Air Fare Ticket Types

[gubby]

Many of you have helped me before and now I have another question for you that I would certainly appreciate some help with.

I have been checking airfare for the past several months and am almost ready to bite the bullet as it is looking about as good as it is going to get. ( $About 1200 Cdn/pp)

We ( DH and I ) will fly from YYZ to CDG on Oct.4, from CDG to BCN on Oct 19, and finally back to YYZ from Barcelona on Nov 4. Our X Med cruise is from Oct 20-Nov 1. I understand your concerns about consolidator tickets and will book through the airline. Right now that looks like it will be AirFrance. When I go to the website to book, a ticket class comes up. These have been varied during my dummy bookings, but I do not know what any of them mean. We will be flying economy because that is what we can afford and still be able to spend time in Normandy and Paris and take the cruise. Can someone please explain what the various economy ticket classes mean and which we should be looking for.

Nikki

[6rugrats]

All airlines price tickets in what are called fare buckets or classes. If you are booking directly on the airline webpage, you really don't need to worry about any of time, IMO. Just choose the least expensive flights, if that's what you want.

 

Each fare class comes with certain restrictions, such as must be booked within 21 days of the flight date, etc. Usually the cheapest are the most restrictive.

 

Have you looked into booking YYZ-CDG and BCN-YYZ on one ticket, and then booking CDG-BCN separately? It is a bit less expensive that way, if you use a low cost carrier from CDG-BCN.

[gubby]

Thanks for the suggestion of booking 2 separate tickets rugrats. this simple change saves almost $ 300. for the two of us. That will pay for our hotel room in Barcelona.

Nikki

[frugaltravel]

2 tickets might be cheaper as you found out. but often with 1 ticket you get the same check luggage allowance for the flight within Europe that you do for the transatlantic flights. You might pay quite a bit in luggage charges for the single flight tickets within Europe

[gubby]

Thanks for this piece of info. I checked with EasyJet and we will be fine. We both travel light and with the exception of dinner clothes, can fit all we need into a carryon each. We have lightweight carryons and will share the one small checked bag. It will likely be fuller and heavier when we return, but then we will be taking the TA flight back to Toronto.

Nikki