Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - Chances of nonstop?

I am looking at flying an extremely small amount of differences (jumping one state to the next) where there are over 20 flights back and forth a day nonstop.

The next several days the flights are WIDE OPEN. Literally, about 75% or more empty. Even flights in the next 12 hours!

My question is that I went to priceline and put in a bit and it was 20% less than the asking price but it said that it may require a stop or that I must atleast be willing to get on a flight that has a stop. My question to the forums is how can I avoid this? Will they do it out of spite? It literally wouldnt make any sense to book me on a flight with a stop when there are so many seats on non-stops but I am afraid they may do it just because they arent getting much money out of me (or not as much as they want) and to make my life miserable. Suggestions?

PL won't do anything out of spite. They don't know you from Adam, and have no reason to mistreat customers deliberately.

The program is simple. You decide what you want to pay for airfare between two cities. PL calculates how much it needs for the transaction, then offers the remaining amount to airlines to see if any will accept that payment amount. If there are takers, it may be at any time of day on the chosen dates, and may or may not involve intermediate cities. These matters are at the discretion of the airlines, within the stated rules of the program.

Airfares are complicated enough that there may be any number of reasons why a one-stop fare may be cheaper than non-stop, even between nearly neighboring cities. The primary reason is demand. Passengers are willing to pay a premium for non-stop, so it is usually (not always) priced higher. And even if the planes show nearly empty, the non-stop flights' fares may remain higher in anticipation of last-minute demand.

You may rest assured that the reason you might get a one-stop flight instead of non-stop is because airlines has determined that this will help maximize their revenue. It's also possible that you will get the non-stop, for exactly the same reason, revenue enhancement.

Spite doesn't enter into the picture.

You have too much guilt. If you are worried about it simply dont do a P/L.

MisterNice