Air Ticket On-Line Pricing Issues

[Guest fountainhall]

I was reading the July/August issue of Business Traveller magazine this afternoon when I noticed an interesting point about fluctuating pricing of tickets as a result of people checking prices online. Apparently "if someone checks the price of their ticket online but does not buy it, every 'check' is noted. If the computer notes that for a particular date many checks are done, it increases the price."

 

I never realised that! The conclusion was "sometimes it is better to go via a travel agent - especially for a single (i.e. one-way) journey." This advice about travel agents has often been given on this Board, especially for tickets ex-the USA.

 

There was also a more general discussion forum about full-service carriers and the high cost of one-way tickets compared to returns, which usually applies to all classes booked some time in advance. I have been told before by travel agents that if you purchase a return ticket on-line in order to make use of the savings and then just trash the return portion, the airline will come after you and bill your credit card for the real one-way price. And if you book through an agency, they will hit the agency for the difference. Does anyone know which is correct? And anyone have any experience of this?

 

I guess the solution is to purchase the ticket at a different travel agency each time and pay cash. But for anyone who does that more than a couple of times, do the airlines have some sort of blacklist which might prevent an agent issuing a ticket to you? As a frequent flyer, I thought I knew the rules Now I am not so sure!

[kokopelli]

I am convinced that my airline, Delta, records my IP address each time I look up a flight and cost. The first quote is always the lowest and subsequent searches and the prices increase until it reaches a plateau.

[Guest]

Prices seem to vary erratically from day to day, even 5 months in advance of the travel date.

 

Before actually making a long haul booking, I check a couple of flight comparison sites, plus the airline itself.

 

If I understood their logic, it would be very helpful for getting a good price, without wasting much time.

[ChristianPFC]

I do all my booking online. I read somewhere that the website records your request and if you come back, it increases the price.

 

I used opodo for most bookings, because I like the +-1 day flexibility. However, I am flexible over up to two weeks, and finally I found a website that gives prices for a seven-day range: bravofly.com

 

And then I found that a flight that costs 854E on opodo costs only 832E on govoyages.com plus a booking fee that depends on the time of the day you book and is up to 20E. However, this booking fee is 0E between 4am and 6am (time in France), so I set my alarm clock and got up at 4am to book the flight!

 

Booking flights always takes time, check prices over weeks, optimize price and times of departure and return (I prefer to fly over night, from Paris to Bangkok and back as well), optimizing stop overs (because these flights are usually cheaper than direct flights). Now the booking for my next holiday is done, so I can sleep in peace!

[Rogie]

Now the booking for my next holiday is done, so I can sleep in peace!

That's a great feeling, and now you've done the spade work, you can wake up and smell the coffee (or the roses if you're ever down in Provence!)

 

RE: The Euro. I don't know if your keyboard is the same as mine, if I type 'Ctrl Alt 4', that brings up the € symbol.

[Guest fountainhall]

this booking fee is 0E between 4am and 6am (time in France), so I set my alarm clock and got up at 4am to book the flight!

Seems no different from the old days when British Airways had standby bookings from 07:00 on the day of a flight. I remember several times getting up at 05:00 in New York, trundling out to JFK and being first in the line. I always got a cheap ticket home, and then went back to the hotel to sleep!

[Guest]

However, this booking fee is 0E between 4am and 6am (time in France), so I set my alarm clock and got up at 4am to book the flight!

Getting up at 4:00 am will totally ruin my sleep pattern and 20 Euro just isn't worth it. Now if that period was running from 24:00 to 7:00, then an adjustment to the alarm clock setting would be justified.

 

The other trap I sometimes fall into is spending more time considering a short hotel booking than evaluating an investment decision many times greater in magnitude. Whilst I believe in keeping expenditure under strict control, it's the investment decisions that will make the big difference to long term finances.

[ChristianPFC]

I have the € sign on my keyboard, but I prefer E or EUR (and USD, GBP, THB).

 

Getting up at 4 am (and back to sleep 15 min later) is no problem, for 20 EUR I would do it every day!

 

The other trap I sometimes fall into is spending more time considering a short hotel booking than evaluating an investment decision many times greater in magnitude.

The same is true for me. However you have an active influence on the hotel price (by searching a cheaper hotel), whereas my investment decisions (e.g. bying stocks or precious metals) are subject to arbitrary fluctuations in the market, buying or selling in the morning can make a difference of 1% compared to bying or selling in the afternoon, but I have no influence on it, so it's not worth thinking about it.

[pong]

-1-. Apparently "if someone checks the price of their ticket online but does not buy it, every 'check' is noted. If the computer notes that for a particular date many checks are done, it increases the price."

-2- The conclusion was "sometimes it is better to go via a travel agent - especially for a single (i.e. one-way) journey." This advice about travel agents has often been given on this Board, especially for tickets ex-the USA.

-3-I have been told before by travel agents that if you purchase a return ticket on-line in order to make use of the savings and then just trash the return portion, the airline will come after you and bill your credit card for the real one-way price

 

sorry for lateness, I usually do not follow this forum-part. I always thought that somehow you were working or closely attached to an airline, so i assumed you would know the tricks of that trade.

general: I think a dedicated forum like flyertalk is far better suited for these types of Q.

-1-+-2-+-3-: Varies, but for a large part this is history-sometimes from a century ago. Same-same as so often on Thaivisa and the like: people like to pass on stories ''heard from a friend'' and recycled again and again-without clearly stating from what date it was. It also has to do with the airline and were it is based; in the EU and hence for EU-airlines, this is now strictly forbidden en checked that they do not sneak in. Thus even old grandma BA has to follow suit-and the Brits can complain again about the nosyness of the EU or so?

more specific: I have checked prices to BKK for several weeks on several boards for dep. jan '12. They were stable for a week or 2-and then moven up, all together,. FRom what I have read about the new technology etc. it is more a case of ''what others=the competition'' does as any other. There are also some fabled stories that some airlines put cookies in your computer so that next time you check you have to see a higher price-as I use public computers and do not have my own, I escape this easily-and so does half of thailand.

-3- as said, this is now forbidden in the EU. Also the skipping of a first part of a ticket to gain a better fare (f.e. KLM would offer LONdon-Accra via AMS cheaper as a return starting in AMS). However, US-airlines still do that and lead you into another part of their enormous www's to gain higher fares, easy to avoid by sing a neutral booking machine. Some minor airlines with too many staff (and hence loosing too much money as state-pride) perhaps do this on monopoly routes=always to/from their own HQ. But of course there are many more of those in Asia as in EU BTW-did you know that business traveller mag has various versions, not even interrelated? the one for EU is only by subscription or distributed in some airlines.

[Guest fountainhall]

general: I think a dedicated forum like flyertalk is far better suited for these types of Q . . . BTW-did you know that business traveller mag has various versions, not even interrelated? the one for EU is only by subscription or distributed in some airlines.

I am sure you are correct about flyertalk, but I get the impression that not many readers to this Board check that site regularly.

 

I brought up the Business Traveller article because I am not 'into' computers and, despite being a regular traveller, had no idea that at least some airlines adjust prices upward in accordance with the number of 'hits' on a certain route and date. I felt it was of interest. I was not, as I am sure you realise, passing on information from a friend, but quoting from a specific and, on that date, a current edition of the magazine.

 

Yes, I do know that Business Traveller has several editions. Yet, you'll be aware that certain columns are carried in several editions, including the column I quoted from. On the date I posted, I took Emirates from BKK to HKG and so will have read the magazine on that airline. Which edition they carry, I haven't the faintest idea! Probably either the Middle East or the UK one.