International Flights

[Dancer Bob]

Keep an open mind. Usually I book about 8 months out, but my next two Trans-Atlantics, I started looking as soon as the flights opened. The prices were comparable to this year. Maybe I was the only one looking and found the only cheap seats, but for the same prices, I was willing to take the chance and book then.

[Globaliser]

1 hour ago, waterbug123 said:

Or as you said, she's just not clicking through to get the details.  Some have an ultra low cost option that maybe doesn't include a checked bag, but the ticket itself is cheaper.   So you either pay for the cheapest ticket and then pay a separate bag fee, or you buy a slightly more expensive ticket and get a free checked bag  and probably some other benefits like advanced seat selection.  Either way, you pay.  She seems to want the very cheapest possible ticket AND to get benefits that come with more expensive tickets which isn't a realistic expectation.

 

I was intrigued enough to click through from an equivalent to that first "$286" fare. It's the same combination of airlines on a different date (9 January 2024): it's Vueling from London Gatwick to Barcelona, and then Iberia/LEVEL from Barcelona to Boston. The website that the screenshot came from (Travelocity) quoted $304 on the corresponding page. After clicking through, I couldn't find any reliable indication of checked baggage fees before having to pay for the flights.

 

However, a different website (Skyscanner) offered various purchase options for the same physical flights. One was to buy directly from the LEVEL website, which for Barcelona to Boston offered a Vueling code on the Iberia/LEVEL flight. This showed a lowest fare of $299.64, but there would have been baggage fees of $129.44 for one 23 kg checked bag; also, meals were not included, and would have been $35.00 per person extra.

 

But if you go up to the next fare level, this added $84.00 to the fare, for a total of $383.64. This fare included one checked bag at 23 kg, and also meals.

 

As the OP herself said about domestic fares and whether they included a checked bag:

 

19 hours ago, Smitheroo said:

Yes, many of them do.  You just have to reserve from the next category of tickets. For example, on Jet Blue its terms like Blue Basic, Blue Extra, etc.

 

That's all she would have to do for these trans-Atlantic flights too. Like many others, I'm really not sure what the problem is, other than (as you say) unrealistic expectations of how much it should cost to fly trans-Atlantic one-way.

[waterbug123]

7 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

 

 

 

That's all she would have to do for these trans-Atlantic flights too. Like many others, I'm really not sure what the problem is, other than (as you say) unrealistic expectations of how much it should cost to fly trans-Atlantic one-way.

 Bingo!

[sambamama]

Which is what we said three pages ago! You can't expect to cross the Atlantic for the same cost as to fly to Miami. And she is lucky. Boston is a big airport. My local airport , Hartford, doesn't have the same deals JFK or Boston does. And although Boston is only 90 minutes away, there is no reliable easy public transportation there for me, so I have to fly out of JFK which is 3 1/2 hours  away for most international travel. 

[Lois R]

11 hours ago, sambamama said:

Which is what we said three pages ago! You can't expect to cross the Atlantic for the same cost as to fly to Miami. And she is lucky. Boston is a big airport. My local airport , Hartford, doesn't have the same deals JFK or Boston does. And although Boston is only 90 minutes away, there is no reliable easy public transportation there for me, so I have to fly out of JFK which is 3 1/2 hours  away for most international travel. 

And then you have other airports where there are NO international flights to Europe at all so a person has to find another airport to "cross that pond".  I leave tomorrow for a flight to London.......JAX to JFK to LHR. 

For some reason, they call our airport an International airport but nobody flies to Europe from here......none. 

[FlyerTalker]

33 minutes ago, Lois R said:

For some reason, they call our airport an International airport but nobody flies to Europe from here......none. 

 

There is a reason.  Per the Federal CFRs:

 

(e) International airport. An “international airport” is any airport designated by:

 

(1) The Secretary of the Treasury or the Commissioner of Customs as a port of entry for aircraft arriving in the U.S. from any place outside thereof and for the merchandise carried on such aircraft;

 

(2) The Attorney General as a port of entry for aliens arriving on such aircraft; and

 

(3) The Secretary of Health and Human Services as a place for quarantine inspection.

 

 

[CruiserBruce]

3 hours ago, Lois R said:

And then you have other airports where there are NO international flights to Europe at all so a person has to find another airport to "cross that pond".  I leave tomorrow for a flight to London.......JAX to JFK to LHR. 

For some reason, they call our airport an International airport but nobody flies to Europe from here......none. 

It could be an international airport if planes can fly there from Canada or the Caribbean, Asia, Africa, Bahamas,  etc.

[Zach1213]

3 hours ago, Lois R said:

For some reason, they call our airport an International airport but nobody flies to Europe from here......none. 

 

The reasons why an airport can be "international", from a legal standpoint, have already been covered. But I can guarantee there are plenty of flights between JAX and Europe + Caribbean + Canada + Mexico, etc...they just get operated on cargo planes or private planes. 

 

EDIT: Out of curiosity I checked FlightRadar24, which doesn't have every private flight listed, but there's at least one departure and one arrival between JAX and The Bahamas listed for today on private aircraft. So, I'm definitely not saying there are international flights coming and going at JAX all of the time, but it certainly happens. 

Edited August 24, 2023 by Zach1213

[Lois R]

1 hour ago, Zach1213 said:

 

The reasons why an airport can be "international", from a legal standpoint, have already been covered. But I can guarantee there are plenty of flights between JAX and Europe + Caribbean + Canada + Mexico, etc...they just get operated on cargo planes or private planes. 

 

EDIT: Out of curiosity I checked FlightRadar24, which doesn't have every private flight listed, but there's at least one departure and one arrival between JAX and The Bahamas listed for today on private aircraft. So, I'm definitely not saying there are international flights coming and going at JAX all of the time, but it certainly happens. 

I forgot about the Caribbean..........

[taxatty]

On 8/24/2023 at 9:33 AM, FlyerTalker said:

 

There is a reason.  Per the Federal CFRs:

 

(e) International airport. An “international airport” is any airport designated by:

 

(1) The Secretary of the Treasury or the Commissioner of Customs as a port of entry for aircraft arriving in the U.S. from any place outside thereof and for the merchandise carried on such aircraft;

 

(2) The Attorney General as a port of entry for aliens arriving on such aircraft; and

 

(3) The Secretary of Health and Human Services as a place for quarantine inspection.

 

 

Thank you--I've always wondered how this distinction applied.