--- title: Use a Fake Location to Get Cheaper Plane Tickets description: Most people don’t know there is a simple trick to get a cheaper flight on an airline’s website canonical: https://time.com/3626031/fake-location-cheaper-plane-tickets/ author: Map Happy article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-09T19:47:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:44:26.754Z og:title: Use a 'Fake' Location to Get Cheaper Plane Tickets og:description: Most people don’t know there is a simple trick to get a cheaper flight on an airline’s website og:url: https://time.com/3626031/fake-location-cheaper-plane-tickets/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt53bed199ca1dde6a/69876db2cd1bba2c366f40d1/plane-ticket-passport.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5038 og:image:height: 2834 og:image:alt: Passport with boarding pass inside og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Use a 'Fake' Location to Get Cheaper Plane Tickets twitter:description: Most people don’t know there is a simple trick to get a cheaper flight on an airline’s website twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt53bed199ca1dde6a/69876db2cd1bba2c366f40d1/plane-ticket-passport.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Use a 'Fake' Location to Get Cheaper Plane Tickets > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Twice a week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: What is the safest place to sit on a plane? [Watch (HLS stream): What is the safest place to sit on a plane?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bJ6pkbGM.m3u8) (1:50)  _Published 2015-06-24. Where you should sit next time you get onboard_ by [Map Happy](https://time.com/author/map-happy/) ## Map Happy Dec 9, 2014 7:47 PM UTC  Passport with boarding pass inside Passport with boarding pass inside Getty Images by [Map Happy](https://time.com/author/map-happy/) ## Map Happy Dec 9, 2014 7:47 PM UTC I can’t explain airline pricing but I do know some plane tickets can be cheaper depending on where you buy them or, even better, where you _appear_ to buy them from. This is all about leveraging foreign currencies and points-of-sale to your advantage. For reasons I never quite understood, every time I tried to book a domestic flight in another country, the prices were always exorbitant. But, say, once I was in Bangkok, that same flight that was once $300 would fall to $30 almost inexplicably. This phenomenon is because a ticket’s [point-of-sale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point%5Fof%5Fsale)—the place where a retail transaction is completed—can affect the price of any flight with an international component. **Read more** [‘Seat kickers’ voted worst passengers on airplanes](http://time.com/3626138/seat-kickers-worst-passengers-airplanes/?iid=time%5Fspeed) Most people don’t know there is a simple trick for “changing” this to get a cheaper flight on an [airline’s website](http://maphappy.org/2013/05/why-you-should-book-through-a-foreign-airlines-home-country-website/); it’s how I managed to pay $371 for a flight from New York to Colombia instead of $500+. Though it can be used for normal international flights, it often works best when you’re buying domestic flights in another country. (Point in case: A Chilean friend once told me Easter Island flights were much cheaper to buy in Santiago instead of abroad.) ### PHOTOS: Beautiful Long Exposures of Airplanes at Night  College Point Blvd., College Point, Queens, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt  36th Ave., Flushing, Queens, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt  Hermon MacNeil Park, College Point, Queens, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt  Greenpoint, Brooklyn, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt  East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt for TIME  Greenpoint, Brooklyn, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt for TIME  Greenpoint, Brooklyn, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt for TIME  Queens Botanical Garden, Flushing, Queens, N.Y., June 2014. Kevin Kunstadt  Flushing, N.Y., July 2014. Kevin Kunstadt  Ocean Blvd., Atlantic Beach, N.Y., July 2014. Kevin Kunstadt for TIME  Spray View Ave., Far Rockaway, N.Y., July 2014. Kevin Kunstadt for TIME To demonstrate how this scheme works, we ran a one-way search from Cartagena to Bogotá—two cities in Colombia—for June 17 on Google ITA, Kayak and Skyscanner. To keep things simple, I’ll ignore a VivaColombia flight that Skyscanner found because Google ITA and Kayak do not include smaller airlines in their searches. Instead, we’ll be comparing two large airlines that fly this route, LAN Airlines and Avianca. **Read more** [5 ways to be an airplane aggravation](http://time.com/3258571/5-ways-to-be-an-airplane-aggravation/?iid=time%5Fspeed) Unsurprisingly, Kayak takes a U.S.-centric approach. Going the path of least resistance, [a Kayak search](http://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/possearchkayak.png) shows that the cheapest flight on LAN is $116 and the cheapest flight on Avianca is $137\. If we run this exact search in Google ITA with New York City as the point-of-sale, we see [those exact numbers](http://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/possearchitaus-o.png). Skyscanner returns [similar results](http://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/possearchskyscanner.png): the cheapest flight on LAN is $114 and on Avianca it is $136.  Where to change point-of-sale in Google ITA Erica Ho Though Skyscanner actually has the best prices, let’s not stop there. Instead of using an American city as the point-of-sale, let’s use Colombia as the point-of-sale, something that can only be searched for in Google ITA. You actually don’t have to tweak a thing because the departure city is usually set as the default for this option — that said, it’s possible to change this to any place in the world you want. The main difference is we’ll get the price in Colombian pesos and that’s \*exactly\* what we want.  Prices shown in Colombian pesos Prices shown in Colombian pesos. In this new search, the cheapest flight on Avianca is 116,280 COP and the cheapest flight on LAN is 173,820 COP. That of course means a lot of mumbo jumbo to most people, so let’s convert that over to U.S. dollars. The same Avianca flight now approximates to $61.59 while the LAN flight is $91.96\. In short, you’d be saving $22.04 on the LAN flight and $74.41 on the Avianca flight by simply paying in a different currency. The price difference between the cheapest flight in both the U.S. and Colombia search is $54.41\. That’s how much you’ll end up saving just by comparing the flights in different currencies.  Where to select a different point-of-sale on the Avianca site Where to select a different point-of-sale on the Avianca site. Now the real problem is that we’ve got to find a place to buy this ticket in pesos since Google ITA won’t tell us where to go for that. I head directly to the Avianca website, which brings us to the U.S. price—about $137—for the flight. That’s not what I want though. I start again, but this time I click on the upper right-hand corner and [select Colombia as my country ](http://maphappy.org/2013/05/why-you-should-book-through-a-foreign-airlines-home-country-website/)and English as my language. (Other airlines may not always offer the ability to keep using the site in English. How good is your Spanish?) It’s not using the same thing as a VPN, but this mimics the idea that you are buying from a different location other than the U.S. **_Read next:_** [**_What You Really Need to Know About When to Buy Flights_**](http://time.com/money/3534530/when-buy-flights-cheap/) I search again. Sometimes I’m not always able to get the same exact fare I see in Google ITA, but I almost always manage to get something cheaper than what Kayak calculated for me. In this case, the cheapest flight available is 136,000 COP or $72.14, a bit more than what I was told but still less than Kayak’s price. To save the most money, make sure you pay in a credit card that doesn’t charge [foreign transaction fees](http://maphappy.org/2012/03/read-the-fine-print-on-using-your-charge-card-abroad/). In total, I manage to get a flight about $43.86 cheaper than what any U.S. site quoted me.  Actual price shown on the Avianca site Actual price shown on the Avianca site. Even if you don’t have a travel-friendly credit card, it still might be worth it to pay the fees just to pay in pesos. In this case, the standard foreign transaction fee 3% surcharge would only cost you an extra $2.16 to book the flight. The exact percentage will vary depending on the terms of the card issuer, but in short, you still come out ahead. With a little adjustment, this trick can also be used for purchasing international flights. The most obvious points-of-sales to check for generally include the destination country and the country where the airline is based in. I mean, you can also go ahead and check for every single country out there, but that’s real dedication that even I don’t have time for. Though most of the time it works out that I get some sort of discount—which can range from a few dollars to over a hundred dollars—by leveraging foreign currencies against each other, it doesn’t always work all the time. Sometimes, in fact, the cheapest airfare is the most straightforward fare you’ll find. But hey, just so you know. _This_ [_article_](http://maphappy.org/2014/06/use-point-of-sale-to-get-cheaper-international-tickets/) _originally appeared on_ [_Map Happy_](http://maphappy.org/)_._ _Read more from Map Happy:_ * [The Ultimate List of Airlines That Serve Free Alcohol](http://maphappy.org/2012/07/wine-the-ultimate-list-of-airlines-that-serve-free-alcohol/) * [Is There a Legal Drinking Age on Planes?](http://maphappy.org/2014/12/is-there-a-legal-drinking-age-on-planes/) * [Don’t Pay in U.S. Dollars Abroad](http://maphappy.org/2014/10/dont-pay-in-u-s-dollars-abroad/) _Read next:_ [_The Travel Hacks You Should Know (But Probably Don’t)_](http://time.com/3662431/travel-hacks/?iid=time%5Freadnext) [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://www.time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ## Transcript Where is the safest place sit on a plane? According to the Federal Aviation Administration, there is no safest seating area because survivability depends on the circumstances of the accident. That's true, but Time analyzed 17 accidents since 1980 and look at two key. Section of the plane, and row position. Here's what we found. The middle of the cabin historically has the highest overall a fatality rates. More specifically, the middle aisle seats, where the fatality rates are 57 % higher than the safest seat on the plane. Let's move to the back of the plane. You know, the seats closer to the bathrooms. Well according to our research, these are the safest of the aircraft, but it's not just the rear of the plane that's more secure. It's the middle seats in the back rows. The fatality rate here is 28 %, compared to 44 % up here. Now, for passengers who survived a plane's impact Having a seat closer to an emergency exit in case of say a fire is crucial. People who are positioned within one or two rows of the exit can evacuate quicker. [ MUSIC ] Keep in mind, our analysis is based on a small sample size. Since 1980 there have only been 17 flight accidents with both those who survived and who didn't And that had available seating charts. Most crashes only happen in the first three minutes and the last eight minutes of the flight. So keep your shoes on. Of all of the accidents that have happened in the last 30 years, the fatality rate is very low, only 4 %. The average person only has a one in 8000 chance of ever [ MUSIC ] Ever dying in a plane accident. 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