Tried to buy one of my kids a ticket from Laguardia to West Palm on AA over Christmas. Looked on the computer on a Thursday and the price was $315. Go to buy next morning and it now goes to $348. Call Midway and get a better fare, so I buy it. Just for kicks, I follow the original flights to monitor pricing. By Saturday morning the price goes back to $280. By that night its down to $228. Thus, in less than 48 hours the price for the same ticket swings over a hundred bucks (a third of the value). I'm not naive about this sort of thing, but that's a little extreme. We know the pricing software is pretty fast, but to turn the simple task of buying a ticket into a shooting gallery (hope you hit the price as it flies by!) is starting to push the envelope to the extreme. The kid's an AA platinum, and she ends up on another (albeit affiliated) carrier, while some walk-up who gets lucky and calls at the right moment takes the seat. Gimme a break.

Agreed, but sadly that's the world we now live in. We have to put in the time and effort and be real selective or just take our chances! Sorry you lost out here. Interesingly, AA drove you away it seems with this extreme version of the yield management nonsense - which I don't think was their intention!

I too agree the "yield management" marketing-miracle is over-sold and/or over-done by many of the extreme "hell-with-customer" businesses. Properly researched, designed, and only then, if properly used it can increase profits for an airline, hotel or even a banana seller. As an example, selling plywood, water, batteries etc for outrageous prices in advance of a hurricane may produce huge profits in the short run, but an overall loss of business (ie profits) in the long run. Hey, storms are coming, up go my prices.

More and more I find myself booking rooms at the hotels with posted price booklets. They usually give a price range, and I can usually get a % discount off of that. It allows an elementary form of budgeting to be quickly and simply applied.

Last week I checked the Hilton web site (when it was working) for rates at the Capitol Hilton. Guess what......33 listed rates (and meeting rates were naturally not listed) in a hotel with 538 rooms. This is crazy!!! Ditto for ticket rate increases as soon as a ticket is sold (or the inverse).

ps: I stayed at the J W Marriott. When when the rate went up, I moved next door to the Willard. Again I voted with my feet and my wallet. This is MY form of properly applying MY "yield Management" technique and it works.

Sounds like the NASDAQ <g>



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