I am currently looking at the prices of return flights to Hong Kong for threeish weeks in April/May. I can’t work out if it makes a difference what days of the week i fly on. For example are fri-Mon more expensive than Tues-Thurs, and is it more expensive to fly in and out on different days of the week, for example going away on a tuesday and flying back on the thursday three weeks later?
I am backpacking, and going onto the Philippines and Borneo before coming back to HK, so am just trying to find the cheapest flights possible.
Months of business travel led me to the conclusion that a trip that involved a “Saturday night stay” was more expensive. It seems that if you fly out on, say Thursday and back on Sunday you’ll pay more than if you fly out on Monday and stay until Thursday. This could have been just a coincidence, but it seemed to be very consistent.
I can’t tell you specifically what days are cheap on your chosen route, but I can tell you that as a general principle airlines deliberately manage their prices to compensate for demand. High demand days are more expensive since they have a higher probability of filling the plane, where as low demand days are cheaper as the airline attempts to incentivize people to travel then.
If you play around with the prices at the websites of UK low-cost airlines such as easyJet, it becomes obvious that midweek and/or very early and late flights are cheaper than Friday to Monday. Weekend flights, or those that could make a long weekend, are simply in more demand.
When I flew more regularly, it was cheaper if your itinerary involved staying over the weekend. The reason was that the business people on expense accounts wanted to fly during the workweek and so the airlines charged them more than those whose itineraries involved staying over on the weekend (since these people were typically leisure travelers on a budget). Sometimes the difference was great enough that I volunteered to stay over the weekend if the company would pay for the additional hotel stay and car rental (which cost less than if I returned on Friday).
I probably travel for work about 5 times a year, however, I seemed to experience exactly the opposite. In fact, I would turn business trips into mini-vacations: By staying over a Saturday night, I would save enough money for my company to pay the 2 additional nights (Friday and Saturday) of hotel stay.
If you look at Southwest’s front page right now, you’ll notice that they’re explicitly offering cheaper fares on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays than on Fridays to Mondays.
My impression is that the “stay over Saturday night and save” option has become somewhat less prevalent over the last few years. Currently, for instance, the best round-trip fares from Chicago to L.A. (found using Kayak) are pretty much the same if you’re flying out on Friday and back on Monday versus flying out on Monday and back on Friday.
mecaenas’s answer is correct. Yes, prices vary according to what days of the week you fly. To be more specific, as he/she said, they vary according to the specifics of the demand on those particular days. Whether that means the flight is more or less expensive on weekends depends on the particular route.
Thank you, they are helpful responses. As I’m away for three weeks I’ll be away for several weekends anyway so the Saturday night issue isn’t something I can avoid.
I will have a play around on sites StaTravel and see what I can find.
