Uncle Nonny

Are you more comfortable with the term "Supply and Demand"?

nk15

IADCAflyer

There is as much supply and demand factor in play here as there is dynamic pricing. You can fly this coming tuesday from Miami to Houston for $120 one way. The day before is $500 one way - largely because the flights are much more full.

NYC Flyer

Personalized pricing is a form of discrimination, it is perfectly legal, and it creates economic value. Happy hours, early bird specials, late night specials, pay in advance discounts, etc, are all discriminatory practices. Not to mention seniors discounts, student discounts, teachers' discounts....

Certain customers can meet the T&Cs and get a better price. In many jurisdicitons, where such discrimination has taken place involving a protected class, it has been declared illegal (different pricing for men's and women's haircuts=NOT OK; charging extra for longer hair=OK).

Without discriminatory pricing, restaurants would have trouble filling tables at off-peak times and would have a harder time making rent, paying full-time staff, etc. Many, many other examples exist. I'm not an expert on prescription drug pricing, but it seems that deregulating importation restrictions might be one way to address the problem.

We had a system of "fair" pricing of airline travel in this country until about 40 years ago. Most would agree that the current approach has been a resounding success in terms of creating economic value, as measured in industry employment levels, business for airlines' suppliers and vendors, and of course benefit to the traveling public (growth in both business activity and expanded leisure opportunities). Ironically, airline investors have been the primary class that has not benefited from deregulation (until recently).

I will concede that technology has enabled airlines to price their product more with more precision over time, but the basic concept is no different than a happy hour from 5-7. Have to work until 7:30? Tough luck--you'll have to spend that overtime check on the regular menu...

ijgordon

sbrower

I remember when COACH round-trip from LA to BOS was $2,000, and that was about 20 years ago, so it was probably equivalent to $3,000 now.

nk15

wrdouglas

Dave Noble

The vendor doesn't have to continue to do business with a customer that it dosn't want to

At this time AA is doing , it seems, nothing other than stating that it doesn't want the person as a member of its FF scheme

With mistake fares, the airlines are not obligated to honour them and there are plenty where the airline just cancels the booking

There is a difference with a vendor making a mistake and offering a credit card for payment which you know is invalid

GUWonder

sbrower

Well, to get a better timeframe, it was about 1 year before Lotus v. Borland went to the Supreme Court. So checking Google I find that the correct time frame is . . . 1995. (This was the time when you saved money with: a) a Saturday night stay, or b) an overnight flight where you paid Yn instead of Y. For one of my many trips I found a real good trick - you could fly to Bermuda from LA (international, so free stopover in gateway city of NY) for a total of about $780. The RT shuttle from NY to BOS was only a couple of hundred, so instead of $2,000 just to go to Boston, I got a day in Bermuda and save the client $1,200 in airfare.

Silver Fox

Doesn't sounds fishy or trying to game the system at all to me. Perhaps AA thought the same and decided that as you are "constantly booking travel" they'd had enough.

That said, the calls all sound rather dodgy and not AA-like to me.

IADCAflyer

I think you need to go back more than 20 years to find sky high transcon fares. 20 years ago was 1999, and fares, while less dynamic than today were never that high. Back then, BOS fares were affected by the Southwest effect where nearby service to PVD and MHT caused fare reductions to BOS owing to proximity.

Courtesy of WN, you could definitely fly LAX-PVD or LAX-MHT for $199 round trip. BOS fares were about $100 more (used to be $200 or $300 more).

moondog

We're getting way off topic here, but several people have recently asked about changing from undesirable to desirable flights in the China forum recently. The deal is that MU keeps the 6p PEK-SHA flight at full fare, regardless of demand, and heavily discounts the 9p and 930p flights. If you finish work early, changing from the 9p to the 6p is easy, but you need to pay up to full fare.

mcrw00