Hurry, "Only 4 Seats Left"???
 

Have you rushed to buy an airline ticket because a website says "only 4 seats left at this fare"? I fell for it recently, just to find out that the count was not real (at least for some code-share flights).

Here's what happened.

What has been your experience?

Edgar

For codeshares many airlines only display up to 4 seats available. For normal flights, it's up to 9.

Welcome to Flyertalk.

The number can be anything, sometimes one, sometimes four, sometimes no restriction. I just looked at a set of flights and saw numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and no limit on the United site.

I think the issue most people can not get is at that instant in time, there may only be one, two, three, or four tickets at that price available. That does not mean they will not instantly move some additional seats into that fare bucket once some of those are sold. If for example you buy two of them, the system may release more instantly so it looks like they were lying.

A better way to look at it, and I just tried this to make sure it was the case.

Take a look at a flight with the warning only four tickets at this price. Change the amount of tickets you want to six instead of one. There's a very good chance you will not be able to get the lower rate, it will price them all at the higher fare bucket.

Example

New York to San Francisco random dates, one ticket, can be had for $278 plus the fees and taxes with a warning that only one ticket is left.

When I change the amount to 2 for the same flights, both tickets now cost $318 each.

Yes there's a good chance as soon as I bought one at $278 another would be made available, but at that point in time, until the computers reprice it all out, there's only one ticket available at that price.


It brings up a good point for people buying multiple tickets (unless there's a reason not to split them). Always price it out as one ticket first, and see if the price changes for adding on more tickets. If it does, book them one at a time if you get the lower rate, or book as many as you can at the lower rate, and the rest at the higher so you don't pay the high rate on all of them. The airline won't ever tell you they can sell you two for one price and two for a lower price (at least online).

If I need to go somewhere, and I know the dates, and I find a good fare, I book it when I find it.

It's just not worth the time and stress to me to constantly fare hunt or stress out if subsequent fare reveals itself as $20 cheaper. Airline flight pricing models are voodoo magic - I've accepted that and moved on.

And never go back and see if the price has decreased subsequently unless you know you can book the lower fare with no penalty. That way lies madness.

Yes. There be dragons.

You don't really make sense. No one's talking about spending weeks waiting for the cheapest fare, or wanting to see if later fares arise that are $20 cheaper.

If I read it correctly, there's advice about breaking your reservation into smaller numbers of pax, so that not everyone would fall into a higher fare bucket.

Did I miss something?

>>It brings up a good point for people buying multiple tickets (unless there's a reason not to split them). Always price it out as one ticket first, and see if the price changes for adding on more tickets>>

Mike,

Directly on point about this... I too discovered if certain airlines say that 2 tickets are left at $300, and I want 3 tickets, the three will be (say) $350 each.

Why doesn't the system automatically give you two tickets at $300 and one ticket at $350?

Edgar

The OP's blog post says "after I bought one of them" > There doesn't appear to be any suggestion of multiple tickets.

My point is stressing over airline pricing models and "only four left" notices can drive you mad as there's little logic to it. Just find the best fare that suits you, buy it, and move on.

The same reason some hotel booking engines will price a multi night stay at a higher rate per night than the individual nights would work out to be, they don't pass along the decrease say for weekend nights.

We forget that we are dealing with a business, whose purpose it is to extract money from us. They will do little to make it easy for us to save money. About the only travel exemption is rental cars, they will price out a cheaper weekly fare when it's to your advantage even if you are keeping the car only four or five days.

But most hotel chains, and most certainly the airlines, you really need to do your homework and not just trust what they throw on your screen the first time.

It's a classic case of "Buy Or Die" marketing. The vast majority of marketing makes you, the customer, act now rather than wait.

If I saw "Hurry, only four seats left" I would just ignore it. If the seats at that price were truly scarce, they wouldn't advertise it.

^

i even saw the "Hurry, only 4 seats left" when I priced out a standard award in F. Took a look at the seatmap and there were only 4 open seats and checked inventory at F4.

most people have no concept about booking codes. On AA, i simply take a look at the bucket code, if it says Q, I buy. if it says O, I'll definitely buy. N, i'll prolly buy. Anything higher, i'm looking at different dates. I don't buy N and worry about Q/O coming up later cuz N is low enough.