OP
Airfare - Someone Please Explain!
- Thread starter ljwillia
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Damselfish
Contributor
If you can extend your trip an extra day or 2, and Buddy's has room, maybe you could shift your arrival or departure to a less popular day that would cut down the airfare. Long shot, and assuming it's an airline that flies there other days I know flights are tough there. Maybe you'd spend the same overall, but get an extra dive day out of it.
Morons? Far from it. There are many factors for determining fares. There has also been a lot of studies on how to figure fares out.
If one thinks about it, the airline industry is one that struggles to survive. Take into consideration all of the factors for a single flight: price of the plane, maintenance of the plane, airport fees (landing, gate, and take off), fuel - a big factor, overhead (buildings, computer systems, supplies), paying employees, and the list goes on and on. A plane on the ground is costing the airline money. One in the air is making money, hopefully.
Years ago AA tried to simplify air fares to make things simpler for the consumer. After all consumers wanted a better system. It was a complete flop. Why? When the new fares came out other airlines dropped their prices and the consumer flocked to them. A similar took place with rental cars. A friend of mine, who worked for Budget, had worked out a system of letting the customer know exactly what they were going to pay. It too flopped. Why? The other car agencies quoted prices without taxes, fees, and insurance. It sounded cheaper, and the consumers flocked to them. He even rented cars from the other agencies and was able to prove it was more expensive (sometimes only by $10-$20) to rent from his competitor. Customers wouldn't believe him. In short, customers are fickle and are unpredictable.
To figure out prices one has to be able to exam all of the factors, apply critical analysis, and then come up with some sort of system that functions. For the airlines it is yield management.
@shurite7 just gave us the best, and most accurate information, as to how the airlines price seats on routes for any given day of the year. The airlines' computer programs and algorithms are extremely complex, but also very effective. Their sole purpose is to maximize the airlines' profit margin, not minimize your ticket cost or increase your understanding of "their system." Also, in addition to deleting cookies and browsing history as @Schwob said, you might also use the incognito function of your browser, but even that does not keep airlines from seeing how many people are checking prices to Bonaire or other destinations for any given travel day.
outofofficebrb
HARRO HUNNAYYY
Thankfully, at least in the States, airfare prices are standardized now - the price you see is out the door, so you can compare apples to apples, less baggage fees as it applies to your status or ticket/fare. I remember years ago when it wasn't, just like the rental car situation you speak of. You pretty much had to pretend like you were about to buy to be able to compare the ticket prices. It was annoying, time consuming, and frustrating.
There is also simple supply and demand here. If there is a lot of competition on the route, prices will be consistently low/competitive. A perfect example is my gateway hub in San Francisco. Flying to Asia is ridiculously cheap. In fact, I am scoffing at how much it is to fly from VA to Bonaire, as the OP is writing about. On top of that, there are only a certain number of tickets at a particular price (a "fare class) on each flight, so once those are gobbled up, the leftover available fares will usually get higher, though sometimes you can get cheaper fares as it gets closer in, but that is also based on supply and demand or how full (empty) the flight might be relative to what their original expectation and planning was.
I play the airfare game on 2 big dive trips a year and usually average about 50,000 butt-in-seat miles per year. None of those trips are for work so it's money out of my pocket or points/miles that I have banked. I highly recommend everyone use ITA Matrix. It is a very powerful tool that lets you search fares but not book them. You can book direct with the airline. You can really dial in what you need without having to do multiple searches. It's very interactive and effective. While I have had some good deals closer to the date of travel (whether pre-planned or just going on a whim because prices were good), my experience with long haul flights is that booking far in advance has usually been cheaper. (Transpacific and transatlantic from San Francisco.)
It is probably not helpful to the ticket prices to have a lot of people "watching" them on Google or Kayak........the airlines then have less incentive to drop those prices.
Who are you flying with? AA has grounded 737 Max and demand for Delta has grown (not specific to Bonaire). How The Boeing 737 MAX Grounding Is Benefiting Delta Air Lines - Simple Flying
divinh
Contributor
I wish it was less frustrating booking with Delta. Two years ago, I would find a reasonable price and try to book through their website. First, I would click "buy" ticket. Then, after tediously entering all the passenger info and credit card info, a pop-up would say that the demand for the flight was high, so there's a new price. Basically, clicking on "buy" doesn't lock in the purchase, or it's planned shenanigans. With and without clearing cookies, I would search again and find the exact original price, only to have it increase again due to "high demand" /after/ entering passenger and credit card info. I swore off looking at Delta because the whole thing felt like bait and switch. Has this changed in the last two years?
outofofficebrb
HARRO HUNNAYYY
I have had this happen before with Delta and know exactly what you are talking about. I mostly fly with United/Star Alliance due to freebie status and them having a big hub of my local airport, but I have traveled with American a lot more than Delta when I am not flying with UA/Star. I once had an amazing deal on screen with AA and when I re-did the search, it gave me a higher price. I panicked, hit the "back" button, hoped cookies worked in my favor, and was able to bag the lower price that I originally had searched for. I don't recall the same working for Detla but then again this was a few years ago.
Sure, not that it actually helped. For what it's worth, I am with you. fares to Bonaire are quite frustrating from a Dollar per traveldistance point of view. Everytime I looked so far this year to get from Chicago to Bonaire, the fare from Amsterdam (and sometimes even from some German airports linking through Amsterdam), the fare from Europe was lower and the it seemed travel time was quite shorter than with the lower fares from Chicago. But whike I have readon to be in Europe every so often it has time wise proven tough to sandwich a whole other trip in the middle.
But the budget watcher in ne just has a tough time justifying paying for a higher fare from Chicago (with that comparison). Bonaire will still be there for a while... Someday again...
Similar threads
