Originally Posted by
jcoop
This was Tango, YYZ-LHR for a vacation at the end of August. Unfortunately we have zero flexibility on scheduling (both day and time) so we decided to pull the trigger even though the trip is six months out, mostly as an insurance policy against having to buy a jacked up fare later.
My guess is that this far out they only release a few seats in each bucket at a time, hoping that the warning will convince someone to buy instead of waiting longer.
Interestingly the fare for that particular itinerary jumped around $200-300 for a few days, then settled back down again to a slightly lower price point. Maybe a few purchases close together makes the system think that a flight will be in high demand?
Not necessarily high demand, but higher demand relative to booking patterns and availability on other flights. Once a few bookings stray from the trend AC is obviously going to want to switch loads to less-empty planes or jack up the price if demand is above-average.