I have a trip to Maine coming up at the end of June and I’ve been monitoring airline ticket prices since about August of last year. In the past week the prices on the days I want to travel have dropped by nearly $100. But here is the thing. If I fly one day earlier or one day later the prices are still high. The departure is on a Friday and the return is 8 days later (Saturday). I thought Friday should be an expensive day to travel, but Thursday and Saturday are both more expensive.
The other hitch in this is that the prices on the tickets at first dropped about $40, then another $50, then another $10. But only on these specific dates. It is as if the airline is monitoring the search and trying to get the price to a point where I’ll buy.
As a final coincidence, the travel I’m planning is into Boston but then out of Manchester, NH. And on those specific tickets the price is $170 each, whereas every other ticket is at least $200.
Anyone know if the airlines do monitor the search history for flights and are setting prices accordingly?
Clear out your cookies, just to be on the safe side. Or check from another computer. There is speculation on FlyerTalk that airlines do, indeed, monitor activity and raise and lower prices/award redemption rates accordingly.
Beyond that, there are very few hard and fast rules. But here are a few: Sometimes a Saturday stay will lower the price; sometimes it won’t. Sometimes weekday is more expensive because that’s when business travelers fly the most. Book more than 3 weeks out if you want the best price. Within 3 weeks and they tend to raise them.
Thanks for the tips. I’ve checked the prices from multiple computers and I’m obviously looking to book way beyond 3 weeks out. The game now is to try and determine how low is the lowest price I’ll get. The prices now isn’t bad, but the flight times are horrible (I’d have to leave at 12:30 am). I don’t mind flying at odd times if it means saving $500 (I have to buy 5 tickets), the question is if I can get a better itinerary for nearly the same price later on. Who knows. I just found it strange that my particular flight options just so happened to drop (the ones I’ve been searching on) while everything else is staying relatively high.
I’ve been seeing some strange things regarding plane tickets myself. A friend and I are planning a vacation together in a few months. We live in different cities and will be flying to a third city. I’ve been checking prices for my flight as well as hers. My cost has stayed pretty much the same over the past 5 days. The cost for her ticket went up $40 yesterday afternoon and today it went up another $10.
We can wait a little while to see if the cost comes back down, but I thought it was odd that hers went up and mine didn’t.
Part of what you’re experiencing is the airlines attempting to “load balance.” In other words, the flights that are more expensive are nearing capacity, so the airline is inducing lower prices on other days to incentivize passengers with more flexible schedules to fly those days and fill up otherwise lightly-loaded aircraft.
I’ve heard that Thursday is actually busier than Friday, oddly enough, especially for business travellers in the U.S. They must want to get back to their home office and their families early.
If your tickets have dropped $100, I imagine that is a 20-30% drop in a short time. The likelihood of them going much lower when the adjacent days are more expensive is small. I’d snap them up now, but that’s just me.