Why the cheapest departure is rarely the cheapest trip

The options around cheap departures are set out side by side below, with the conditions that genuinely favour one over the other.

Cheap hours are cheap for a reason

Departure times that require getting up in the middle of the night, or that land after transport has stopped, are priced low because few people want them. That is not a bargain being overlooked; it is a discount for accepting a cost. The cost is real and lands on you rather than on the operator.

Whether it is worth taking depends entirely on the size of the discount against the size of the loss.

The pre-dawn start costs a day

A departure requiring a four in the morning alarm usually means a short, poor night and a first day spent at reduced capacity. On a two-night trip, degrading the first day is degrading a third of the whole thing.

The saving would need to be substantial to justify that, and often is not. On a two-week holiday the same start costs almost nothing, which is why the advice differs by trip length.

Late arrivals eat the evening and the next morning

Arriving after everything has closed converts an evening into a transfer and a bed. It also pushes back the following morning, because nobody starts well after a midnight arrival. The cheap late option is therefore often two partial losses rather than one.

For most people, compare it against a mid-evening arrival, not against the most expensive option on the list.

The distant departure point

Cheaper departures often use points further from where you live, and the extra journey is paid in time and money at both ends. On a short trip this is a large proportion of the window and rarely appears in the comparison. Adding the ground journey to the fare is the only honest way to compare two options.

Done consistently, it changes which option looks cheapest surprisingly often.

When the awkward option is right

A very late return that adds a whole evening at the destination is an awkward time that pays you rather than charging you. An early departure at the start of the trip can add a full day if you would otherwise have travelled after work.

For most people, the test is whether the awkward hour adds ground time or removes it. Awkward and cheap are not the same thing as bad.

Some of this will suit you and some will not, and that is the point.

Set the comparison up properly

Write down, for each option, the arrival time, the departure time and the usable hours between them. Then add the ground journey at both ends and the cost of any lost sleep.

The useful part is this: the winner on that table is frequently not the winner on price. It takes a few minutes and prevents the most common short-trip regret.

Side by side

The takeaway

Compare usable hours, not headline prices. Cheap hours are cheap because they cost you something.

The version you keep doing is the version that works.