Hi all,
Myself and the OH have a few weeks to do some travelling next month. Prices for flights are fairly high because we left it so late.
Was wondering if anyone has had any experience with just rocking up to the airport and putting their names down on standby for different countries?! How do you go about doing it?
We are open to taking a flight Ex Perth to anywhere warm really.
Cheers in advance.
I havent seen standby fares for some time, its so 80's and earlier…
But given an experience we had with family/staff tickets on Virgin, you might decide its not worth the hassle, I know I will never do it.
Domestic flights probably not as bad, but international it fraught with issues.
The experience.
Rocking up to LA airport for a flight to Sydney at 10PM (the only flight times) found we were one of 20 on these tickets. In end NOT one of the 20 flew so we all had to find accommodation at around midnight, not too much of an issue but no cheap accommodation deals for last minute bookings, lugging 4 bags full of US shopping etc and the next few nights flights Virgin was already overbooked. So we had to battle to get a cheap one way fare on another airline, plus being in LA for a day without a car, or paying for another day.
So not only did we have the hassles, each day waiting was just adding to the cost, which you have been reluctant to pay (saving money is why you are going standby)
Even with confirmed seats you do have some risk
BTW we made it back the next day with tickets of $1100 one way via Hong Kong (vs market rates of $1800 for direct flights) If we had normal RT tickets at the original booking time, the RT fare at that time would have been $1500.