Observations on airfare MHT ORD PDX

[coffeeseven]

ORD - Chicago O'Hare International
PDX  - Portland International
MHT - Manchester Boston Regional Airport

In planning a cross country trip to visit a pal in Oregon I began playing with American Airlines online fare finder. I played with the dates and got the cheapest flight could 12/17 return 12/24 ORD to PDX and back. $189 not bad.

Just for giggles I thought I would reset the trip ORD to MHK and MHK to PDX. I found out I can get a really cheap flight from ORD to MHT for $89 roundtrip, but MHT to PDX is $30 cheaper than ORD to PDX.

How can it be cheaper to fly from NH to OR than IL to OR? Airline weirdness?

[error]

MHK? You going to the middle of the Kansas prairie?

[les nessman]

   If you have the time, you can find all sorts of interesting things when looking at fares, and some of them can
save you money.

[KBCraig]

Just for giggles I thought I would reset the trip ORD to MHK and MHK to PDX. I found out I can get a really cheap flight from ORD to MHK for $89 roundtrip, but MHK to PDX is $30 cheaper than ORD to PDX.

How can it be cheaper to fly from NH to OR than IL to OR? Airline weirdness?

Assuming you really mean MHT instead of MHK...

I've seen the same craziness here, where we only have a regional airport. When we researched our son flying home from California, it was cheaper for him to wait 8 hours to catch a regional puddle-jumper from DFW to TXK as part of a "complete journey", than it was to end his flight at DFW (and it was faster/cheaper for use to drive the 400 mile round trip to pick him up at DFW). The same flight that he came in on. The airlines even threatened to charge him the full amount if he got off at DFW and didn't make the connection to TXK.

[doobie]

Same reason why I used to fly all the time and the plane had maybe 10% capacity and the airlines weren't hurting and now they are filled to capacity++, and hurting.

[coffeeseven]

Haha Kansas was not the intended destination. Corrected.

Now if that's not screwed up enough a round trip from Chicago to Manchester is $89. A one way is $139. So what's to keep a person from buying a round trip and ooops missing the return flight?

That is if NH was their intended destination.