Price Increase WHILE I was making a reservation
 

Just now, I was booking a SCE-DTW-SHV flight on nwa.com and went to save it without purchase since the dates weren't yet firm. I forgot to check the "I agree with the terms and conditions give us your firstborn" box so it didn't initally save. I clicked it and this time it saved everything just fine. I then noticed the fine print that said that prices may have changed since my last visit (3 seconds before when I forgot to check the box). And sure enough, the price had indeed gone up.

By one cent.

Was it because I forgot to check the box? Did inflation suddenly rear its ugly head? Has anyone dealt with a more severe increase? I've never had this happen before and it's actually rather funny, as long as the increases stay in 1-2 cent range.

(I apologize if this has already been covered in previous post but the search engine was slow and I have to get back to work.)

I have had prices change within an hour, but not that quickly. The change on mine was a "real" change as it was about $100 for a trip over Thanksgiving.

By one cent? are you sure? Normally the fare only goes up if a fare bucket sells out, so the difference should be at least $40-50... but thats cool, thats gotta be a record hehe :)

I fly mostly international and find it happens all the time (as I several take days or weeks of monitoring fares before I commit myself). Often I find the changes are in my benefit (find cheaper fares on repeated checking). Availability of different fare classes can change. Also factors such as the exchange rate and oil prices impact on the fare cost so you often see smaller changes from day to day or hour to hour. Often my experience is when price goes up by say 100 dollars it is best not to grab it but wait and within a few days it often comes back to baseline - sometimes I get the impression the airlines are just testing the market. I flew NWA transatlantic last month and the fare was about 500 dollars when I started checking then suddenly about 3 weeks to christmas the fares went up within an hour to about 3,000 return for the available classes which were now B or Y only; these high fares remained for almost a week then all of a suden one day (about 9 days to departure) the fare came down to $590 (mixed Q and B) - even a B fare return which was 3,300 earlier it the day was now listing at $690.

I rarely buy flights earlier than 2 weeks to my departure and almost always find that fares get cheaper as the flight approaches.
Just to illustrate checking on NWA.com for DTW-CDG return for a 7 day stay departing

Feb 14 $544
Mar 14 $544
Apr 14 $661
May14 $756
Jun 14 $1056
Aug 14 $1058

Whilst I accept seasonal variations exist, it seems odd to me that you pay a premium for the privilege of making your travel arrangements early as I am sure that as the departure day approaches cheaper seats will become available.

It also has to do with summer being the prime season. If you check for flights in the fall they should be lower than in August.

The one penny change is probably a rounding discrepancy.

Some taxes are flat fees, some are percentages. It's the percentages that get rounded.

I'm guessing they have a minor bug that causes it to round one way in one screen, and another way in the next. And it probably only applies if you're exactly at that half penny mark, otherwise it would be much more common.

Orbitz will often display fares that, after you attempt to purchase, are unavailable. However, a subsequent search will repeat the fare. NWA.com’s booking engine is similar to Orbitz and will sometimes have this problem. If it does, contact NWA Web Support with the fare basis, flights & prices and once they verify the issue, they’ll USUALLY attempt to honor the fare (or refer you to customer care, who will do it).

Yes, I'm sure. $228.80 one minute, $228.81 the next. But then it went back a minute later when I did a fresh search. So the "nwa.com is Orbitz-esque" theory sounds pretty plausible. A tad annoying, but plausible. :)

But that leaves the question: are you kicking yourself for not buying it right away and losing that $228.80 fare? :D

There's at least one other thing at play here -- February and March 14 are Mondays, April 14 is a Thursday, and May 14 is a Saturday. Switching the April and May dates to a Monday reduces each of the prices by about $50-75. June and August I think are just seasonal variations.

Just for kicks, the lowest published NW fares DTW-CDG, by month:

Feb: $232 Mar: $327 Apr: $518
May: $613 Jun: $973 Jul: $973
Aug: $973 Sep: $698 Oct: $698
Nov: $518 Dec: $518

all without taxes