Article: Your Ticket’s “Point Of Origin” Could Cost You Hundreds

[AFF Editor]

Your Ticket’s “Point Of Origin” Could Cost You Hundreds is an article written by AFF editorial staff:

Your Airline Ticket's "Point Of Origin" Could Cost You Hundreds

The Point Of Origin (where the first sector departs) and Point Of Sale on airline tickets affects the price and availability of flights.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[LondonAussie]

So the article says:

base fares on itineraries departing Australia are typically higher than fares from other countries to Australia.

But over the years I've always found it to be the opposite with UK to Australia fare being much higher than Australia to UK fares. So much so that many Aussies living in the UK will buy a one-way back to Australia to then start a cycle of 12 month return tickets from Australia back to the UK.

 

[SYD]

This is quite relevant to the reoccurring question on forums of whether to book return rewards (which quite often means waiting for the return date to become available and risk loosing the outbound) or two oneway tickets (book them as they become available).

For Oz to overseas, the consensus here seems to be book one-ways and don’t even bother calling up to add the return flight (because “it will price the same”, other than currency used in the PoS for the return flight). This article suggests otherwise and I have experienced this myself.

For example, a few years ago we booked seperate SYD-LAX // LAX-SYD 2x QF J rewards. The return flight fees seemed excessive and I think we ended up paying almost double in total compared to a return reward redemption. Interestingly, I looked at the same itinerary a few months ago and 2x one-ways was pricing more or less the same as a return.

It certainly pays to research the oneway / return fees before you try and book.

 

[Gold Member]

Aside from the obvious, a key point from Matt’s article is:

“the “carrier charge” component goes directly to the operating airline and is essentially just an arbitrary fee.”

So the likes of Qantas, BA, Emirates etc are just taking you for a ride while lining their Executives and Shareholders’ pockets. Vote with your wallet, change/abandon your affiliation with these type of Frequent Flyer Programs as necessary.

 

[gkgkgk]

Thank you for this article. It was very helpful to learn how the Point Of Origin impacts the YQ/YR in this article.

If I understood correctly... say if my RTW journey begins in Sydney, all remaining sectors, regardless of which carriers or if open jaws are involved, each carriers would consider Sydney as my point of origin when calculating the YQ/YR, is this right?

Or does a carrier begin counting the Point of Origin only when their aircraft are involved in a particular section for the first time? (For example, if I fly BA from SYD to SIN, then JL from SIN to HND, does JL consider SYD or SIN as the point of origin for YQ/YR on the SIN to HND flight?)

Thanks!

 

[Mattg]

Thank you for this article. It was very helpful to learn how the Point Of Origin impacts the YQ/YR in this article.

If I understood correctly... say if my RTW journey begins in Sydney, all remaining sectors, regardless of which carriers or if open jaws are involved, each carriers would consider Sydney as my point of origin when calculating the YQ/YR, is this right?

Or does a carrier begin counting the Point of Origin only when their aircraft are involved in a particular section for the first time? (For example, if I fly BA from SYD to SIN, then JL from SIN to HND, does JL consider SYD or SIN as the point of origin for YQ/YR on the SIN to HND flight?)

Thanks!

If you have a multi-city/RTW booking where the first flight departs from Sydney, the POO (unfortunate acronym) for all flights on the same ticket is Sydney/Australia.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

One thing to check with flights starting outside Australia is your insurance cover.

Most policies require you to have return travel and tickets, and sometimes this needs to be purchased prior to departing from Australia.

Nesting tickets - buying one way ex AU and then return tickets from overseas to AU - can invalidate some policies either because the round-trip was not purchased in its entirety before leaving, or because the nesting of tickets takes you outside the trip duration of an annual policy.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

One item that wasn't discussed in the article was the use of award miles as an effective way to position oneself for cheaper fares (be it cash or award). In particular sometimes the cost in points to get to somewhere in Europe to set yourself up for that cheap fare can be relatively low using points (i.e. LHR to CPH is like 6000 Avios IIRC and that tends to be a city of cheap ex-EU fares).

But over the years I've always found it to be the opposite with UK to Australia fare being much higher than Australia to UK fares. So much so that many Aussies living in the UK will buy a one-way back to Australia to then start a cycle of 12 month return tickets from Australia back to the UK.

This has not been my experience. Indeed, the last time I had to fly UK to Australia (January 2020), I found an excellent economy fare on United - LHR > SYD return for ~$1100 CAD (~$900 USD):



And the cherry on top? My points upgrade to Polaris Business class went through for only 35,000 miles + $600 USD co-pay (since I was on a cheap K fare). Not bad for 32 hours of Polaris service on the outbound!

This is quite relevant to the reoccurring question on forums of whether to book return rewards (which quite often means waiting for the return date to become available and risk loosing the outbound) or two oneway tickets (book them as they become available).

For Oz to overseas, the consensus here seems to be book one-ways and don’t even bother calling up to add the return flight (because “it will price the same”, other than currency used in the PoS for the return flight). This article suggests otherwise and I have experienced this myself.

A benefit of booking a one-way is there is a bit more flexibility on the tickets. If something goes awry and you need to make changes you only touch part of the itinerary rather than the whole thing. This can also be beneficial depending on routing rules with certain frequent flyer programs.

If you have a multi-city/RTW booking where the first flight departs from Sydney, the POO (unfortunate acronym) for all flights on the same ticket is Sydney/Australia.

Point of Sale can make a huge difference all else being equal. I had a colleague who needed to fly United Polaris from India to Canada. Booking the ticket out of India or Canada worked out to something like $5000 USD whereas booking it on a US travel agent (i.e. Expedia.com) resulted in a 3,200 USD fare for the same flights!

A related concern is that of plating. Sometimes the exact same flight and fare but plated with another airline can make prices go down too. For instance, for a long time in Canada it was substantially cheaper to book Air Canada business fares from Toronto to San Francisco on United.com (having it ticket as a United marketed flight).

-RooFlyer88

 

[JohnK]

For many years I used to book return airfares ex-SIN or ex-BKK to Australia as they were much cheaper. No seasonality and school holidays did not affect the airfares.

For quite a few years those airfares have caught up and with exchange rates could even be more expensive.