I want to travel out to Leningrad and back from Moscow (having travelled by train between the two). Skyscanner is making it quite clear to me that if I'm happy to do a return trip to Moscow then it can be done for £200; to book a single out to Leningrad is £150, and the single back from Moscow will be £250.
How do I access the cheaper return fares when not going to and from the same place? (Short of flying to Moscow and taking the train to Leningrad.) Hoping somebody with more experience of booking flights can help! Thanks
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I'd be surprised if you manage this.
I'd recommend the overnight train to Leningrad (glad someone else still calls it that) as part of the experience if you're doing this as a tourist. Quite an experience if you get a "Myagki" or "Kupee" class cabin.
Have you got your visa sorted out yet?
Try the excellent www.russiangateway.com for travel tips and services to Russia.
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I guess the problem for the booking is it's not a return... doesn't a return go to and from the same place by definition. But two singles are often more than a return when you add them up - the busses and trains around our way are the same.
I'd try an agent like Trailfinders to begin with I think.
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I think a specialist agent may be the forward as suggested by rtj70. They are certainly used to doing these sort of fares to USA and Canada; people want to fly into Toronto and back from New York, say, and that can be engineered and there is an annoying TV advert for a firm offering to do this from the Far East, I think they are known as "shoulder " fares, for some reason. Dial-a-Flight rings a bell as the TV advert lor.
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>> How do I access the cheaper return fares when not going to and from the
>> same place? (Short of flying to Moscow and taking the train to Leningrad.) Hoping somebody
>> with more experience of booking flights can help! Thanks
>>
Use a better search engine, e.g.
www.kayak.co.uk/flights
www.expedia.co.uk/Flights
and tick the "multi-city" or "Multiple Destinations" option. You can then fly in to one and return from another city. I use the above search engines when flying in to one city in to USA and returning from another, while mixing driving and flying between multiple cities as I please.
I just tried your journey on Kayak for some random dates in June, and the cheapest return was £245 Economy with Lufthansa / SWISS.
Last edited by: John H on Tue 7 Jun 11 at 13:23
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IMO Kayat is one of the best sites and it is so easy to use.
"open jaw" flight bookings as they are called should not be a problem.
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Thanks! Open jaw - not shoulder!
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John H. Thanks, but I think the flights you found were not direct. I can still get 1.5 return flights for the cost of the open jaw. Grr.
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Do you mean a triangular trip, UK>Moscow, Moscow>Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg>UK?
Some budget airline work out well on single leg flights where the scheduled airlines do not, i.e. I wanted to do UK>Milan, Milan>Madrid, Madrid>UK last year, a combo of Alitalia and Iberia would have been £1500 ish though easyJet were under £150 all in.
Not sure that helps re your destimations though.
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He does mean a 'triangular' trip but it's UK - Leningrad - Moscow - UK. I suppose part of this will depend where from the UK he hopes to fly from.
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Flights to Russia - Alanovich
