Travel Arbitrage/Hacking is our specialty at PremiumCabin.Deals, this comes in many forms but Arbitrage can be categorized into three major types and Optimization depends on type of flyers such as Consultants, Small Businesses and Families:
A) Mixed Tickets
A) Mixed Tickets
B) City Specific
C) Hidden City
D) Flexible Trip
A) Mixed Tickets
D) Flexible Trip Arbitrage:
This type of arbitrage works best for business travelers with a predictable travel patterns.
For instance, if flying between LGA – ORD on a Monday to Thursday pattern. Instead of weekly tickets it can be cheaper to use “Back to Back” or layered tickets.
Want to learn more about these types of fares? Reach out to our team for a Flight Planning consulting session!
C) Hidden City
D) Flexible Trip
Travel Hacking allows passengers to fly to certain destinations with a side trip or detour in order to get some massive savings.
Traveling during 2022 to Europe, expect at times to spend $3000 or $4000 on a round-trip, but add a mini-trip to for instance Egypt and you can pay just over $2000 as in this example: Chicago to Munich with a side of Egypt
Build your own RTW (Round the World), combines two or more separate tickets in Business Class to get some great deals, such as:
Europe to Australia from ~€2234 which if flown directly the layovers can be rough with 7+ hour connections at times, that's why this is best used as an inspiration to visit multiple regions by building in stopovers and spend additional days in the Middle East (Jeddah), Singapore (easy access to South East Asia) or spend times along the thousands of islands that make up the Philippines.
Same technique can be used to travel from New York to Australia from $4000 and spend time in the Middle East, South East Asia and Philippines while still enjoying Australia.
Or what about France to New Zealand with stopovers in the United States and Japan from €3209.
We know these tricks and share many of them on our site, but feel free to outreach and our team can help!
B) City-Specific Arbitrage:
Certain cities are dominated by a "hometown carrier" London with British Airways, Frankfurt or Munich with Lufthansa, Madrid with Iberia, Paris with Air France and Amsterdam with KLM. This gives them a natural advantage in frequent flyer base numbers and contracts with local business partners. But it leads to significant premiums on non-stops flights!
At the same time this creates an opportunity for carrier neutral smart travelers.
Let's use this airfare as an example: Amsterdam (AMS) to New York (EWR/JFK)
How does this reflect on normal travel? If we take a sample flight in February, purchased more than 30 days before the flight...
Ex. Amsterdam to New York on February 9 returning on the 14th.
But if we are to insert a flight on Lufthansa via FRA (Frankfurt) and still have a non-stop return flight from NYC to Amsterdam (AMS) the price drops to just 1820 USD.
Based upon this example we can see that the dominant carrier KLM partnering with Delta and Air France (all of these are TATL JV Partners so they share revenue from their flights based on confidential % ratios).
Savvy or flexible flyers can encounter savings of 60% or more by adding a segment on Lufthansa or United and taking advantage of lower overall fares.
Other examples include departing out of markets such as the Nordic Countries, which has significantly lower fares than markets such as the United Kingdom or Germany.
Egypt, Sri Lanka and Burma (Myanmar) have had devaluations in the past which led to strong savings.
Utilizing these techniques, passengers who are flexible can see savings by adding a segment or connection that can save $1000s off a vacation trip. Our team can build itineraries based upon your expected travel patterns and provide recommendations or alternative travel routes that can lead to significant savings and better travel experiences.
C) Hidden City Arbitrage:
These are some of the most controversial type of fare arbitration. Many airlines claim that utilizing these opportunities is against the Terms and Conditions of their Contracts of Carriage but in many instances the airlines will not seek to enforce these against one-off users of these types of fares.
The classic example (for US based flyers) is the “Last Segment Hidden City”. All passengers on flights to the USA or that connect in the USA must clear immigration and customs at their first point of entry into the country, with the exception of "pre-cleared" flights that originate in Canada; Dublin, Ireland; Abu Dhabi, UAE among other destinations.
If the first point of entry into the USA is JFK, ORD, EWR, IAD, etc. and have a connection you must clear immigration and claim your bags.
This presents a valuable opportunity for passengers willing to "break" T&Cs.
JFK-LHR and then LHR-JFK-XXX maybe cheaper than a Round Trip from JFK to LHR.
These types of deals are popular with travelers seeking to take advantage of fare differences between markets as even amateur travelers can take advantage of these fare arbitration opportunities with low risks as all luggage must be collected in the USA. It goes without saying that this does not work the other way around, if you fly from JFK to LHR and have an additional segment to XXX, your luggage will end up at XXX and if you miss the flight all further segments will be cancelled.
Now, how does this apply to Premium Cabin Deals?
Let's use this fare (Hidden City fare: HELsinki to MIAmi viaISTanbul (and JFK or ORD) ) as an example.
In this case, the carrier Turkish Airlines published a fare from Helsinki to Miami. The carrier does not operate this flight non-stop instead via its base in Istanbul. But the fare allowed passengers to route via New York (JFK) or Chicago (ORD) and then continue their travels on another carrier to the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area. Savvy passengers who lived in the Chicago or New York area could book this fare, accumulate enough miles to obtain status with certain Star Alliance carriers and save significantly when compares to other airlines in that market.
These are some of the most controversial type of fare arbitration. Many airlines claim that utilizing these opportunities is against the Terms and Conditions of their Contracts of Carriage but in many instances the airlines will not seek to enforce these against one-off users of these types of fares.
The classic example (for US based flyers) is the “Last Segment Hidden City”. All passengers on flights to the USA or that connect in the USA must clear immigration and customs at their first point of entry into the country, with the exception of "pre-cleared" flights that originate in Canada; Dublin, Ireland; Abu Dhabi, UAE among other destinations.
If the first point of entry into the USA is JFK, ORD, EWR, IAD, etc. and have a connection you must clear immigration and claim your bags.
This presents a valuable opportunity for passengers willing to "break" T&Cs.
JFK-LHR and then LHR-JFK-XXX maybe cheaper than a Round Trip from JFK to LHR.
These types of deals are popular with travelers seeking to take advantage of fare differences between markets as even amateur travelers can take advantage of these fare arbitration opportunities with low risks as all luggage must be collected in the USA. It goes without saying that this does not work the other way around, if you fly from JFK to LHR and have an additional segment to XXX, your luggage will end up at XXX and if you miss the flight all further segments will be cancelled.
Now, how does this apply to Premium Cabin Deals?
Let's use this fare (Hidden City fare: HELsinki to MIAmi viaISTanbul (and JFK or ORD) ) as an example.
In this case, the carrier Turkish Airlines published a fare from Helsinki to Miami. The carrier does not operate this flight non-stop instead via its base in Istanbul. But the fare allowed passengers to route via New York (JFK) or Chicago (ORD) and then continue their travels on another carrier to the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area. Savvy passengers who lived in the Chicago or New York area could book this fare, accumulate enough miles to obtain status with certain Star Alliance carriers and save significantly when compares to other airlines in that market.
This type of arbitrage works best for business travelers with a predictable travel patterns.
For instance, if flying between LGA – ORD on a Monday to Thursday pattern. Instead of weekly tickets it can be cheaper to use “Back to Back” or layered tickets.
- Ticket 1: LGA-ORD Monday Week 1
- Ticket 2: ORD-LGA Thursday Week 1
- Ticket 2: LGA-ORD Monday Week 2
- Ticket 1: ORD-LGA Thursday Week 2
Want to learn more about these types of fares? Reach out to our team for a Flight Planning consulting session!
Travel Optimization
Consultants:
Tired of taking a 6 AM flight in the middle of December to Des Moines or Minneapolis, only to be stuck in a middle seat in the last row? This is common dilemma for many consultants who spend 4-5 days on the road, staying at a variety of hotels, flying many airlines (both legacy and low cost) and use both personal and corporate credit cards for all their travels.
Here at PremiumCabinDeals.com, we can for a fee analyze your travel patterns and indicate areas that can produce a greater number of points, while being cognizant of specific limitations due to CWT, PeopleSoft and other reimbursement portals and client specific limitations.
Reach out to our team and we can advise you on how to make the best of the next project and be on a path towards upgrades!
Large Families/Small Businesses:
We understand that traveling with your family can be a stressful proposition. With our knowledge of airfare deals and mileage points, we can help you set up mileage programs to accumulate points from various travelers and redeem those points for family or personal adventures.
Both OneWorld and Star Alliance offer programs which allow you to pool and collect points from various travelers within the same family into a “master account” allowing you to control and get the best use of the points accumulated in the group.
Religious Travelers:
Aiming To visit the Holy Land, Egypt or different parts of Middle East and Asia. Our team can help you plan the trip taking into consideration transit visas, dietary preferences and other considerations so that your next trip is in style and accordance with your preferences.