TexasMatthew

Hello all,

I've been using Google Flights to follow business class fares from Austin, Texas to Kiev, Ukraine and on the calendar, you've basically been able to pick any day in May/June/etc and it was around $2,200 roundtrip in business. It was like $700 in economy, $1,100 in premium, and $2,200 in business ... now all of a sudden today, every single fare is DOUBLE ... it's like $1,400 in economy, $2k in premium, and $5,500 in business. I look at the calendar and it's for all days. They basically doubled the price for their entire transatlantic flight schedule. Is this just a test to see how it affects sales before they lower it back down in a few days ... or do you reckon this will stick?

It just seems to extreme to go double the price instead of just slowly increasing the prices.

Thoughts?

Chiller3333

Looks like they are currently only filing D and up on this route.
I don't think it'll stay that way, but who knows...

TexasMatthew

yeah, United did the same thing, everything doubled on almost all the carriers ... my original ticket I wanted to buy was a P fare, but yeah, good point that now they're all D fares and it'll probably go away

Chiller3333

UA, LH, LX, OS, and AC price identically on TATL flights so that's no suprise.

cesco.g

Yep, their TATL JV. Ex-USA prices are (mostly) handled by UA, Ex-EU by LH.

TomMM

Having flown US to KBP numerous times this isn’t new. Sometimes changing the origin would greatly reduce the price.

TBD

Or just try again in a week. Airfare are all over the place these days.

Often1

LH has not raised its prices appreciably in any fare bucket that I can see.

I would not expect lower premium cabin fare buckets to open until 3-4 weeks prior to scheduled travel, if at all. Demand is increasing daily and a lot of that is in paid premium class travel. If LH cannot sell the seats in a higher bucket, it will open up the lower ones and you may then do very well. On the other hand, a good chance that the seats are sold and you can't purchase at any price.

We are heading into a very odd time. Travel may be shut down again or it may be expanded, all depending on the specific routing. The fact that no RM/IM algorithm or human can predict the course of the virus means being cautious in pricing.

Chiller3333

Based on what I can see on ExpertFlyer the problem isn't the availability of P per so but the lack of fares in P and Z being filed for AUS-KBP.
I haven't seen sth like that before tbh, usually they would set the availability of P while still having the fare available (as far as I know).

TexasMatthew

Even in economy, they're only selling V fares or higher, which explains why the economy price doubled too.

cfischer

Considering there is a free exchange ... why did you wait to purchase the $2200 fare That's a pretty sweet fare for this and right now ex-USA bookings are going crazy. I think the super ultra low biz fares ex-US have gone the way of the dodo

gusd

What I think happened is that United updated their schedules on Tuesday night, which resulted in a lot of capacity being cut for May and early June. Hence, the really low fares disappeared with the algorithms recalculating offer/demand. If demand doesn’t pick up, it may adjust again.

juan512

I've been checking every week for flights to Helsinki with lufthansa from Austin since last year. I secured tickets with Eco Basic 1k Roundtrip (in July). Currently I check for low fares on other days to see about possible rebooking without paying the extra charges.

I noticed the dramatic rises and dips week to week. This is nothing new, personally hold and check tuesday/wednesday, that's when i see usually 1.2k-1.4k fares RT for economy for 1 stops in Europe. But yes I noticed these prices, it's clearly not due to demand imo. Gusd is right on.

These prices will not stick.

warakorn

What LH and other airlines are doing (not publishing cheaper fare classes) was easy to predict.
At the moment a lot of passengers are owning vouchers. By restricting the sale of cheaper fare classes Lufthansa is managing to basically devalue the vouchers.

Example:
KBP-LAX in P for travel in April 2020 for EUR 2200;
LH has cancelled the ticket and pushed a voucher of EUR 2200 to the passenger;
Passenger now wants to use the voucher for KBP-LAX for travel in April 2022;
LH now sells these flights for EUR 4400;
Passenger applies his voucher of EUR 2200 and in the end has to pay again (with fresh cash) EUR 2200;
That is a very good deal for Lufthansa. Essentially it received the first EUR 2200 for April 2020 travel - bit didn't have to provide any service, but kept all the cash;

Hence, my advise since March 2020 -> Do not accept any vouchers!

From a revenue management point of view - Lufthansa will try to pull every trick in the book to only sell cheap P fare to new customers (and none to voucher-owners)!

TexasMatthew

Awesome advice y'all. I'll wait until Wednesday and see what the fares are then.