Monday, March 26, 2007

Somebody's Trippin'

I mentioned yesterday about the difficulty of trying to book a trip to Las Vegas for the Wife and my 10th anniversary.

When I found a really good price, then clicked on it, it was "no longer available."

Still, I'm playing their silly little games of looking for vacation packages for Las Vegas. And I've noticed something odd.

Every plane in this half of the nation goes through in Atlanta. I knew that. You can't go to Hell without changing planes in Atlanta. So everywhere I checked involved traveling through Atlanta on the way to Las Vegas.

Flying out of Columbus was more expensive than flying out of Atlanta, as you might expect, since it goes through Atlanta. But it was cheaper to fly out of Montgomery. Even though we changed planes in Atlanta.

But then, after being dissatisfied with the rates I've found, I decided to look at other places. And another big airport in the southeast is the one in Jacksonville. I've flown out of that airport before. So, I checked prices there.

Lo, and behold! It's cheaper to fly from Jacksonville to Atlanta to Las Vegas than it is to fly from Atlanta to Las Vegas. On the same plane.

Expedia JAX to LASCheck out this picture. Notice it says leaving JAX at 9:06 am on Delta 1548 heading to Atlanta, then flying out on Delta 645 to Las Vegas, arriving at 12:21 pm. Then flying back on Delta 724, leaving Las Vegas at 1:25 pm, changing to Delta 761 in Atlanta, then flying on to Jacksonville.

Expedia ATL to LASNow, check out this picture. Notice that it says flying out of Atlanta on Delta 645 to Las Vegas, arriving at 12:21 pm. Then flying back on Delta 724, leaving Las Vegas at 1:25 pm to Atlanta.

Both trips involve staying at Harrah's for four nights.

And the Jacksonville trip costs $819.40 while the Atlanta trip totals $1,065.80.

So, suppose a couple left out of Jacksonville, and the Wife and I flew out of Atlanta. Here's what would happen. They'd leave out of JAX, land at Hartsfield, the Wife and I would get on the plane with them, and we'd go to Vegas. We would stay in the same hotel in equal rooms. Then, four days later, we'd get on the same plane back, we'd get off in Atlanta, and they'd fly on back to the Bold New City of the South.

And we'd pay $246.40 more then they did.

It doesn't make sense.

Unless they think that folks in Georgia ain't got no better sense than to pay 20% more than folks in Florida.

And, according to those travel sites, they'd be right.

3 comments:

  1. There are direct flights from New York to Vegas that are very cheap, such as on Jet BLue. Perhaps it would be cheaper to fly to New York first then to Vegas?

    ReplyDelete
  2. [...] on the same plane eventually then out of other airports. This one is well worth a look and a read. Full post here Swap This These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new [...]

    ReplyDelete

Please choose a Profile in "Comment as" or sign your name to Anonymous comments. Comment policy