Originally Posted by
cordelli
In many cases, airplanes are flying with very few empty seats. There is no need for the airlines to give away empty seats to priceline at bargain basement prices, they know they will probably be able to sell those seats themselves.
Until capacity drops quite a bit, the pool of seats priceline will have to draw from will remain pretty slim, certainly not like it use to be.
I agree with you in theory for the reasons you state. In reality, I just made 4 NYOP test bids using lowball prices to ensure they wouldn't be accepted!
In each test bid I used outbound dates of tomorrow (Jan 12) with a return on Jan 19.
SFO-JFK. Bid $100. Received Counteroffer of $
245.86. Best retail is $631 for nonstop or $465 for connecting flight.
SFO-IAD. Bid $100. Received Counteroffer of
$297.00. Best retail is $1099 for nonstop or $571 connecting flight.
SFO-SEA. Bid $50. Received Counteroffer of $
170.34. Best retail is $244 for nonstop.
SFO-ORD. Bid $100. Received counteroffer of $
370.31. Best retail is $683 for nonstop or $500 connecting flight.
The taxes/fees on
all counteroffers indicated a nonstop itinerary. The counteroffer rates posted above include all taxes/fees.
Airlines
are giving Priceline inventory to sell under NYOP. At least on Wednesdays in January.
The savings for last minute travel NYOP vs. retail are fairly substantial IMO.