£200 tops for your return.

[16v_paddy]

TVR1 said:

But it is only half an hour to Birmingham.

Google says it's 1 hour 25 mins by road, but I like the sound of the challenge of getting the right car & doing it in 30 mins

[TVR1]

16v_paddy said:

TVR1 said:

But it is only half an hour to Birmingham.

Google says it's 1 hour 25 mins by road, but I like the sound of the challenge of getting the right car & doing it in 30 mins

I was thinking by helicopter.

But that may very well defeat the money saving objective

[IanUAE]

One advantage I have in the sectors I fly Dubai to Oman / Qatar / Saudi Arabia / Bahrain carriers all offer one tickets.

Medium / long haul we always book return tickets.

[mattdaniels]

kapiteinlangzaam said:

Plenty of big companies who use corporate travel agencies will never pay anywhere near as much as joe public phoning up on spec

Fixed that for you.

[whoami]

kapiteinlangzaam said:

mattdaniels said:

kapiteinlangzaam said:

Plenty of big companies who use corporate travel agencies will never pay anywhere near as much as joe public phoning up on spec

Fixed that for you.

Ive seen how much how corporate travel agency charges the company.

Somehwere around 3x the going internet rate seems to be common.

Complete crap.

[zoomy]

Trying to find the Luton option but I think its Frankfurt Hahn?
Engineer at £50/hr 1.5 hour drive to Hahn then 1.5 hour drive to Birmingham is not worth it.
But to fair on Ryanair they do fix their prices regardless of return or single flight.
What is disappointing is that Hahn is not that near to Frankfurt but that is a whole different debate that one.

[mattdaniels]

kapiteinlangzaam said:

mattdaniels said:

kapiteinlangzaam said:

Plenty of big companies who use corporate travel agencies will never pay anywhere near as much as joe public phoning up on spec

Fixed that for you.

Ive seen how much how corporate travel agency charges the company.

Somehwere around 3x the going internet rate seems to be common.

On the contrary corporate travel departments in big companies tend to get monsterous discounts, presumably on the basis of the level of business they do.

I used to travel to NY a lot and my J class (Virgin Upper or BA Club World) return would be charged to the company at a shade over 2K when the going rate for a ticket was 4K.

[whoami]

kapiteinlangzaam said:

whoami said:

kapiteinlangzaam said:

mattdaniels said:

kapiteinlangzaam said:

Plenty of big companies who use corporate travel agencies will never pay anywhere near as much as joe public phoning up on spec

Fixed that for you.

Ive seen how much how corporate travel agency charges the company.

Somehwere around 3x the going internet rate seems to be common.

Complete crap.

Of course it is, what an imaginative story it would be for me to make up. That sort of fantasy is what I really come on PH to post about, you know because it really gets my juices flowing.

Last trip I made for the company was DUS-VIE return in September. Booked through the corporate travel agency the flight was €350 return. I checked online for the same airline/same flight (Air Berlin) and was offered a price of €180 - so on that occasion it was merely double. I booked the hotel myself and had 3 nights in a 5-star place, for the same money CTA were offering only a 3* airport hotel.

The last time they hired a car for me it was over €280 for two days use. €80 if booked direct via Hertz website. Economy return to NYC from BRU, €4500 please - we booked business seats ourselves for less.

Simple answer for OP: The price is as it is, because someone, somewhere will likely pay it according to historical data they have stored in their booking system.

Edited by kapiteinlangzaam on Thursday 24th October 12:58

Your company has the worst procurement department in the world then.

Get a new one.

[whoami]

kapiteinlangzaam said:

Its a European institution spending tax payers money, so I doubt there is any impetus at all to do anything about it

Amen to that brother.

[Euro1300]

When booking corporate travel... the price you see almost certainly isn't the price the company will pay.

Even if they're invoiced for that amount (unlikely), there are all kinds of 'kickbacks' for the amount of business put through the corporate agent.

(At least this is the explanation given to me when I challenged the cost of a corporate agent vs laterooms)

[r1flyguy1]

whoami said:

kapiteinlangzaam said:

whoami said:

kapiteinlangzaam said:

mattdaniels said:

kapiteinlangzaam said:

Plenty of big companies who use corporate travel agencies will never pay anywhere near as much as joe public phoning up on spec

Fixed that for you.

Ive seen how much how corporate travel agency charges the company.

Somehwere around 3x the going internet rate seems to be common.

Complete crap.

Of course it is, what an imaginative story it would be for me to make up. That sort of fantasy is what I really come on PH to post about, you know because it really gets my juices flowing.

Last trip I made for the company was DUS-VIE return in September. Booked through the corporate travel agency the flight was €350 return. I checked online for the same airline/same flight (Air Berlin) and was offered a price of €180 - so on that occasion it was merely double. I booked the hotel myself and had 3 nights in a 5-star place, for the same money CTA were offering only a 3* airport hotel.

The last time they hired a car for me it was over €280 for two days use. €80 if booked direct via Hertz website. Economy return to NYC from BRU, €4500 please - we booked business seats ourselves for less.

Simple answer for OP: The price is as it is, because someone, somewhere will likely pay it according to historical data they have stored in their booking system.

Edited by kapiteinlangzaam on Thursday 24th October 12:58

Your company has the worst procurement department in the world then.

Get a new one.

I totally disagree,


I work for an airline and the girls in the office can't even book me a flight on our own airline for what I can get it for!!! Talk about fked up & politics!

[whoami]

r1flyguy1 said:

I totally disagree,


I work for an airline and the girls in the office can't even book me a flight on our own airline for what I can get it for!!! Talk about fked up & politics!

Which is exactly why you need a new Procurement Department.

[Dunk130TC]

The joys of procurement depts! They'll allocate their running costs to each transaction to ensure they're not seen as an overhead but as a profit centre. Great in theory but the users will only see an above mkt price and think they're buying £5 notes for a £10.