redtop43

I fly from PHL to LAS every month. There is an afternoon flight on an A332 from PHL-LAX that I try to take. It's a 3-cabin plane and they designate the business cabin as "first class" (domestic) and the premium economy cabin as "MCE." I'm PPro so I get MCE for free. However, I've decided to purchase F when it's sensible.

The "normal" F fare for PHL-LAS nonstop is $610. The best fare for this routing is $618. However, as I look out to future months, the fare varies - $618, $918, $968, $1368, and $1418 are the most common fares, although I saw one as high as $1548. There's no clear consistency. For example, in July, four days in the first week are $618, but in August, 6 days are at $618 and all are Fridays or Saturdays.

Clearly, this far in advance it can't be a case of "all the lower fare buckets are sold out." Although I'm sure there are a lot of people flying either PHL-LAX, or xxx-PHL-LAX. It's an afternoon flight that leaves late enough to connect from anywhere and arrives early enough to connect to almost anywhere.

For giggles, I looked at the PHL-LAX fare. It's $1275 about 50% of the time, $1465 30%, and other amounts the rest, sometimes between the two but occasionally over $2K.

I wasn't industrious enough to compare other flight combinations on these routes, but I'm somewhat comfortable saying that they don't charge extra for the type of plane - I can almost always get a Y fare of around $230, while nonstop PHL-LAX is around $250.

I prefer to travel on Mondays, maybe Tuesdays. Obviously I have no God-given right to the fare I want on the day I want, but does anyone have ideas on why these fares wiggle the way they do and if there's a useful strategy to decide when to book?

mvoight

" For example, in July, four days in the first week are $618"
Business travel declines during holiday weeks. July 4 is on a Thursday this year. That would be a logical explanation for this fare being lower than other weekdays, for example.
In some locations, you might even find a decrease in hotel rates. While it often appears there is no rhyme or reason to airfares, and in some cases that might actually be correct, however, major airlines have complex systems tracking previous flyer behaviors, with the peaks and valleys of travels between destination.

econ

"Sold out" is probably a misnomer since it's quite possible that not a single J seat has been sold on some of those PHL-LAX flights. Just like it's also possible that AA will eventually open up those "lower fare buckets". All one can say is that at this point in time, AA doesn't feel that they need to do so.

donotblink

Sometimes the fare rules dictate specific dates that have surcharges due to high season, special events, etc.

VegasGambler

Just check EF for the inventory. Find out exactly why that fare is not applicable to those dates.

If you find this sort of question interesting, EF is worth the $99/year just for entertainment purposes, even if you don't get any real use from it. But you will get real use from it. Inventory + fare search can really help decide whether you should jump on a fare or wait, and save you real money. And seat alerts are extremely valuable.

Nuhusky

Is it possible some of the future dates coincide with conferences? I know airlines add special flights and increase pricing just for mobile world congress

Often1

Anything is possible. But, the answer is that AA employs sophistocated software to examine much more data than anyone here could possibly analyze and to look for patterns. If the algorithm suggests that it may be possible to sell into the higher fare buckets, there is no reason to open lower buckets. If the prediction does not come to pass, AA can open those buckets.

Don't forget that it does not take that much to move fare buckets. One tour group of 50 eats up a lot of seats, pushes availability down, and thus fare bucket availability into its higher reaches.

xliioper

Demand to LAS is highly variable depending conferences, sporting events, etc. Airlines do not assign a fixed number of seats to each fare bucket. Just because they have zero'd out certain lower fare buckets, while having sold few seats yet, does not imply there's a problem or issue with the yield management software. It's likely working exactly as intended.

donotblink

I don't have as much expertise with conferences in Las Vegas--I go to some for work, but typically don't care very much about how much the airfare costs because it's not coming out of my pocket. I do pay for tickets to Miami for Art Basel every year, I just pulled the trigger on my return flight last night (the Sunday coming back on 12/8 MIA -> NYC carries the highest demand), even though we're nine months out, it's pretty obvious to me between fares and the seat-maps that their revenue management models are holding lower inventory back that is available both the preceding weekend and the following weekend. I just paid $403 for a first class ticket on 12/8 in the 763, Y is $225. I decided to go back the following weekend, and was able to get a 5,000 mile return ticket in Y on Sunday in the evening on the 763.

xliioper

Well, $403 is the lowest FC fare, so there's at least some flights with I bucket open on 12/8, but coach indeed has no flights with S bucket open and only a couple with V. The cheap S fares often have blackout dates (for example, 11/22-11/27 and 11/30-12/02), so it's not just controlled via inventory availability. Certain high demand dates can also have fare surcharges -- for this route, there are fare surcharges of $74.42 for travel on 12/01 and $37.21 for travel on 12/02.

formeraa

Revenue management tries to predict demand for each fare bucket for a given flight on a given day. If there is sufficient demand forecast in the higher fare buckets, then they lower ones will not be available (resulting in a higher fare). Thus, some date/flight combinations are going to have lower fares and other will have higher fares, depending on the forecasted demand (and booked reservations).