Is it really cheaper or am I just splitting fares?

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Picture this scenario. You live in the Washington area, and next summer you would like to spend a few days in London, and then you would like to fly on to Greece. The plan looks like this. You will leave Washington on July 14, 2007. Then you will travel to Athens on July 21. You would like to stay there until August 5. There is a late flight out of Athens on August 5, and you can take the onward leg back to Washington on August 6.

Using the BA site and selecting the lowest possible and most restricted fare, This journey will set you back $2,294, and that includes $341.81 in taxes. Quite a lot!

Now there is nothing you can do about these dreadful taxes, but there are a few tricks you can do to play with the fare. Try this. Still using the BA site, book the Washington to London flight as one trip picking the very same flight, and the trip to London will cost $985.71, including taxes of $288.71. Then buy another ticket and book exactly the same flights to and from Athens. The total fare for the Athens trip will be GBP (British Pounds) 168.20 or $328.64 in US dollars. So the total for your trip will turn out to be $1,314.35 — a total savings of 979.65!

And if you worry that British Airways will use their computers to track you down and hate you for ever, you could always use another airline for the London to Washington leg. There are all sorts of airlines offering low cost trips out of London to many European airports.

For example, using EasyJet (www.easyjet.com), the trip to Greece from London’s Gatwick airport would cost GBP 150.52, and that includes a travel insurance policy as well as taxes.

Good luck searching for cheap flights. And remember that two tickets are often cheaper than one!