Why 6 Day Minimum Stays?
 

Can anyone explain to me, what possible logical sense does a 6 stay requirement make for the airlines?

If they are looking to fill seats by enticing customers with cheap fares (i.e. $600 r/t to SE Asia) how does the 6 days matter? My only guess is to discourage mileage runners, but then that's sort of counterproductive. If its to discourage business travelers from benefiting, why isn't a Saturday and/or Sunday stay requirement enough?

All opinions are welcome...

Gene

????? Not sure what you're talking about, I fly CO very regularly on short weekend/long weekend (Thur/Fri-Mon) trips both in the US & overseas (Europe/Asia), always get cheap, yet upgradeable fares and have never seen anything saying I needed to stay 6 days. Perhaps this requirement is only on certain airlines, UA, AA, etc???

Purely as a guess...but sometimes fares are subsidized by tourist agencies (governments). If that is the case for a particular fare, I could see where a longer minimum stay requirement makes sense.

Almost any requirement for a stay that gives a much lower rate is so that business flyers can not take advantage of it. They want the business people to pay a ton of money.

Most business trips would not be six day minimums (though I have never seen a six day minimum stay). If you are thinking of a Saturday night stay, that could be less then a day, fly out at 10 pm on Saturday, fly back Sunday morning.

IME, it's mainy Asia fares where we're finding the longer stay requirements- didn't people complain when UA introduced one on SIN runs? For a CO example, the fares CO had for the reintroduction of EWR-HKG originally had a minimum stay (the current one specifies none):
Continental Airlines to Resume Nonstop New York - Hong Kong Service
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum20/HTML/008260.html

My guess is that it's often another thing (as with saturday-night stays) to discourage business travelers from using cheap tickets. If you have a day or two of meetings somewhere, a 6-day min.stay fare is of little use to you. Discouraging mileage runners is lower down the list of importance, IMHO.

P.S. I thought "cheap, upgradeable fares" was an oxymoron on CO! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

In particular, I had in mind the current NW and AA requirements for their cheap Asia fares. I would like to take advantage of them over Labor Day weekend, but don't really want to take the extra 4 days off work.

I still think just a weekend stayover restiction would be a fair balance between providing great deals to leisure travelers and gouging the business traveler.

If I may, the reason airlines have a minimum stay is to separate the more flexible (and more expensive) economy tickets from the lowest available Y seat. No airline is going to make money flying pax to SIN for USD 259.00 roundtrip with no minimun stay. They want you to be forced into buying the pricier Y fares. Sometimes a deal comes along as just returned from a LAX-SIN MR that was offered at the rate I've mentioned with no minimum stay rules. The fare lasted only a few days before NW changed the fare rules, not the price, to require a 6 day minimum stay.

As it usually happens, cost vs. convenience at their usual places at opposite ends of the teeter-totter, just where airlines like it. Unless you can sacrafice convenience, don't expect cost to be low.

Random thoughts on this subject:

Competitive pressures seem to have at least some effect. Both NW and UA fly (their own aircraft all the way) from the U.S. to SIN, both currently have a six-day miniumum stay. It seems that if one drops the requirement the other one will.

Six-day minimum stays to SIN have been around on UA for ~ 12 months. These are part of the fare rules for HQVSLKT fare classes. You have to buy an M fare or higher, ~ $1,500, where an H fare might be ~ $900 and a Q might be $750 (I've taken some liberties averaging East and West coast departures).

Occasionally UA drops this requirement to either a Sat. stay or a 4 day minimum stay. They also offer weekly e-fares that have a four day min. stay.

A business trip from the U.S. to Singapore is not hard to stretch out to six days considering it takes three to fly out and back, add in a weekend and your good to go.

Many low priced economy fares on UA have advanced purchase requirements that restrict some business travel purchase. (Some Corp. contracts exclude low priced fares from the discount schedule and aggregate revenue thresholds.)

I assume that six day min stays are primarily meant to maximize revenue by steering business travelers, to higher fares. I really don't think mileage runners are the target?