I think I've found a way to save a little money on extortionate last minute Swiss flights.

I needed to book a flight this week to London. Going out I was going to use EasyJet but since there are no convenient evening flights back to Basel I looked at booking just the return leg using Swiss and the cost was 350CHF. Using Swiss both there and back came up to 600CHF.

However if you go to the Swiss (UK) website and pick that same flight from UK > CH (as part of a return) it only costs 100CHF, then pick a return date sometime in the distant future (December) and you can get the whole flight for something like 170CHF. Obviously I have no intention of using the return leg, but it means my return flight is suddenly half the price of a dedicated single.

Looking at the T&C there is nothing about having to use the return leg of your ticket. In addition I once had to cancel my Swiss return leg after I chose to extend my stay in the UK (on a non-flexible ticket). The customer service agent thanked me for alerting him of the cancelation, and apologised profusely that he could not refund me the cost of my ticket... so basically if you don't turn up, they won't try and claw anything back.

Therefore to cut a long story short, on some flights a return is substantially cheaper than a single.

Thoughts??

Have done that many times around Europe, across the pond, and within the U.S.

1. Book return trip
2. Fly first leg.
3. Don't use return leg.

Works great.

It is also fun to check air fare on different country versions of the same airline's Web site ... Lufthansa.de quoted $690 for a flight STR - DFW and back where Lufthansa.com sold it to me for $620.

To be honest, these legacy airlines deserve everything they get. Why should a single cost more than a return? And why should a Swiss customer pay more than a British one?

Just last month I did the same with Delta and saved myself 300 sfr...

One thing to do as well is to empty your browser's cache before you go and look on the different version of the website - sometimes the cookie info is stored and is universal for the site, regardless of which country you select.

Same goes for using services like expedia or ebookers - if you've come there once looking for a price on a flight and then return, you're sometimes shown a higher price than someone coming in fresh to look for the flight.

It's not just the airlines. I've saved money using ebookers.de instead of ebookers.ch for the very same flight.

Flyging to Spain though, it is actally 50% cheaper to fly CH-Spain-CH than to fly Spain-CH-Spain. So if you fly a lot on the same route, it is worth checking where you "start" your flights.

Another travel saver is to check Friedrichshafen or Stuttgart vs. Zurich as a departure airport - saved me USD / CHF 300 a head (x 4) to take the 2 hr drive to Stuttgart instead of the 30 min drive to Zurich.

Great tips but don't forget Karlsruhe-Baden for Ryanair flights to London, Rome, Barcelona, Stockholm etc.. its only 2 hours from Basel by train.

Here is an email I sent and the reply from Swiss earlier this year:
Didn't end up doing it but it would appear that if you know in advance you can even cancel the return leg and get the credit (-fees) for next time!

I used to do this a lot, but came unstuck when I got my outward and returns mixed up, if you do not use the outbound they cancel the return. an expensive mistake by me, overall must have saved a lot during 18 months of commuting.

I have used it occasionally before - however, you need to be careful - technically if the airline finds out that this is what you have done then they could cancel your entire flight. This is typically more likely to be noticed if you do "crossover" leg flights which is technically illegal. For example - let's say you know you need to go back and forth to the UK from CH over a period of 4 weeks - and you would like to fly Monday mornings and return Friday evenings each week. Now typically Saturday night stays are cheaper than weekday only flights. So, what you do is book a return ticket on your first Monday morning flight to London with a return date for the LAST friday evening back 4 weeks later. Then for the three trips in between you book return tickets from London to Zurich - so Friday evening with a return on Monday morning. This way all 4 trips have a "Saturday night" implied stay - one for the outside leg return trip in London and 3 "weekend" stays in Zurich. As I said, this is technically illegal to do and if the airlines catch you they will cancel any remaining flights and charge you the full fare as if you had done the trips appropriately. If you do this, you should use two different airlines - one for the outer legs and another for the three inner legs.

I can't comment on the legal situation, however this is very common practise for the travel agencies I use for business travel. If they make bookings with ficticious dates, they ask me when I will travel there next time, to try and use the "throw-away" tickets. So not only do we save money but we get two trips for the price of one.

It definitely makes sense to play around with various options, especially if you'll be making another trip to the same place.

I do this often but the other way round. If I have left my car here and check on the UK website for a single they will only sell you an expensive ticket. So I always book a return back to the UK and sometimes use it.
I have never had a problem.

I note that Evilshell says to "cache your browser" How does one go about doing this

Go to "Tools" and "Internet Options" and one of the tabs there gives you the option to empty your browsing history, cookies, temp internet files, etc.

Same loophole works with the ferries.
When I left UK, I took the Ferry Hull-Zeebrugge. That would have cost ca. £250 pound oneway with car. a bit expensive, when they advertise with weekend trips from £150(?) return.
So I booked my return ticket as one of the short channel ferries like Calais Dover, and ended up paying around £140-160. When I had the ticket, it was printed on it, that If I only used the ticket out, they would bill me the difference up to a one way ticket, but they did not do it.

Doc.