Has anyone else experienced this with Viva Aerobus? I tried booking a domestic Mexican flight, but the price was insanely high. So, I asked a friend in Mexico to check the cost locally since it’s the high season, and the price turned out to be one-fifth of what I was seeing!
However, the moment he entered our American info, the price shot up by 500%. When we tried booking through a travel website, the correct price showed, but once again, when we used our American details, we got an error saying there were no available tickets. This happened repeatedly over three days.
Is anyone else seeing this kind of price gouging for non-Mexican travelers?
Welcome to Mexico gringo!
That happens with Vietnam airlines too. As we were only booking internal flights we were advised to book them on arrival in Vietnam and got the local prices
Try booking using a VPN and connect to the site from a Mexican IP, see if it changes.
Uhhhh, We have a rule in our family that we don’t even look at aerobus flights when booking anymore.
We had family flying from Colombia via Mexico City and the flight was canceled and aerobus never refunded the money.
Their flights are always considerably cheaper than Aeromexico or Volaris, but it’s not worth the risk.
One fun little fact is they charge a fee for booking online. I asked them how to avoid this fee and they said you have to buy your ticket at the airport. What a scam.
Anyway, it’s one of those things like you have to be careful about airlines like Spirit or Frontier because you’ll be more likely to face delays and you have to be careful about your carry-on luggage: they will look at you like starving vultures to try to get more money out of you before you board your flight.
I’d rather just pay the $50 to $100 more with aero Mexico or Volaris and not worry about delays, scams, and all of it.
I have been flying on Vivaaerobus for years and have never seen such a thing. Flying tomorrow from Toluca to Puerto Vallarta with American details and American credit card and my flight was $23.
Yes, I had this same thing happen with Interjet
My friend, it’s not only your cheap Mexican airlines doing that. Last week I found myself in the same situation with AA, flight was way cheaper if paid with Mexican pesos rather than US dollars. Ask someone to buy the ticket for you with their Mexican card.
Many domestic carriers in foreign countries do this. I think sometimes it’s required by law to keep prices reasonable for citizens. I know that’s the case in Peru for example. You can try booking with a VPN but you may find yourself charged the difference at the airport once they see your passport.
I’m not sure if the Volaris sale is still on but they have all kinds of round trip tickets available for under 200 bucks.
I also think we noticed that there’s different prices for American citizens. When you’re purchasing your ticket, I think they ask what your citizenship is. From there they’ll adjust the price accordingly.
We frequently fly out of Tijuana from San Diego and I always wondered if I just put I was Mexican for a domestic flight that doesn’t require a passport.
Like if I’m flying from Tijuana to Mexico City and I declare that I am a Mexican citizen just to get the cheaper price, would the airline give me any trouble?
Reminds me of when I worked in Los Angeles and a Mexican restaurant charged my friend from Costa Rica less because he was latin. Didn’t bother me that much but if it was the other way around, Im sure it would be all over CNN.
por eso tienes q pagar en pesos. las aerolíneas les gustan chingar y cagar en la gente q tiene dólares
My fiance lives in CDMX. I live in Phoenix. For two years, I have been traveling to Mexico City frequently (maybe 2x/month). One thing I can tell you for sure, Mexican airline rates have gone up quite substantially. But keep in mind, so have American airline companies. I used to fly out of Phoenix Sky Harbor to avoid the hassle of driving down to Mexicali and flying from there back when companies like Volaris and American Airlines charged anywhere between $500-600 round trip. That same trip with American Airlines nowadays is generally speaking, $850-1000 (insane imo for a 3.5 hour flight. I have even seen these tickets go up to $1650). Conversely, I used to be able to fly out from Mexicali for around $180-250. Nowadays those same flights from Mexicali are $500+ through Aeromexico. I now have to resort to driving down to Hermosillo or Tijuana just to get a reasonable fair (round trip $250-300).
Long story short, I know exactly what you mean. I have traveled with Volaris, Viva Aerobus, and Aeromexico so many times. I consider Volaris and Viva Aerobus to be the same in terms of level of service provided. Aeromexico is certainly the best to fly with but usually always comes at a higher price. All of their rates have gone up without a doubt. BUT, our own airline companies, are notorious for doing the same. They have made it so economically unfeasible that I’m almost forced to fly out from Mexico every month.
How is this a travel hack?
Haven’t seen this before. 5 times more expensive ?
Taxes are high at airports in Mexico
Another aspect might be American taxes.
I was trying to book a flight from Jakarta to the Maldives with Malaysian airlines.
Initially, the price said it was like $400 but when I went to complete the sale the price would jump to like $700 $800 nearly double.
I called the airline and they explained that the extra costs was because I was purchasing in the United States and the $300 was American taxes.
I tried that. But the website doesn’t work on VPN. I can’t attach the screenshot but here’s the error message
“Error de conexión
Verifica tu conectividad a internet e intenta nuevamente.”
It’s peak travel season between popular tourist destinations. For locals, tickets are priced around 2,500 pesos, but for Americans, the cost jumps to $592.
Website doesn’t work on VPN. I understand the price could be lower for locals but 500% is insane.