Online airfare "hidden" savings...

[RJP]

So, just found a glitchy sort of thing on Continetal's website while looking to book a family vacation.

When I entered travel dates for my family of four I got a "Guaranteed Lowest Fare" of $1390 per person for the four of us. However, while poking around I changed the number of travelers to ONE by mistake, and ended up getting a fare of $768 with a "Only one ticket available at this price" note. When I changed the number of travelers to TWO I got a fare of $963 with "Only two tickets available at this price". When I changed it to THREE I got the $1390 fare again with no note about how many tickets were available at that price.

Haven't booked yet, but it appears that by booking one ticket, then two, then the fourth I would save almost $1500 compared to the "Guaranteed Lowest Fare" if I booked all four together.

I'm further wondering if booked this way the second ticket would suddenly be available at $768 as well.

You would think the software would aggregate the lowest and next lowest and next lowest fares, as opposed to looking for the lowest common fare all in the same fare class.

Keep this in mind when booking flights!

 

[tstormdiver]

I've seen that before when booking multiple people on a flight. It seems when more than 1 or 2 tickets are requested at the same time, the price automatically goes up due to "high demand" for that flight.

 

[DeputyDan]

I have had this exact same thing on American Airlines on a flight to Curacao.

Tickets were just under $500 for a single and were just over $600 each for four.

 

[iztok]

It is called "Fare buckets". Airline determines how many seats at what price they will sell. It could be anywhere from 0 to 9+ (software will only display 9 max). I use a travel agent for a while as I found out that $30 she charges me is well worth all the headache. For business trip I expense it anyways and for personal it is negligible compared to savings she was able to get me throughout the years.

Usually whole itinerary is booked into one fare bucket.

 

[redacted]

I'm further wondering if booked this way the second ticket would suddenly be available at $768 as well.

You might try opening another window or even opening another session on another computer and see. You could probably get all 4 tickets working simultaneously.

 

[lmorin]

I just booked two Delta flights, one with miles and the other with part miles plus credit card. Looking up 2 people gave a price of about $820/person; looking up 1 person gave a price of $760/person, with the indication of "1 ticket left at this price." So, I booked the $760 ticket with the combination of miles and money then separately booked another ticket, now at the $820 price, paying with miles. The number of required miles was not different than for the $760 fare.

 

[drbill]

I guess it's time to buy a corporate jet for my business...