flight question

I am moving to N Ireland for a job in mid January and am in the process of booking a flight.  The position is for one to three years and I am wondering whether I should book a one-way or a return ticket and change the return date?  originally i was looking at one ways, but then thought that i should look at roundtrips since i am not paying for the flight.  any suggestions???

thanks

Sue 

I am moving to London in January (indefinite move) and plan to book a round trip. It's cheaper than a one-way and I can use the return as the first leg of a trip home next summer. For me, this makes sense. I think, especially since you're not paying for it, you should consider round trip.

I am moving to London in January (indefinite move) and plan to book a round trip. It's cheaper than a one-way and I can use the return as the first leg of a trip home next summer. For me, this makes sense. I think, especially since you're not paying for it, you should consider round trip.

I'm not sure that round trip is always cheaper.  I booked a one way to go in about 2 weeks and it was $365 from Detroit to Manchester.  That was better than any round trip I could find.  I think flight prices are so random, it's hard to know when it is the best time to buy.

usually (But not always) round trips are cheaper.  i would go with a departure date you want, and then fiddle with the return to give you the cheapest ticket.  However, look on consolidator's websites for one way fares.  sometimes they can be cheap cheap!

Also, depending on which class of ticket you buy they are non changeable..the cheaper the fare the more unflexible they are. So if you buy a ticket that you want to be able to change the return date on it make sure you ask the person you are buying them from or if you do it on the internet be sure and read the tickets rules for the type of class of seat you are buying!

The cheapest of cheap seats..what you booked is what you have and they won't budge on any kind of changes.

We actually found that the one ways were cheaper as well. We bought 5 tickets from Boston to Manchester for $1608.00 including tax and airport fees. The round trips were almost $800.00 a piece.

Yeah look around, you can often find some great one-way deals, especially from consolidators. We booked ours through 1-800-Fly-Europe.com.  But if worse comes to worse, buy a round-trip ticket and just throw away the return flight. (or save it for a future use if you can afford to pay the change fee and will do so within a year of purchase, but then you'd have to buy another one-way fare to get back to the UK!)

I am sure I am way late on this one, but basic policy for unchangeable/change fee tickets (ie, cheapest you can find) is that you can use the unused return for up to one year on that airline only. You can change the ticket, but it will cost you upwards of at least $100 per change and then you will also have to pay the difference.

Example, if you buy a return for $400 to N Ireland with Aer Lingus you'll have $200 worth of return to use on any Aer Lingus flight for one year (they do include the taxesk, which is nice). Of course, your change fee and difference in cost will be added on.

Great thing about this is that you can use the unused return for a flight to somewhere else in Ireland or Europe and have a weekend holiday. Bad thing about this is if your job is over one year, you have just thrown away money. So buy a single ticket.

 

Be cautious though - some tickets, as MeShell said, are truly unchageble (not just, pay a fee and then change it). We were in Switzerland recently and thought about changing our return flight - I had forgotten our tickets were uchangeable. We were told by BA that unchangeable means just that - that is the one flight you can fly on and if yo don't take that flight, the ticket is not worth anything for any future flights. It was not changeable by paying a fee - that would have been a penalty fare (Changeable with a penalty) and the agent was very clear that "unchangeable" meant just that.  Just wanted to put that out there in case it could help someone else.

I HATE BA if I could switch sell them to someone else I would!

But they are the main air carrier off the IoM. They DO NOT budge..you will not get them to change their minds. Always Always check your tickets that your agent or yourself have booked and that you have the right times and always give yourself plenty of time between flights IF you don't have a thru ticket..especially if you are going from a scheduled airline to a low cost carrier

Yeah, totally agree with the above. Talk to your airline directly first. Especially if you book it online. Sometimes if you book a flight through an online broker you can only change it again through online broker. BA is a nightmare. I booked tickets through Travelocity for BA and found out I couldn't claim the miles back because I didn't book direct with them.

I don't know where you are flying from but keep in mind that you will either be flying direct to Dublin and coming up on the bus to Belfast, or you are flying to London and connecting to Belfast International. The only direct flight to Belfast is on Continental from Newark and they seem to be expensive, although I could be wrong.

Yeah, totally agree with the above. Talk to your airline directly first. Especially if you book it online. Sometimes if you book a flight through an online broker you can only change it again through online broker. BA is a nightmare. I booked tickets through Travelocity for BA and found out I couldn't claim the miles back because I didn't book direct with them.

Travel agents or brokers can NOT deal with redeeming air miles ...I CAN as a travel agent put your membership number in so you "can" get your mileage on your card.

Even if you book direct with a airline if it is non changeable you won't be able to do anything with the ticket either...that is why it is such a cheap ticket always read the fine print on what type of ticket you are buying

Travel agents or brokers can NOT deal with redeeming air miles ...I CAN as a travel agent put your membership number in so you "can" get your mileage on your card.

Even if you book direct with a airline if it is non changeable you won't be able to do anything with the ticket either...that is why it is such a cheap ticket always read the fine print on what type of ticket you are buying

I'm sorry, you seem to have misunderstood what I said. I was talking about a personal experience. I booked a ticket on Travelocity, put my mileage in when asked and BA refused to recognise it, i.e. I "couldn't" get my mileage on my card. I lost out on 10,000 miles. There was no fine print. I found out after the fact that the class of ticket that I booked, and it was not cheap either, was still not high enough to get miles. This is why I recommend speaking directly to the airline because sometimes online brokers do not give you all the information.

They should have been able to add your number on there.......I do domestic flights from the IOM to Manchester for a regular client all the time. I put his BA number in for these flights and it is only a 45 minute flight. If it was a recent flight I would call them back and argue the toss...


Sounds like either or both didn't want to take responsibility on it. What a bummer.....