Playing with itineraries for my Le Mans trip.....
1. I hate searching for fares. I consider myself good at this and mainly use ITA Matrix with advanced routing codes to find the flights I want at the times I want on the airlines I want, but have been running into some frustration with the results I've been finding. Did 3 searches that theoretically should have given me the same results, but they didn't.
First I searched Toronto (YYZ)-Paris (CDG)-YYZ, with no restrictions on layovers. Could be non-stop, could have 1, 2, 3 or more stops. Got one set of results.
Next I searched YYZ-CDG-*-YYZ. A round trip with a single forced layover on the return journey anywhere. Theoretically this should be a subset of the first search, however, I got several flights that weren't shown before that were cheaper than those shown in the first set. I did make sure to disable "hacker fares", only showing single itineraries to make it comparable to the first set of results.
Third I searched YYZ-CDG-AMS-YYZ. A round trip with a single forced layover in Amsterdam on the return trip. Again, theoretically this should be a subset of the second search, but again, I got flights that weren't shown before, and again, some that were cheaper than shown in the 2nd search. I chose AMS because some of the cheapest flights in the 2nd search result had stops there. Again, "hacker fares" were disabled to ensure apples-to-apples results.
Last I searched YYZ-CDG, CDG-AMS, AMS-YYZ. A multi-city itinerary with the same schedule as the cheapest flight found in step 3. Understandably this flight was more expensive since there was no formal round trip on this ticket. Again, no "hacker fares".
I understand that ticket pricing has a million variables, from ticket class to length of stay in each city, but its still annoying. And yeah, I get that there are literally tens if not hundreds of thousands of combinations and even the most powerful flight search engine cannot possibly search all of them so it shows the most logical combinations, so I'm not trying to change anything, just venting my frustration. Plus I'm sure I could most definitely find cheaper flights by opening up the searches to "hacker fares", but those carry inherent risk since you lose all protections if one flight is late and you miss your next flight.
2. Next annoyance. Flights from Toronto are at least $1,500 cheaper than from Detroit (DTW). Its only a 3.5 hour drive, so that's clearly a no-brainier. At one point I found a flight that was YYZ-DTW-CDG-DTW-YYZ for $1,200 less than an itinerary from DTW on those very same flights. Airlines generally don't let you skip the first leg of a trip, but I tried to play the "environmentalist" game and called the airline with the argument saying "for a $1,200 savings I'm obviously going to drive my car to Toronto and back, but that wouldn't be very green of me with all the CO2 emissions from my car, nor would it be of you considering the extra CO2 emissions of your plane flying me back to Detroit, so how about you let me skip the first and last legs of that flight and we'll call it good." They didn't go for it, though thanks to my status with the airline they offered me a bunch of miles for the inconvenience if I bought that ticket. Was a nice gesture and very tempting since it was enough miles for a Detroit-Boston round trip ticket, but I wasn't quite ready to buy the ticket just yet.
3. And now to put my insanity on display, ladies and gentlemen, the flight that's my leading option right now. Found a YYZ-CDG-AMS-London (LHR)-BOS-YYZ for only $20 more than a nonstop YYZ-CDG round trip. For the same price, I could have my option of either an overnight in Amsterdam or an overnight in London. While this sounds like madness, this option gives me the ability to quickly see a 2nd city for effectively no extra cost. That and I actually don't mind flying and spending time in airports. Also helps that I get free lounge access when traveling internationally. Oh, and I'm a whore for miles and need to maintain my status
And yes, I've watched all the Wendover Productions videos regarding how airlines handle pricing and scheduling.