Another cheap air flights cheap discounte airline ticket strategy

Back-to-Back Ticketing - Simple Yet Controversial strategy to get essentially those first class get cheap airfares. 

The best travellers are constantly looking to use smart travel strategies whether there are economy/coach or first class travel tips to get cheap air flights or cheap discounte airline ticket. They know the savings earned can give them a second or third flight free especially where tickets are more expensive especially on international plane tickets flights where cheap flights airfares are always sought after. 

The back-to-back ticketing strategy is probably one of the strongest that you can have in your arsenal but probably the most controversial too.

What it simply means is that instead of buying one expensive roundtrip ticket (which will be pretty expensive if you can’t stay a Saturday night and don’t have advance purchase reservation), you should instead buy two cheaper (whether economy, business or first class), advance-purchase, non-refundable, roundtrip tickets.

You are buying two tickets but in reality, you will still be getting a total cheap air flights or cheap discounte airline ticket cost. Imagine flying first class and get cheap airfares at the top end of the savings, making this strategy one of the best first class travel tips then.

Or course it works as well for economy/coach tickets.  

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Let’s see a hypothetical example. Say you want to fly from Los Angeles to New York, say in four weeks time, on a Monday and to return on Wednesday in the week.

Well, without the Saturday night stay, even if you book in advance, it’s going to cost you a bomb probably around US$2000, say. 

How would you strategise to get a cheap air flights or cheap discounte airline ticket? You could get around this problem by using the back-back ticketing strategy.

Buy two roundtrip tickets, one “outbound” from Los Angeles to New York departing on Monday (the date you want to go) and to return say a month later. Then buy a “return” roundtrip ticket from New York to Los Angeles on Wednesday (the date you want to return).

Just discard the portions of the tickets you do not need/want to use – it’s as easy as that.

The cost of the two roundtrip tickets will easily be much cheaper than the cost of one roundtrip ticket (because they are advance purchase with no Saturday night stay over).

This means you are buying two tickets but in reality, you will still be getting a total cheap air flights or cheap discounte airline ticket cost when summed up.

And if you travel frequently between the two cities, and if you plan properly, you get even to use both trips and also get double the mileage.

If you are travelling first class, it’s essentially flying first class and get cheap airfares at the top end of the savings. A real good strategy right among all the first class travel tips you could use, right?

As mentioned earlier, the savings are even more on international plane tickets flights where cheap flights airfares are always sought after. 

Now, why is this strategy so controversial as mentioned earlier at the start of this article? Well, because the savings are so huge, the airlines (especially in US) deemed this as a violation of their strategy.

Well, some airlines insist that you have to use both portion of the tickets and that the low fare for such Saturday night stay over is only for leisure travellers, but legally you are probably still safe on the right side of the law.

Nonetheless, note that it still could get messy and some airlines may still denies you boarding or reclaim the savings you made (the fare you paid and “ought” to have paid) before you are allowed to board.

So, does that mean that the back-to-back strategy to get a cheap air flights or cheap discounte airline ticket not really usable?

Well, the solution is actually very simple. Just purchase the two roundtrip tickets on two different and also non-aligned airlines.

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For example, book the outbound roundtrip ticket on American and the return roundtrip ticket on say United. Then you still can exploit the strategy for a cheap ticket or to fly first class and get cheap airfares at the top end of the savings.

Note also that some airlines especially the low-cost carriers like Southwest Airlines does not prohibit the use of back-to-back ticketing (well, their fares are already low enough anyway).

To save even more, you could also rope in a friend or colleague who may be travelling together between the same destination and each traveller buys a cheap companion ticket for his/her partners.

Say you are on Continental and you buy a companion ticket for your travelling-together partner on the outbound trip and on the return trip, he returns the favour on say travelling back through United and buying a companion ticket there for you.

Love it or hate it, the back-to-back strategy is still one of the most useful coach, business or first class travel tips you should bear in mind.

The strategy is the same to replicate on international routes for international plane tickets flights where cheap flights airfares are always sought after.

You could save substantial savings especially given that weekdays are also the same busiest times of the week as business travellers fly to try to complete their business deals ahead to be back by the weekends back home.