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Thursday, November 7th 2024

"I'm a travel junkie who's hooked on deals from YWG." - Chris Myden



2013
1
February
Winnipeg to Glasgow | How To Get The Best Deal On Flights


Guides >> Europe >> Scotland >> Flights from Winnipeg to Glasgow

The Ydeals Noise-Free Guide To Getting The Best Deal On Flights From Winnipeg to Glasgow

Ydeals logo There are thousands of travel sites out there, all wanting you to believe they have unique or special prices on airfares from Winnipeg to Glasgow. They don't.

They use marketing noise to hide the fact that there is really only one source of unique prices on flights to Glasgow.

This guide will remove the noise and show you what that source is, so you can stop wasting so much time when searching for the best deal.

What are the unique sources of prices on flights from Winnipeg (YWG) to Glasgow (GLA) ?

Unique Source #1 - The Major Airlines

There are 4 major airlines that fly from Winnipeg to Glasgow, and they are: Air Canada, Delta, KLM, and United Airlines.

Where should I look to get the best Scotland flight deal?

All you need to do is search all the major airlines, preferably at once. My current favorite way to do this would be using Google Flights Explorer because you can just enter 'Glasgow (GLA)' into the 'To' box, and see current airfares from all the major airlines, at one time. Not to mention how easy it is to browse through different date combinations.

Even if you're planning to go for a longer date range than this tool supports (currently up to 2 weeks), it will give you an excellent idea of what the typical bottom price is right now to Glasgow, and which airline(s) it can be found on. Use it as a starting point, and then use a tool with more precise search options, such as...

My second favorite way would be to search using Kayak. It has all the sort and filter options I need, and searches all major airlines. Click on 'Make my dates flexible' and set it to '+/- 3 days'. You may be surprised how often being a little flexible with your dates can result in a better price.

In the 'To' box, enter 'Glasgow, United Kingdom (GLA)' as your destination airport.

What about the thousands of other travel sites that have airfares to Glasgow?

This is the noise. There is no shortage of vacation sites or travel brands trying to convince you that they have the cheapest flights from Winnipeg to Glasgow. The truth is though, there's only one unique source of prices that they're gathering their prices from, and that's the prices from the major airlines themselves. They can't offer a lower price to Scotland than the airline itself, as there's already virtually no markup.

There's a few reasons why I think Manitoba travellers waste an enormous amount of time checking multiple websites, hoping for a better deal than the one they already found (studies show it to be an average of 22 different sites over 10 periods of research!). The first reason is just human nature. We all want to compare prices and make sure we're getting the best deal.

But I think the biggest reason is simply the noise of travel marketing. With so many travel sites and brands competing for your attention, all hoping you'll book through them, combined with the fact that not one of them will *ever* admit to you that their source of prices is the same as everyone else, it's little wonder travelers waste so much time searching.

What about searching the airline's website directly?

There's nothing wrong with doing that. It's usually just a lot easier to search all of the airlines at once, with a better interface using a good search tool. It's amazing how poor many of the airline's search interfaces are. The fares found on any half-decent search engine will be the same as the fares found on the airline's own website.

One thing you can do is just use a flight search tool to search all the airlines at once, and then go to the airline's own site to book it once you've figured out exactly which flight you want, and what the price is.

Another thing to be aware of is that the more sophisticated travel search engines can combine flights from multiple airlines to find cheaper options, especially on international flights, that you won't find on the airline's website.

What about my local Winnipeg travel agency or independent travel agent in Manitoba?

They're seeing the same prices you are. Depending on the agency or agent, they may or may not charge you a 'booking fee' on top of the airfare price, for their time. As there's virtually no markup on the cost of flights, they can't offer you a price that's any cheaper than from the airline, or from a search tool that properly searches the latest airfares.

When should I book a Glasgow flight to get the best price?

This is never an easy question to answer, as airfares are not 100% predictable. Airlines start by setting their price at a level they think will fill the maximum number of seats, based on the demand they expect to see. If they experience less demand than they expected, they may decide to lower them. If they experience more demand than they expected, they may raise them. Unfortunately, a lot of factors that influence demand can be unpredictable.

How long a person can wait it out in hopes of a better price is a personal decision. Personally though, I am usually not afraid to watch prices on the major airlines up to about 8 weeks before departure in hopes of a better price without fear of the price rising. But everyone has a different tolerance for risk.

What about last minute deals to Scotland?

Last minute airfare deals to Glasgow on the major airlines don't really exist. Typical of most airfares on the major airlines, as you get fairly close to the departure date, if the airline has done their job correctly, and filled most of the seats on the plane, they feel the last remaining seats become more valuable, and often decide to raise the price.

What's a decent airfare price to Glasgow?

From Winnipeg, flights to Glasgow (GLA) tend to bottom out around $1100-$1200 roundtrip after taxes. This is just a general guideline though, based on average demand periods of the year.

Airfare prices to Scotland are highly affected by demand. So anytime you can think of a reason that there might be higher demand than usual for travel to Glasgow (such as dates when many people in Winnipeg have holiday time) you can expect prices to react accordingly.

What about one way flights to Glasgow?

One-way flights to overseas international destinations on the major airlines can often be expensive. Sometimes they are even more than roundtrip flights, which may seem strange!

It's usually only charter flights that have decent one-way prices to Europe, but unfortunately Winnipeg does not currently have any charter flight options to Europe.

What about direct flights to Glasgow?

From Winnipeg, there are no major airlines that offer non-stop flights to Glasgow.

The fastest it can typically be done is with around 15 hours of travel time in each direction (including layover time).

The Scottish flights on KLM with two stops in each direction are as fast as it can be done, although there are fairly similar travel times available on the other airlines.

What about a multi-city flight? Such as into Glasgow and out of another city in Europe?

Searching for multi-city flights to the UK in travel is still a bit of a pain. Even Google Explorer currently can't handle it, as there's too many possible combinations. I'm sure eventually someone (likely Google) will put enough processing power behind it and create something useful for searching multi-city fares.

But for now, you're stuck with searching one departure date at a time when it comes to multi-city fares and experimenting with different destination combinations. Most of the decent travel sites will offer a multi-city option (it should be right next to 'one-way' and 'round-trip').

Kayak would be my preferred option here. Just click on the 'multi-city' option and in the first box, enter in Winnipeg to Glasgow (GLA), or whatever Scottish airport you want to fly into, and then in the second box, enter Dublin (DUB) to Winnipeg, or whatever airport you want to fly out of.

You never really know what you're going to get with a multi-city fare. It can often be around the same price as a typical roundtrip fare to the same destinations (or an average of the two). Sometimes it can be slightly more. In rare cases it can even be cheaper. Of course, you're still left with figuring out the cost of getting between the two airports.

One little trick I've learned with Kayak is to keep it on the 'roundtrip' option, and make your dates flexible (3 days before and after). And then in the 'To' box, enter up to a maximum of 4 destinations, using the 3 letter airport codes, separated by commas. For example, you could enter: GLA, DUB, PAR, LON

This will search flights to all 4 of these popular European cities at once, and look for cheap multi-city combinations into one city and out of another. Many of the results will just be the typical roundtrip flights, but when you scroll down the results, look for the airport codes that are highlighted in pink. These are the flights involving two different cities.

To use this method effectively, you need to get to know the 3 letter airport codes for the destinations you're interested in. Just Google the name of the city, followed by 'airport code' and you should be able to find it quite easily. (Google usually shows it at the top, or on the right hand side of the page).

Is it possible to get European flights with a free stopover?

Yes, KLM usually allows you to book a flight with a free stopover in Amsterdam. You may wish to read the guide: Winnipeg to Europe | How To Get Free Stopovers.

What about finding cheap flights to somewhere else in Europe, and then finding a budget flight to Glasgow from there?

You may want to read the guide: Winnipeg to Europe | How To Get The Best Flight Deals, which contains ideas about which cities are usually the cheapest to fly into, to see if this would save you any money.

Unfortunately though, Winnipeg does not commonly have any low cost flights to Europe, so combining a flight to another European city with a flight to Glasgow is not likely to work out to a lower price overall.


What about great value flights to Glasgow from U.S. airports within driving distance of Winnipeg?

If you've ever read my guide about flying out of U.S. Airports within driving distance of Winnipeg, you may know that I feel it could be worth the drive, when you see a flight from a U.S. airport to Glasgow that's at least a certain number of dollars less per person than from Winnipeg.

How much cheaper it needs to be depends on which North Dakota airport you're flying from. Below, I'll list how much cheaper I feel it should be from each U.S. airport, to be worth the drive.

From Grand Forks, North Dakota (GFK)

I feel it could be worth the drive, when you see a flight from Grand Forks to Glasgow that's at least $275 less per person than a similar flight from Winnipeg.

From Fargo, North Dakota (FAR)

I feel it could be worth the drive, when you see a flight from Fargo to Glasgow that's at least $375 less per person than a flight from Winnipeg.


I think I've found a great deal on a flight to Glasgow!

Excellent! Please share it with your fellow travel lovers, they will appreciate it and thank you for it! You can post it in the YWG Deals Facebook group (click 'Join Group', at the top-right, when you arrive), where thousands of people from Winnipeg are crowd-sourcing the best deals, and sharing great travel advice.

Or if you prefer, you can always give me a shout through the YWG Deals contact form or on Twitter @YWGdeals or through Google Plus. Great deal finds are always appreciated.


Why should I trust this Winnipeg guide to Glasgow flights?

Chris Myden Ydeals The info in this guide is based on my observations of the travel industry over the years, including all the thousands of websites out there, and where all the different players get their prices from and how they interact with each other.

The goal is to remove the noise of travel marketing, so people can stop wasting so much valuable time searching the same prices over and over.

But, as social proof of it's accuracy, feel free to join the YWG Deals Facebook Group (click 'Join Group', at the top-right, when you arrive) and publicly disagree with any of it, or make a comment below. Critiques are always welcome!


I think I have some info that could help improve the Scotland flight guide!

Great! Please post your info in the Winnipeg Facebook group above, or contact me directly. Suggestions for improvement are always appreciated. Let me know if you see something that seems inaccurate or outdated.

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