Will Flightfox benefit me if I'm only looking for 'ethical' flights?

Will Flightfox benefit me if I'm only looking for 'ethical' flights? - Man in Black Suit Jacket Holding Black and Silver Laptop Computer

I'm hoping I can pose this question in such a way that it will be objective enough to be answerable.

When I'm preparing for a trip, I generally start watching air fare prices well in advance, and check multiple search engines. I also try to construct my own creative itineraries, using one-way flights, hidden-city-ticketing, two sets of one-way flights which link up in a common city, etc.

The one trick I've never tried (and probably won't) is fuel dumping (as mentioned in another post of mine.

Some online blog posts suggest that Flight Fox will basically do the same thing I do. I don't want to pay $49 to be told I already found the cheapest price.

The one time I did use Flight Fox, I was given a cheaper price than I could find on my own, but it was the result of fuel dumping, and I'm not excited about paying someone to help me do fuel-dumping, as I'm undecided about the ethics of this practice.

Assuming I'm only interested in taking ethical flights, and I do my own leg work before hand, will Flight Fox likely benefit me?



Best Answer

It'll depend where you're flying, what type of flight (multi-leg etc), how busy the season is, and how far ahead of time you're booking. The tighter the time frame or higher the demand, the harder it is.

Of course, the Flightfox hackers until a few months ago were all experts/hobbyists/searchers and you could get a dozen people all trying to beat your price. I liked that, there was a good chance you'd succeed. And back then, if they couldn't beat your price, you got your money back. Annoying sometimes as a flightfox hacker when customers would suddenly come out with a price (as though they'd been hiding it until then) but such was life.

Then recently Flightfox changed their model, now charging for a dedicated 'travel agent' of sorts to check out your flight and help you book. I'm unsure about the new model, as 1) many of us experts have been grounded for now and 2) I've not tried it yet. However some feedback I've seen online has been positive.

However, the past few weeks I've been checking out Darjeelin Expert - a similar site, with price checks - just to confirm you have got the best price. That may be more in line with your preferences, possibly. On both of them you can specify no fuel dumping in your criteria, so it's always possible to avoid those, but that does reduce the hacks that are possible.




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What benefits does a restrictive fare offer?

Restricted fares save money when no changes are made. No shock there. Based on our data, when travellers do have restricted fares they are four times less likely to change their booking than someone with a flexible fare.

Why are flights cheaper on Skiplagged?

Skiplagged works by displaying the original price to reach a destination. So if you want to fly from Minneapolis to Atlanta and prices are sky high, Skiplagged may show you a flight from Minneapolis to Orlando that goes through Atlanta as a stopover. Voila! You reach your intended destination and pay less.

Is Skiplagged okay?

Answer: Yes, Skiplagged is legal. It's a flight search engine that finds the cheapest flights by considering flights with layovers in your destination city. This technique is called \u201chidden city ticketing\u201d, and while airlines don't love it, there's nothing illegal about it.

Is it ethical for an airline to overbook an airplane when each seat is paid for at the time the reservation is confirmed?

Overbooking is not illegal, and most airlines overbook their scheduled flights to a certain extent in order to compensate for "no-shows." Passengers are sometimes left behind or "bumped" as a result.



C2-MTL Flightfox




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