It costs a lot to get on one of these

I don’t mean particularly expensive. They just often don’t make sense.

I’m looking at booking my next flight from London to wherever. I’m checking out flights to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Australia and Japan (Osaka and Tokyo). The prices of these trips, on the whole, make sense when you stack them against each other mile for mile.

However, one of my options is Bangkok via Doha, Qatar. Now, I’ve not been to Qatar before so it would be nice to see the place – and 1hr 50 minutes just isn’t enough. The problem with booking via websites, though, is that you can’t negotiate extended stopovers and you never know if you’ll be able to after you’ve booked.

So the next logical step is to manually check the options by splitting the flight. Here are the details I got using Kayak.co.uk although I’m sure I’d get similar mad figures from Expedia or wherever else:

London Gatwick to Bangkok via Doha: £353 (Qatar Airways)

Gatwick to Doha: £310 (Turkish Airlines)

Doha to Bangkok: £254 (Gulf Air)

All well and good, and you kind of expect that in a way. However, what makes no sense whatsoever is the cost of Qatar Airways’ flight from Gatwick to Doha. Bear in mind, this is the exact same flight I’d be on were I to take the route via Doha.

£873

Yes. £873. That’s around 2-and-a-half times more than it costs to fly for further, on the same route, on the same plane, with the same airline.

What I may do is contact Qatar Airlines and say I’m planning on getting the Bangkok ticket and if it’s possible to extend my stopover. If I get a quick reply, I should be able to buy the original ticket, then contact them direct again to get them to change it.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Actually, it reminds me that Andy told me last year he paid about half the cost for a flight to the US from the UK… going via Australia.

Quick Update: Going onto Qatar Airlines own page and booking a multi-part trip, I got the price down to £464. This was without using the rather insane option of going from Doha to Bangkok via Frankfurt or London… I’m still going to try to contact them to see if it would be cheaper to buy the original ticket and then change the second leg. Only I’m struggling to get their “Contact Us” page to work properly.

Specifically, it’s my wallet that’s now aching after I just paid for two flights, two trains and some accommodation. The main issue is the huge jump in price for air fares between Iceland and Denmark and from there to Geneva. When I re-checked only 2 weeks ago, both legs were available for around £65 each.

I just coughed up £150 for the first leg and £100 for the second. Ouch.

So lesson to be learned: if you see a cheap flight price, don’t dick about. Get it and then worry about your scheduling afterwards.

It’s partly my fault as I left it ages before I mailed some folk on Couchsurfing.com to get some accommodation. I’m staying in the HI Hostel for my first night in Reykjavik as I arrive far too late to turn up on someone’s doorstep. After that, I’ll be staying with a Mexican and a Venezualan. In Iceland. Figures.

I’ve not had any luck with accommodation in Copenhage either. It seems it’s a busy time for students to ba handing coursework in and most replies have come back “Sorry – but we’ll meet for a drink in the evening!”. Which does sound good in its own way.

I’ve updated the travel calendar with details.

The trains are from Perth down to London via Newcastle where I hope to pop into the dentist‘s and also to see some friends for a night or two. I still have to book my next Bangkok flight (or similar), which will be towards the end of the month. And dent my bank balance even more.