Business Travelers, Possible Reduced Fare to LOS

[MrDK]

I have been planning a personal trip to LOS for early February, when a Business trip to Europe came up for the following week. Ordinarily I would have flown New York - BKK, then on a separate ticket to Paris the week after.

I thought that if I go to Europe and use Paris as a base for the BKK flight I might be able to save a few bucks. Turns out that Paris to BKK is about the same price as NY - BKK. Then I checked the price of a single ticket NY - BKK - Paris - NY. Turns out that it was cheaper than just the ticket to Paris from NY.

I showed the pricing samples to the company, which allows you to add segments or stop-overs for personal use if you pay the difference yourself. In this case it was a slight savings to the company, meaning a free trip for me. The catch here is that I am allowed to purchased coach fares for business purposes that are upgradeable using miles or coupons (not full fare, but not the cheapest either). The combined ticket is not upgradeable, however, I got a free trip to Thailand. Even without the benefit of being allow to buy upgradable tickets, I would still have saved a good amount of money.

Perhaps others who travel for business can take advantage of similar benefits.

[stevem]

Not so uncommon, SYD/BKK/LAX is cheaper than SYD/LAX in business class.