Originally Posted by
mvoight
The cheapest fares sell out faster at times, more than others.
A good example of this is SNA-SJC on Sundays. Morning flights tend to have the cheaper seats for a lot longer than the PM departures, but booked far in advance, the fares for all of the flights are the same.
I have no problem not getting a refund on flights that would have been cheaper to book than my original flights, but I ended up on after irrops.
I have, by far, saved far more by standing by either for $25 or $0, on flights that would have cost far more. Not only did I save money, but I have saved a lot of time by eliminating connections. Most recently, for $0, I turned a SJU-FLL-DFW-SFO into a SJU-MIA-SFO
I'm not sure all flights even have the cheaper seats available. Revenue management may zero out the cheapest fare buckets right away.
Sunday JFK-SFO flight 85 is always more expensive because it is a very popular flight for business people and for international connecting passengers continuing on to the west coast. Compare with the 7 am JFK-SFO Sunday morning flight.