Weird (possibly normal) flight booking experience in Europe!

[Bugalugz]

Hi Guys,

Booked a flight through E-Dreams.com. They were the cheapest to fly Amsterdam to Copenhagen at around the AUD$100 mark vs $800 o/w on the KLM website but could book a return for around $120 (work that one out)

Anyways get the E-Ticket and go to "Manage My Booking" on the KLM website and low and behold it has booked me a return flight 2 weeks later. Obviously this was not requested/paid for/booked and thought this was an error so fired off an email to notify them of the error but received and email telling me that is how they offer cheap airfares one way and that the 2nd flight would be cancelled after we have flown the first one.

I guess its an interesting way of doing things and a bit of a work around as one ways in Europe seem to be horrifically expensive and one ways can be several hundred euros cheaper.

I guess this could be normal for an online travel agency so they can seem like they are offering the cheapest airfares....thought it was a pretty interesting way of doing things and thought i'd share to see if anyone else has booked a return and cancelled the return leg because of the massive price difference that can be present!

 

[markis10]

Booking a return you never will use is quite common, I suspect you paid over the odds though:

From Dreams to Scams – The eDreams Story « Koba's World

 

[anat0l]

One-ways costing much more (or being only available in higher fare buckets) than return tickets is a very normal practice in (usually non-LCC) air travel in Europe.

How interesting that eDreams works with throwaway ticketing. The practice is not uncommon, though the consequences (including nothing) are varied.

 

[openseat]

I've done it myself in Europe, but I'm careful to do it only on airlines where I have no record of travelling previously through a FF number. It has been for flights like LYS-FCO which are stupidly expensive one way.

 

[marks]

Pity they can't sell the return leg to someone else?

I used to do this alot back in the QF & Ansett days when you had "say a saturday night" and one-way tickets were full fares. I was travelling between cities in hire cars ad didn't want to back-track to get home. A TA put my company on to it and saved us a fortune!

Cheers.

 

[Robert Qld]

I hate these ultra expensive one way tickets that seem to be common with a lot of the legacy carriers in the EU.

I know from experience LH & AB seem to have normal priced one ways (maybe something in the German regulations? Dunno!) and I've often found it much better easier (and not that much more inconvienient) just allow myself be routed through Frankfurt, Munich or Düsseldorf for a quarter of the cost then flying direct.