Not staying Saturday night

Any ideas on how to avoid paying a premium for not staying a Saturday night?

I just looked a few fares to LAX and the difference staying a Saturday and not is more than double.

It seems to me that recently this penalty has started to be applied again.

[preiffer]

It always has been. Simple reason for having the Sat. night penalty - business fliers don't stay weekends, so it's extra bucks for free.

Some people get around it by "sandwiching" two returns, one inside the other, making sure each covers the minimum stay requirements.

However, you're not *technically* supposed to do it and it relies on you knowing exactly when you might be returning in the future.

[Decker]

Would the special Z code trick described in the member's area help here?

Originally posted by Decker
Would the special Z code trick described in the member's area help here?

If you are referring to the same thing as I am thinking off (the fare basis one), I cannot see it really helping, but its a great wheeze though - it alone was worth paying my membership fee to find about.

It had seemed to me that the Saturday night stay had not been required when the airline were having problems selling tickets.

It is really rather ridiculus, with Saturday night £422, without £1200!!!

So Instead of heading home on Satruday stay an extra night at $80 and save £750.

[Decker]

Sailor

Yes - I was unsure whether the J flexibility encompassed Saturday nights .

My staff know that any flight abroad will always have a Saturday night stay built in for just this reason! We normally build it in at the BEGINNING of the week to help them get onto time zone. I genuinely cannot remember a time when this standard Apex fare rule did not apply?

As has been said, back to back ticketing is the way to get round it.

[fozzyo]

Originally posted by Sailor99
If you are referring to the same thing as I am thinking off (the fare basis one)

This sounds like a Pink & The Brain cartoon - are you pndering what i'm pondering?

There can be the occasional exception to the Saturday rule, I know Dean once got a reasonable Y fare to NY midweek.

Mat xxx

Originally posted by manymiles

So Instead of heading home on Satruday stay an extra night at $80 and save £750.

Not sure I see too much of a problem in that to be honest. Turn up early, bit of shopping, siteseeing, a good rest, then bang into frantic work Monday morning fighting fit. I have usually found people I am seeing are happy to work on the Sunday if I asked them to, but I am a bit of a ba$%t%d it has to be said!

Can you post a link to said Z code trick so that members can access it?

Paul

[fozzyo]

Back in the day when I did actually get some business trips I usually volunteerd to go out early / late so I could do some sight seeing over the weekend. Unfortunately the companies were never too keen to give me the cost savings as spending money. (

Mat xxx

[Decker]

With pleasure.

Originally posted by manymiles
It had seemed to me that the Saturday night stay had not been required when the airline were having problems selling tickets.

It is really rather ridiculus, with Saturday night £422, without £1200!!!

So Instead of heading home on Satruday stay an extra night at $80 and save £750.

Another way of making it a bit cheaper would be to book via Virgin Holidays. Flying out on a Monday, back on a Friday during April (3rd Ð 7th) was £670 (with the FC 10% discount) with VH, compared to £1235 for the same flights with VS.

The VH price also included accommodation, so I am not sure if there would be any penalty if you didnÕt show up at the hotel if you didnÕt need it, but you could call them when you arrive and make some kind of excuse!

I know £670 is not as good as £422, but if you really couldnÕt stay the Saturday night itÕs a lot better than £1235!

IÕve never tried this, and IÕm not really sure if it is a correct or ethical thing to do, it is just another idea.

[mitchja]

Whilst on the subject of Sat night fares, anyone else noticed how airlines actually word this, and I quote:

TRAVEL FROM LAST INTERNATIONAL STOPOVER MUST COMMENCE NO EARLIER THAN THE FIRST SUN AFTER DEPARTURE OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL SECTOR.

Why not just say a Saturday night is required!!

You can see how people get confused by airline fare rules [?]

Regards

[fozzyo]

Originally posted by mitchja
Whilst on the subject of Sat night fares, anyone else noticed how airlines actually word this, and I quote:

TRAVEL FROM LAST INTERNATIONAL STOPOVER MUST COMMENCE NO EARLIER THAN THE FIRST SUN AFTER DEPARTURE OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL SECTOR.

Why not just say a Saturday night is required!!

You can see how people get confused by airline fare rules [?]

Airlines or Lawyers?

Mat xxx

As a singleton, I always used to be quite keen to fly out a day earlier. Bit difficult to justify an extra free day in New York/Los Angeles etc. to the family though. Now if the company could think up an additional incentive....

Phil

[Decker]

Try "Daddy wants to keep his job".... gotta love those "or any place or time as reasonably directed by the company" clauses [:p]

Yes I love those too. But you never really appreciate how different people understand the term 'reasonable'.

Paul

[RichardMannion]

Papadoc knows his stuff... That is the other way of getting round the Saturday night requirement, though you could get a reduced airfare by lookign at flydrive offers instead of ones with accomodation.

Always worth checking with VH to see what fares are avaialble there as they have their block that they can use, I remember a few years ago where I could get Flydrives in Economy over £200 each cheaper than the lowest Ec fare on VS.com. One word of caution though, VH have started to sometimes use N class for Economy travel alongside V class, and of course you won't earn miles and Tp's unless its one of the specific N class routes.

Thanks,
Richard