well I fell in love with a gal from England and I am going to have to save all my money to fly back and fourth until we get married sometime next year. so as much as I want to buy some older motorcycles I can't right now at least this year .

a reality check set in when my gf bought a ticket to the states for june and flying back in july.. well it was 390 pounds which at the time would be about $441 so I tried to get on the same plane to fly back with her which was on air Canada , so I called them and they said that it would cost me $1100 dollars for a round trip ticket... so I sit. scratch my head , pause then respond... "what?!!" $1100 what the heck is up with that its like the same plane same ticket yet im paying over double ... they said yes so I said " is this some sort of American Punishment because everyone hates us or something?" they said the airlines gives discounts to people in the UK so they will bring business to Canada and the states... still it pissed me off. no matter what I do if the ticket originates in the states its gonna be over double the cost always. it cost 308$ to fly to LAX from RIC which is about the same exact distance to fly to London from RIC... and even flying out of Dulles (DC) to London its way overpriced. so really there is no reason for the high cost but GREED and RAPE of people flying out of the states .

any ideas on deals to the UK?


I am really going to have to find some deals too. because we are going to have an English wedding so that means flying a lot of family to the UK! that is a lot and I mean A LOT of money!

You can save a little bit of money by not paying your income tax this year.  Apparently that's perfectly acceptable as long as you apologize..........geez Al Capone got a pretty raw deal when you think about it.......instead of jail time he should have been nominated to Secretary of Commerce.

wow dude...elope...

One thing you can do is buy a house for the first time...if you spend $75,000 or more you get a $7,500 loan from the government (paid back $500/yr at tax time for 15 years...interest free).  That's a couple of tickets.

Quote from: makenzie71 on February 02, 2009, 10:23:12 PM
wow dude...elope...

One thing you can do is buy a house for the first time...if you spend $75,000 or more you get a $7,500 loan from the government (paid back $500/yr at tax time for 15 years...interest free).  That's a couple of tickets.

yea we talked about it haha.

where exactly do I find information about this loan ?  I have money saved up for a house.

shes a great gal about it. but I need to meet her parents at least first . she is staying with me for a month in june then in sept and DEC/JAN 2010 we were thinking about setting the wedding up because rates are cheep in JAN FEB

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f5405.pdf

You have to do long form...which is easier than most people think...plus the 5405.  There's info about it on the irs' home page...or there was...if not they have a search feature, just plug in "$7,500" and it'll come up.  Big thing is you have to buy a home (first home) on or before July 1st of this year to qualify.

Between that, our stimulus check (should it ever come), and my tax return we're paying off Kalee's car, buying a tankless water heater, doing our kid's chord blood registry, and then sitting on anything else and shooting anyone who comes with hands out...

Ive Been looking the other way round , im wanna come to the old US , and plane tickets are the 300 quid mark , where abouts in england is she from , i want to get accent in my head lol

What if she buys your ticket in the UK?

Quote from: GI_JO_NATHAN on February 03, 2009, 05:23:24 AM
What if she buys your ticket in the UK?

I tried that, its if it originates in the US. basically you have to be coming from another country into the US to get the deals, no matter who you are if you buy a ticket coming out of the us outside of a roundtrip ticket you pay more.

can you fly from canada for a cheaper rate? 

Quote from: jserio on February 03, 2009, 03:44:24 PM
can you fly from canada for a cheaper rate? 

hm now there is an idea. its not that much of a distance , could always rent a car and drive it straight for a day , fly back into the states. will check out. thanks!

hmm. where will you be residing when married ? i'm thinking there will still be allot of travel to visit friends/relatives after the wedding.

enjoy the chase !

The states.. here in Richmond va...



I checked out Canada to London .. I save about 300 and some off dollars but then I still have to get to canada so I think ill just pay the extra doe .
yea by then it wont be so bad saving money between the two of us to go see her family. I make enough now to save and go see her but it is kind of the principle of it all. I have never been rich and now that I have money I dont want to blow it just because I have it.

You'd pay way more than 300 between gas and one-way rental fees trying to rent a car to drive up to canada.  Probably about 300 for the rental and that's if you find two 'one way' sites  that work well for your purpose.

Quote from: spc on February 04, 2009, 07:35:30 AM
You'd pay way more than 300 between gas and one-way rental fees trying to rent a car to drive up to canada.  Probably about 300 for the rental and that's if you find two 'one way' sites  that work well for your purpose.

Exactly! Ian just going to pay for the ticket and fly out with her . Oh well you win some and you lose some. After all it's just money and she's more important.

Where in UK does she live? flying to some of the regional airports can be a lot cheaper than london Heathrow and Gatwick. If you want to get to southeast UK check out Manston/Kent International, quite a few charter flights from US fly into there often with passengers joining cruise ships I think they come from Charlston (?). Often there are cheap flights available indicating that the planes are not always full so seats are "dumped"
There are loads of regional airports, get your GF to suss out the nearest couple to her and have a trawl around on the net. Also check out flying to Schipol in holland it is a "hub" with lots of cheapo airlines offering connecting services and its only about 30 mins from any English airport, check out Paris there are loads of ways of getting from paris to UK, Dublin might be worth a look too. I know that changing can be a pain but it can save a lot and if you are hand baggage only its no hassle really.

well put cal.    although i live in the states and have only flown in the states, i've found that the tickets get cheaper the more times you change planes. doesn't makes sense to me but that seems to be the trend.

Yes, it is crazy. My son's partner is Spanish and she has family in the Canary Islands. They often fly there and changing planes in Spain makes it much cheaper - weird but true.

Years ago a mate wanted a "best price" UK to Australia and it turned out to be a cheapo holiday charter to Athens then change to Aeroflot for Athens to Oz (Scary!)

right now she lives in coventry but her home town is plymouth.

im flying into london in July with her

got a pic of the lucky gal? grats man 

Remember what I said on your other topic, about responsibility?
$1000 plane tickets for the rest of your life, about once a year or so.  In her mind, she's expecting you to shell out that kind of dough whenever she's homesick.  It's part of marrying an American, to her.  You may have told her you're not rich, but it's what she's thinking. 


But, only if you want to keep her happy.  Not that it's a big deal. 


And you think that's expensive?  Try Christmas.  Or when your kids need tickets too.  At Christmas. 
And you're only flying to England.  Some of us have to fly further, with connecting flights in London, Warsaw (maybe Prague). 


I do know a trick to keep you from spending so much money, but I'm thinking of withholding it until you show me a little gratitude for spending so long trying to help you earlier.