Save Money by Changing your Point of Sale on Air Travel

There is a simple trick to save money by changing your point of sale on air travel. You might be surprised how often this can lead to savings across different airlines, however, my focus will be on British Airways. Technically, this trick is very similar to booking Air Canada flights in US Dollar or WestJet flights in US Dollar. However, unlike Air Canada or WestJet, the savings we are talking are drastic, and it is not just a small percentage. It is also not as easy as changing location, rather, you have to go through a travel agent to make these bookings. Any travel agent will do, an online travel agent like Expedia or a retail travel agent where you deal with real humans.

Saving Money on Travel

I am one of the few full service travel agents who helps people with their end-to-end itinerary planning. As part of my work, I often come across different opportunities to help customers save money. I hope to share some of my findings with the wider public. As usual, in the world of travel hacking, not everything will be shared publicly. Too much public exposure can often undermine the deal we work to get for our customers.

Other posts about saving money include:

• Save Money by Purchasing Two One-Way Ticket
• Save Money with Air Canada Same Day Change
• Save Money by Searching on Several Travel Portals
• Save Money by Checking Air Canada US Dollar and Air Canada Canadian Dollar Website
• Save Money by Checking WestJet US Dollar and WestJet Canadian Dollar Website
• Save Money on WestJet by Booking with a Travel Agent
• Save Money with Same-Day Flight Change on Delta
• Save Money on Hotel Stays with Buying Points
• Save Money by Changing your Point of Sale on Air Travel

If you need help with Hotels, Cruises, All Inclusive vacations or Air Travel, feel free to reach out to Earthyan for guidance.

What is a point of sale?

The origins of point of sale are historic. Conceptually, the idea is, airlines will charge different pricing dependent on the country of ticket purchase. It allows airlines to differentiate pricing entirely on purchasing location. This used to be common prior to the internet days, where buying domestic tickets in a foreign country was much harder than buying foreign tickets in your home country. Hence, airlines would often discount the pricing for local customers, but charge a premium for customers who are only visiting a country and want a confirmed ticket in advance.

Why would airlines do this? Well, if someone in Canada is a tourist, and they want to buy a domestic ticket from Delhi to Dehradun, they will likely buy it from a travel agent or website in Canada. Many years ago, if they were to buy the ticket in India, the ticket might only cost $100. However, finding a reliable travel agent could be complicated in a country like India, so airlines instead charged an agent in Canada $200 instead. As a consumer, you had a choice of finding a trust-worthy agent in India who would do it for $100 or booking from your local travel agent for $200. Most people would prefer the latter, just for a sense of security.

With the internet, finding the local travel agent became much easier, and airlines largely moved away from pricing based on purchasing country. Except, for some, which continue to offer these deals, as I will list below. I am using British Airways as an example; however, I can say with confidence, this strategy is not limited to them. I have used it successfully on other global airlines as well.

Flight Purchase Example

This is the flight detail I am using as an example for this article:

• Origin: Delhi
• Destination: Vancouver
• Date of Departure: May 8, 2025
• Date of Return: May 22, 2025

I think of this example as a very simple example of an Indian tourist planning a two-week trip to Canada.

Buying from Point of Sale: India

If you are buying from British Airways India website, the cost of the ticket is INR97,854. That is roughly C$1,600 as a point of comparison. Overall, for India flights, very cheap in comparison to post-covid air fare pricing.

Buying from Point of Sale: Canada

I have yet to discover how to change the point of sale to Canada on the British Airways website. Instead, I decided to use my system to check the pricing in Canada. For the same flights, if you booked in Canada, the pricing was C$1,170.97 as seen below.

That is a savings of over 25%. When booking a large family, these savings add up drastically.

Conclusion

I used an example of a Basic fare ticket without any checked bags. The savings are similar if you decide to buy a more expensive fare category. If you delve into this further, you will notice another neat trick, where buying through a travel agent can actually unlock better deals than booking through British Airways. I will write about that in a future article.

Let’s be honest, it can be hard to check multiple point of sale to identify the best deal. But if you have the time, it might be worthwhile to explore changing your point of sale on air travel.