Flight advice needed

[Eireann]

Finally, I'm going to spend the holidays with family this year. I made my plans (though I didn't book a ticket) before I had the knee surgery. Having had said surgery, I am even less inclined to fly economy, with the limited legroom. I want to fly business class, so that I can stretch out. I have point with British Airways, and I found that their business seats fold into a bed, which is even better.

Now, as we all now, once you get out of sardine class, the prices increase dramatically. Any tips for flying business without having to pay a huge sum?

[EricKei]

I can only offer general tips:

- Book well in advance

- Weekends and holidays (obviously) tend to be busier, and hence, more expensive.

- Be flexible with your times - the red-eye flights (leaving before 6am or maybe even 5am) will often be cheaper and have fewer passengers on them (=more room)

- If you use websites to get pricing, either clear your cookies first or use Private/incognito mode -- just some way of preventing them from detecting your location. Prices are often tailored to the region, and not in a good way (from the customer perspective).

- After getting a good idea of pricing from sites, consider just calling the airline up directly to do your booking. They may be cheaper than the websites, or willing to price-match. They may also have some sort of accomodation available for your knee issue.

[wolfie]

Have you considered a bulkhead seat in economy? This is the first row of seats after a (surprise) bulkhead in the plane, and generally has more legroom than an ordinary row. Exit rows also have more legroom, but your surgery would disqualify you from those (only people who would be able to assist in an emergency are allowed to be seated there). Talk to an airline representative, explain your issue, and ask how you can get the legroom you need.

[bacchinalus]

Did you tell the airline that you recently had surgery? After my first heart surgery, the flights I took actually had the flight attendants help me on/off the plane with a wheelchair, as well as get through security faster. Plus, even though my carry-on was small (so I could handle it myself), they even helped load that up for me.

It is really worth it to see what kind of accommodations they will allow, if you've got a doctor's note or anything of the sort.

[Aragarthiel]

- If you use websites to get pricing, either clear your cookies first or use Private/incognito mode -- just some way of preventing them from detecting your location. Prices are often tailored to the region, and not in a good way (from the customer perspective).

To add to this, tickets are sometimes cheaper if you use another country's version of the same site. For example, if I used the US site to look at prices for a flight, then look at the exact same flight's prices using the Canadian site, it may very well be cheaper.