Specifically, I was trying to book a flight to Europe this summer on various on-line sites (expedia, etc.) and found the whole experience puzzling.
When I first logged on they were telling me that there was a flight available (for my dates and cities) for $737. By the time I called my girlfriend up to discuss whether that price was okay, and to confirm the times of the flight with her, that flight (or that price) had disappeared and now the price was $819–I’m not positive but I think it was the same flight on the same airline that not 30 minutes earlier was ilsted at $737.
What was going on? Did I just happen to log onto the site at the moment of a price change? Did the last seat in coach just disappear on that particular flight? If I log on tomorrow, should the price be higher normally? Lower? Utterly random?If I wait a week to book the flight, should I expect a higher price because it’s that much closer to the date of the flight and seats are getting scarcer?
Also, more theoretically, I’m wondering if there’s some general pattern to airline pricing. You would expect that the number of passengers who want a flight on a particular date would be roughly predictable from year to year: If I book a flight to Geneva this week and a friend books the same flight a month from now, is his price going to follow some rule or pattern (i.e., will his price be 120% of my price, or 95% of my price, or is his price going to depend on too many variables to tell?)
I’d love to know what your experiences booking flights online, particularly internationally, has been.
The general philosophy the airlines use in setting prices is “what the market will bear.”
With discount fares, like the one you saw posted, they typically allocate a specific number of seats on each flight for the special fare. Once that number of seats has been sold, the price is no longer available.
Of course, other factors enter in to the equation, such as how far in advance you are purchasing the ticket, whether you stay over on Saturday night, etc. I think most people would prefer a straightforward pricing schedule, where you could reasonably predict your fares ahead of time.
When dealing with a large multi-airline system such as Expedia, then there are so many things changing constantly that the prices might as well be random, with a few general trends. The best time to buy is 1-2 months in advance - before that, the tickets are often at the ‘standard’ rate rather than including any discount. As the date of flight closes in, the airlines are better able to predict exactly the price necessary to just about sell all the tickets, which mostly means price increases. If the journey is likely to involve two flights, then it becomes ever more complex, with different airlines using codeshares, etc.
In general - if you find a flight that’s a price you consider reasonable, and it’s 6 weeks or less to the time of travel, then buy it. Beyond that, consider it a form of gambling.
I remember reading an article somewhere that said something along the lines of that calculating the lowest price between any two (or was it three?) cities is now an intractable problem and will take a Cray the lifetime of the universe to solve, or something like that. Maybe someone can back me up on this?
Long time lurker, first post. In reply to the OP, the answer is yes, and no. Airlines sell seats in what are refered to as “fare buckets”. Say 100 seats are available on a plane (we’reremoving business class to make my life easier)
Three months out, say, all 100 are available. There are 12 “classes of service” devided between those seats. No extra service or amenities are recieved in any class - don’t get your hopes up. The airline will have, say 2 seats available in the lowest class, very restricted, then moving upwards to the highest class, up to 20 seats. “Yield management” - a topic for a whole new thread - determines this.
Now the fun starts. Say Bob buys a low fare seat. Seat 1 is removed from the bottom class of service. But 23 people are viewing the availability through a travel agent, or Expedia, or by calling the airline. Remember, they all want the cheap seat, but only two are available. Bob’s seat is confirmed, but all the other 23 will still see 2 seats available because they haven’t refreshed. Then Don requests 2 seats. Of course this comes back confirmed as well
Then both finalize their bookings, 3 seats within a 2 seat fare bucket. What does the airline do? Why shuffle the seats of course! Take one out of the top fare bucket and put it into seccond last. Not last because those 2 (3) seats were sold. Hopefully this confuses things even more, but will add more tomorrow.
Welcome to the Dope, mcott, and I do hope you post again soon, because you’re right, I’m thoroughly confused now. This is around three months before my trip, so it sounds like I can afford to look a little while for a better price. (Although Fat Bald Guy scared me with his “once that price is gone, it’s gone”–sounds like you know the ticket biz from the inside.
mcott - does this mean that there is an advantage in not refreshing once you find a fare you like? Will the airlines commit to a fare once you enter the booking process in Expedia?
Is there also a possibility that the price will come down if you refresh?
The technical term for this is Yield Management. All the major airlines have sophistocated computer programs in place which , minute by minute , track the sales of tickets and adjust the price accordingly.This is why you will not know the actual price you will be paying until the deal is sealed
So, does any of this explain how it’s $200 cheaper to get a connecting flight from Columbus, through Cincinatti, to Raleigh than the same flight just from Cincinatti to Raleigh?
If Columbus charged more for parking, it’d make sense, since driving between the two airports is maybe 15 bucks for gas and an hour faster than flying between the two, so they could save on parking space and make up part of the lost fare, but since it’s cheaper, now it’s just confusing.
