Originally Posted by
seadog83
Now, if the price surges due to drought, but you really don't need that corn, you can sell your right to buy at a great price. Why shouldn't you be able to do this with airline tickets?
I booked a flight to the states 10 days ago, and noticed that the flight for my days has gone up 3x to $1200, while the next day is still the same $400 I paid. Since clearly there is a huge demand for that one day, I would have no problem going one day later if it would allow me to cash in. In all fact aside from the loosest of schedules, my dates were entirely dictated by the cheapest flights.
You make an interesting point here, one that airlines could potentially cash in on. They could, in theory, offer cheap-ticket-holders like yourself an option (presumably, with some sort of sweetener to account for the inconvenience) to exchange for a different flight that’s still underbooked if the demand/current price for your original flight is very high. It would allow them to sell the same seat twice, in effect. Everybody wins. Of course, given that most people’s time will not be as flexible as yours, there could be a low takeup on the offers, but over time it could be the equivalent of removing one olive from each salad
I assume that when airlines offer upgrades (for $300 or whatever) to premium cabins, it’s because demand for the original cabin has become high enough that they’ve raised prices and want to be able to re-sell those seats. But charging for an upgrade is only one way to skin this cat; offering a different flight could be another.