IMO, long haul international is the one place where folks will look at factors besides price. Especially after they’ve done a long haul flight the cheapest possible way once and learned a lesson. One of my sayings about life in general and commerce in particular is “You don’t always get what you pay for, but you never get what you don’t pay for.”
For US-based travelers, long haul international is typically barely 1% of the market. Domestic US decision-making is almost universally price, price, price, price, and maybe loyalty points if they’re a frequent flyer.
I remember flying round trip Newark to Brussels on the old People Express Airline. Can’t remember the fare, but it was dirt cheap. I’d bought my ticket ahead of time, but I swear I saw the stewardesses selling some passengers their tickets after takeoff! I remember wondering what they would do if someone had lost their credit card or just refused to pay.
Of course. I’m in the same boat. The problem is that the airlines are totally on to us, and have figured out that there is a pretty strong relationship between “ability to be flexible” and “ability to, when push comes to shove, pay higher prices.”
The dirt-cheap fares are out there. They’ve just found a good way to make sure they go to the people who are actually unable to pay more, rather than people just looking for a deal.