Korean Job Discussion Forums

[some waygug-in]

I've been looking into heading off to Spain for a while and try to straighten my brain up a bit after my latest Korean experience.

I've checked all the on-line ticket places I know of and they all seem to be approximately the same price.........$2,000 US.

So I asked a Korean teacher what she thought and she said it's way too expensive. She phoned a travel agent and said I could get a 3 month open ticket for 1 million K won.

What gives here? I thought on-line was supposed to be the cheapest way to go. What am I missing?

Cheers

[Gwangjuboy]

I think you have confused the terminology. You can go into a travel agents and still be issued with an e-ticket. Just as you can order on line and still be issued a standard airline ticket.

[some waygug-in]

OK, why can't I get a decent price on-line then?

[agraham]

Probably becuase if you could all the travel agents would go out of business.

[Swiss James]

yeah I was booking a flight to Hong Kong this week and couldn't get a price under 800 US Dollars. When I gave up trying to use the various confusing sites I tried a travel agents who fixed me up for 430,000 won.
Massive price difference, I don't understand it, online used to be cheaper.

[some waygug-in]

I'm just curious as to whether or not this is a Korean thing or are these sites that much more expensive back home too?


Perhaps it's cause my Korean isn't good enough to use a hangeul ticket search........ MMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Travel agents back in Canada were complaining that on-line ticket sales were hurting their business 2 years ago, as I recall. So perhaps ...............................................

[Derrek]

It's a website/airline thing.

The airlines figure that if you're a foreigner travelling overseas, you'll go to their website and look at it in English. You get discriminated against because they figure most people (or at least enough people) won't bother trying to book a ticket in a foreign country. Look at it in English, and BLAM, you're paying top rate. Book through a Korean site (or a Japanese, site, etc.) and you'll get the lower rates.

You can get great online prices back home, but they charge a "premium" charge to book international flights from outside of the home area (at least Northwest does that).

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Koreans are paying high rates to book flights in the USA using a Korean website, as well.

[Hagwon Muppet]

It all depends what site you use.

Most of the airline sites are quoting you the retail non-discounted price.

Some other discount websites will have access to discount fares but unless you book well in advance they might all be gone.

Using a travel agent they might have access to other tickets, know other ways to get discounted tickets or take a low profit on a ticket because businesss is slow, etc etc etc

If a website was better than personal service then all the shops would be closed by now!

[some waygug-in]

Thanks for your replies. What Derrek says makes sense, as far as travel agents, it's way cheaper to book your own tickets on-line back home. (or at least it was last time I was there)

The sites I used claimed to be quoting "e-ticket prices" and as such are supposed to be cheaper.

Any hoooooooooo.

I shall be consulting a travel agent for this venture.

Take care and stay safe.

Cheers

[schwa]

All this discussion begs the question: why is the cost of plane tickets so arbitrary? Bus, train, almost any mode of transport -- you wanna go from A to B, heres the fare.

Why is air travel different? Just curious, anyone know?

[the eye]

commission....and how much each agent is willing to let go.

[Swiss James]

also there are different price codes for airlines depending on how flexible you need the ticket to be. Some price codes demand you stay away one Saturday night, some that you leave at least 3 days between outward/return, some can only be sold a month in advance etc. etc.

In short- cos the price someone is prepared to pay to get from A to B varie0s a lot, and the airlines try to take advantage of this using complicated rules.

[plattwaz]

[mishlert]

You can to anywhere in Western Europe for KW 699,000 till 5/31
If that is too soon, you can pay KW 880,000 and fly during the Summer.
The airline is Lufthansa.

[chiaa]

derreck is 100% correct on this.