discount code trickery
 

What a crock. If you book in the future can normally find a YOW-LIM for $696 base fare. The new promotion promises 15% off flights for •Valid for departures between June 1, 2011 and August 31, 2011. In fact, if you try it will only give the discount if trip completed by Aug 31. No matter, the bad part is they raised the base price for the period of validity of the discount to $940. After the discount validity period, in September the price returns to $696. Great. Raise the price $244 then offer a $140 discount as a promotion. Wow, thanks, raise the fare then offer a lesser diso.....

But they made a mistake. The computer guys must have thought the discount ended Aug 15 so a couple of the $696 fares show up just before months end instead of after. You can see the flights when you do not use the discount code... but when you add the discount code all of a sudden “Unfortunately, no flight results were found for the search criteria you have entered.”. So lets see, without the code there are flights, but with the code there are not. What a crock.

Do these flights usally go up in price due to the busy summer season (ie June to end-of Aug)? Do you know what has happened to the fares in previous years for summer travel?

I would assume you will find a similar pattern for Europe travel.

I do agree it seems pretty bogus...

I also assume you will pay ~$400 or more in taxes and 'surcharges' on top of that?

I did price this trip for August a month ago and it showed the $696 fare then. But regardless, are we not saying the same thing (regardless of the reason for the increase)... they raise the fare then promote a discount

Yes, when you add in the $400+ charges even with the discount I can find this destination cheaper on another airline.

I believe this is actually winter in the southern hemisphere. You'd think this would make the fare cheaper due to less demand.

The summer portion would involve the within Canada flights connecting to YYZ to get to South America.

computer programmers, programs and logarithms have become so sophisticated, that in their revenue models you can't beat the system.

Have you tried calling in and booking it with the code.. Perhaps customer reps can override?

No, this is not just an honest mistake. I've also noticed this with some city pairs during the Asia sales. T+ jumps up, before the sale effectively remaining even with code applied.

I think there were some posts about this maybe a year or so ago.

Of course I am refrring to OUR summer. It is Air Canada we are talking about. Meaning it is high travel season for people who live in Canada (going to a variety of destinations- not just domestic) and for people travelling to Canada.

And to be clear, the high season for travel to Peru is June to early September- that is the high season for Machu Picchu.

This is my suspicion about the recently ended Shop at Three partners and get x2 AP miles Plus a 15% discount coupon. That code, when it is sent out, is only valid for purchase of tickets between speific dates and I'd bet the farm that the base fare goes up during that time.....

Pfft, and they think we are stupid!

Perhaps the 15% code the OP is referring to is this promo.

Chicanery, thats all it is.

I think OP is referring to the South America promo code.

Yes, the SA code.

No, increased demand because of Machu Pichu trekkers does not account for much, there are not THAT many, (and even then, if the plane is full of demand by trekkers then why offer a discount?). Year round this route has many many Spanish speakers. Most demand is Christmas and January (the nation summer vacation is the month of January in Peru), biggest travel period nationally and internationally for them.

I should note this route escaped the recent AE rewards enhancement so that says a lot about demand...

But back to topic. They increase the fares then they promote a discount worth half what they increased the fares by, and after the validity period of the discount, the prices go back down to normal. Marketing trickery IMHO.

AND the discount code does not work on any low fare you can mistakenly find, only on the higher fares.

It is trickery and everyone knows but not many will admit. Try TACA or LAN.

The Shop at Three partners promo runs until May 15th.
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13F

Further to this thread and the discussion of prices rising during the summer months here, hence higher prices (as opposed to my contention they raised prices before offering the 15% discount), I note in another thread that prices in July YOW-LIM are back down again. Indeed, I can find non-sale prices at $666 in July, some of the lowest regular prices this year... chicanery.

It is the limitation of their PDP-11 ;)

Now we know how bad their programmer's are.. OP, if you can post some screenshot of your find, that would be interesting to look at.

Perhaps AC will reward you for UAT.

p.s. you can upload screenshot to imageshack.us and post it here.

If this is true, I would think this is the one area that competition bureau might look into.

AC is like the Brick. There is always a sale on, but you have to make sure you do your home work to get a good "sale" price!!