Air Booking Sites

However, when booking a flight in Norwegian, it is worth choosing your website as explained below. Few month ago I resolved that a brief journey to Europe in November would be an great occasion to visit the Norwegian premium class (more on this in a forthcoming post), and began looking for viable routes home.

A number of studies on the ITA matrix showed that the least expensive route was London-Gatwick to Boston, with a specified premium class tariff of £399. Then I went to Norwegian's website, which quoted a $616.80 price. That' a great fares, but there was a situation. £1 = $1.32 when I bought this at the end of July.

This is either a terrible currency conversion or Norwegians charged US clients simply higher rates, I thought, but I suppose I should just look forward to fly home in business class for $616. Now, I recalled that every times I surfed on the Norwegian.com website, I was asked to select my favourite one.

A £399 tariff displayed on Matrix now appears. Using the above mentioned conversion rates, the ticket price was converted to approximately 527 US dollars. Now, the nasty message is that Norwegian, as is customary with Norwegian providers, is charging a charge for the payment by bank transfer of ticket purchases made through the Norwegian website, in this case 2%. The latter brought back a ticket price of 465 Euro before the payment of the trade charge.

Currency conversion at that point was about 1 = 1.10 $, which is about 521 $ (the map I used does not include charges for international business). Strangely enough, if you convert the cheapest bus price into US dollar, you get a lower price by buying in sterling instead of euro (178 $ for a denomination in sterling, 186 $ for a denomination in euro).

Normally the purchase in a overseas location results in approximately the same price as in the US location when converted into US dollar. This means, unless it is an error that occurs on one side or the other. Airline companies usually refresh currency quotes in near real-time, so it is uncommon to be able to sensibly arbitrate currency differentials unless you are a really fast draw.

Had I to advise, I would assume that Norwegians are simply rotten to update their currencies. It is also possible that they deliberately write down tariffs that are calculated in dollar. One way or another, if you're considering booking in Norwegian, it's worth checking the price in your local language and calculating the amount before you book.

Norway Air 787 at Los Angeles International Airport.