eastcoastcan

I had to do a last minute trip YHZ->YYZ this week. Things have been completely booked (anyone know what is happening this week?) all week and the only seats left were Latitude and Tango Plus at absurd prices. I noticed on Monday however that Tango Plus buckets were occasionally getting opened up in the $230-$300 range. I knew it was risky to wait until Thursday to book my Friday day trip but I held out and bingo! I got it this morning for $230+tax. I didn't book a backup Latitude but that would have been a fine backup plan.

When else have you stared revenue management down and came out ahead? Risky business, but it's fun sometimes too!

WR Cage

In the example used above is not really staring revenue management down. Revenue Management made a consious decision that tickets sold 1 week before departure were more valuable than last minute purchase tickets.

Also this situation points to an instance where AC is getting significantly higher yield tham WS. The constant price discounts are to bring AC last minute fares down to comparable flights offered by WS.


Instances to staring down revenue management.
- Check out the MR forum for the great mistake fares that have occured in the mid 2000s. LAX-SYD-AKL in UA biz class for $505, AZ Larnaca Biz, there are numerous others that Tcook052 is much better at taking advantage of than I am.
- Personal experience was booking a YYC-YVR-YLW connection on WS through Expedia. THis was in the days of Openskies when WS had a manual Revenue Mgmt System that specified correct flight connections rahter than use the IATA 4 hour connection rule. I booked the flights Expedia and got a price $150 cheaper than WS.com. WS Revenue Mgmt charged me the higher fare and I worked with Expedia to get the lower price. In this istance I literally stared the WS Revenue Mgmt team in the eye and got them to blink.
- Hidden city trips (YYC-YVR-SEA being cheaper than YYC-YVR) are staring down Rev Mgmt.
- Although before my time on FT, the famous MEXICAN HAT DANCE is probably the best example of staring down Revenue Mgmt.

SKYEG

Nice one,
a while back I had to go to LAS and had only 1 week notice. Prices were almost $1000 for T+ from yeg. Was going to give it until Tuesday(3 days prior to flight) to see if fares would drop, sure enough westjet had a sale and AC followed the next day so I ended up booking for $400 round trip with 2 days to spare. did not book a latitude back up. Fares went back up to $800 level after the sale ended, and about 3 days later it dropped to around $450. not quite sure why that happened

This is my only time I've actually saved by waiting, usually all my last minute flights are 2x or 3x base fare of what you would pay during a sale...

PhotoJim

If you have some flexibility on whether you go or not, waiting until the last minute can pay off. Airlines would rather make a few bucks off a seat than no bucks off a seat.

On the other hand, the flight could fill up so if your strategy is that you'd pay the higher fare if you had to at the last minute, you may no longer have the option of doing that.

HangTen

I know someone at WestJet with an employee number under 500 who tells me their revenue management was manual until June of 1996 when it was automated and it has been automated ever since.

Revenue management people at scheduled airlines never want to lower fares as they get close to the departure date. There is a short term revenue gain but for example, eastcoastcan is not as likely to book in advance anymore and we all know that airlines live on advance bookings. If everyone did that, airlines would be in big trouble.

I think about 75% of Air Canada's cash on hand is advance booking revenue compared to about 25% at Westjet.

It also causes lots of customer service problems when people call into complain they paid too much and want a refund.

upgradesecret

Well Mark:
You should qualify that statement. It was automated but had not been calibrated for years until Dr Evil came on the scene.

eastcoastcan

I think there is a fine line here though. Many fridays I do the YHZ-BOS for afternoon meetings (day trip).

I end up paying $500 to $800 through a TA that has bulk Tango+ fares (so sweet). On Aircanada.com though, it would easily be $2k round trip for a WEEKEND YHZ-BOS. The plane on these days is never even 1/3rd full. They really could drive overall revenue on some routes with discounting....

Stranger

If things have not changed, yield management is not really online. What occasionally happens is that someone cancels a booking, and it automatically reverts to the original booking reference, until yield management looks at it.

If you grab it in the meantime, you win.

Bunyak

Does this explain the death of AC's weekly Websaver deals? I loved them.

Back in the 1990s, my brother's temporary job and apartment lease ended on a particular date. He took a chance that a Websaver deal to his home town would come available for his last day of work. Sure enough, it did and he got home quite cheaply a day later...

g46r

Precisely. A lower fare class seat becomes available when someone on a reservation in that fare bucket cancels/changes his booking.

Stranger

However if at that point the flight is seriously full, when revenue management looks into it, the low fare seat quickly vanishes.

You notice that when a flight goes from something like J2C0Z0R0Y2B0M0H0V0...to J2C1Z1R1Y3B1M1H1V1...

(Not guaranteed that I got the sequence right, but you get the point.)