Flights pricing is crazy

Yep, there are been several stories on the national news and in various print media about how the sum of the parts can be less than the total.
But, if you ticket them separately, and a leg is ultimately re-timed or re-routed, or if a plane is simply running late such that you miss a connection, you are out of luck. And, of course, the mess of having to claim then recheck luggage if not traveling carry-on only.

But, basically to the airlines, there is often less of a market for the individual legs, but more of a market with the two legs working together to get someone to the desired location.

I guess like buying carrots and lettuce separately vs. buying a pre-mixed bagged salad.

I am with you on that. It just amazes me the difference in price. I can understand a couple hundred difference, however, 700 seems a bit crazy.

I would not even THINK about doing it this was if I was checking a bag and I plan on giving myself PLENTY of time between flights just in case.

And sometimes its the other way. I once had a friend who wanted to fly from San Francisco to Denver. The flight was like $500 RT on united. But the flight from SFO to albuquerque was like $250 RT connecting in Denver. But of course if you hopped off in Denver they would cancel the RT part of your ticket.

You have to think of each origin-destination pair as a single entity with its own unique demand/supply dynamics. It's not crazy if you reframe the way your think about it, and throw away your initial logic. Although it seems intuitive to just add two flight sub-segments up and come up with the same figure as your original "long" segment, that's just not the way ticket pricing works. It's not a simple addition problem, it's dynamic pricing applied to three different origin-destination pairs. Each origin-destination pair has different passenger demand/supply and other characteristics that ultimately set the fare for that segment.

This is one way those third-party agents like Bravofly and eDreams sometimes offer better prices than the airlines for the same flights. They book it as two separate round trips, and if you don't look carefully you don't know you are on separate tickets until you check in for the first flight.

Don't book it as two flights unless you leave lots of time between flights at New York. Which means you are wasting time.

I guess I'd do it and take advantage of a couple of nights in the Big Apple.

Nothing wrong with some time in NYC, but unless you have family there, your two nights in a hotel could eat up a lot of the savings. And you'd have to pay for round-trip transportation between the airport and Manhattan.

The thought of doing something like this has crossed my mind a few times when I've seen fabulous fares out of NY or Boston, but I've never followed through. Back in the pre-deregulation days I twice flew into London and took a cheap charter flight to Spain or Greece (purchased from a bucket shop). But I spent multiple days in London on both ends of those trips and just considered it one of my destinations.

Occasionally when researching flight options I've seen one-way coach fares in the $2000+ range, and I am terrified of having to pony up that kind of money as a result of a catastrophic delay on the first leg of a multi-ticketed flight.

Not sure when you are traveling, but my daughter just booked flights from Boston to Hamburg, Germany for about $600 pp for nest Summer.

Have you tried Kayak to determine the lowest prices?

Also, I am amazed at your Pittsburg to NY prices! Have you tried airports from other cities where you could drive to, like Cleveland, Philly or even DC?

Yea I have looked into other options and I kinda left out that price was for 2 people. My bad.. lol.. yea virgin Atlantic seems to have the best price from jfk to london and if I fly out of a different airport it ends up costing me more. I might have to split it up to save money but I will be very nervous.

If your flight arrives at JFK and the next one departs from JFK, maybe your lots of time is enough. If EWR (Newark) is involved, maybe not. Remember, even if you depart from JFK, you are likely to be required to go through security, because your ticket isn't straight through. Then there is the weather, depending on the time of year.

My most recent experience was with a flight from ATL to FCO. It was 4 hours late arriving in Rome. I was scheduled to get on the return to ATL, but some passengers had to be left behind because the plane was overweight and extra fuel had to be added due to headwinds.

My point is that there are any number of reasons why a flight could be delayed or even canceled and without a straight through ticket, you could be stuck. It's hard to prepare for that when the NYC to London flight has no clue that you're journey is really from Pittsburg to London

What about going with Air Transat from Toronto? Try fishing around for the cheapest days on Skyscanner by clicking the WHOLE MONTH option. https://www.skyscanner.net/airline/airline-air-transat-ts.html

There have been wild oscillations in flight pricing recently. I bought a flight a couple weeks ago that is now going for more than 3 times the price I paid. I'd keep checking.

Let me reinforce the thinking about plane changes. With two different airlines, neither is responsible for the connecting flight. So if you, say, leave the west coast, changing planes and airlines at JFK, and anything goes wrong (like the first flight is late, or you missed the last flight out), a new ticket could be hugely expensive.

I got to JFK in plenty of time, I thought. I only had a carry-on. Quick train to the other terminal. But the check line for the carry-on went on for over an hour and a half. If the security line after that hadn't been clear (again, changing airlines you have to go through security again), I would have missed my flight.

MrsEB, the ride between terminals really was quick, but it just didn't matter. Yes, indeed, I had checked in online. But I mispoke - I did have a bag I needed to check, and that was the holdup. I had my boarding pass, but the Check Bag line was 90 minutes long. And yes, since it was in a different terminal, security all over again.

Yes, the best bet is no bags to check, and same terminal! :-)

We are flying Delta/ Virgin air from Chicago to Heathrow in April. Delta has now made FIVE minor changes to our flights, so be careful.

We are flying Delta/ Virgin air from Chicago to Heathrow in April. Delta has now made FIVE minor changes to our flights, so be careful.

I bought a multi-city ticket back in November for this year's trip into Nice and out of London. The return is on September 18. I guess I'm paying the price for such an early purchase: Virgin Atlantic has advanced the departure time of the return flight by 1 hr. 15 min. So much for not having to scramble to get out to Heathrow so early! I booked through delta.com, and to Delta's credit I got an email clearly identifying the change.