doofus_flyer

Has anybody else seen this? Yesterday, round trip fares (cheap seats in steerage, well in advance) from PVD to SFO were around $240. Today, they're up over $400. Is this just this route? Have they bumped up fares all over the place? I know costs are going up, but ... 60% or more?

Nevada1K

Southwest's $99 each way coast-to-coast fare sale, whch started in mid-December, required purchase of tickets by January 16. When WN's sale ended yesterday, the resulting "Southwest effect" on the other carriers also disappeared.

E

I've been told (and verified a few times myself) that the best day to buy airline tickets is on Tuesdays.

The reason?!?!? Fares over the weekend are at their "highest" point, and if the airlines do not get the "bites" they are looknigh for, fares begin to come down. As the week rolls on, however, fares go back up.

The other reason?!?!? The fare class you were looking at (since all of the seats and fares are capacity controlled) got sold out quickly at the lower fare, and now all you have left are higher priced seats.

Yet another reason?!?!? 14-day versus 7-day versus whatever else class of tickets might have come up. Happened to me last week. I was in Hawaii, pulled up a roundtrip fare from DBQ-MKE and it priced at $164. Thought about it for a few minutes, refreshed the PC and it came back at $500!!! Called up NW and they told me that it was past midnight, so within a mere few mintues I had un-qualified myself for the 14-day advance purchase ticket. But...it was 10pm Honolulu time, and they ended up giving me the lower fare anyway.

So, in conclusion...who the He!! knows why the fares you were looking at went...I don't even know if the airlines themselves do!

rmccamy

Awful nice of them to give you the lower fare... US did this for me once when I was booking an Midwest-to-East Coast flight at 12:30EST. Since the local time at my point of origin was 11:30PM, the agent gave it to me (although the computer system, residing in Charlotte, showed a local time of 12:30AM) at the 14-day fare.

I'm not sure what the stated policy is - I'm guessing local time of the airline's headquarters, unless otherwise noted - but it seemed like the agent was doing me a favor by giving me the lower fare.

mcrt

I've been watching fares for a while for SEA-TPA. For the last week or so there have been good fares on TWA and AW, the Delta fares showed up in the prices range. I wanted miles on AS so I didn't book this. Then late yesterday the fares showed up on NW and CO that were where I wanted. Unfortunately by the time I tried to book, they were gone.

Now I have to wait for the next fare sale and hope it comes soon.

Family flyer

E makes an astute point. I will take the fare formula a few yards further.

About four or five months out, there will be a fare drop on a route for about a week. After that, fares will remain constant and then slowly increase until a little more than a month out. Then they will drop, and then increase once inside 21 days.

I may post here again in a month to verify my theory. GRR-MCO for March has been hovering around $400 for the last few months. That route can drop as low as $234, so I'm waiting for my theory to kick in. We'll see ...

doofus_flyer

Thanks for the info, all. I wasn't aware of the Southwest deal, but in retrospect that makes sense. What continues not to, however, is the whole byzantine airline pricing structure. Ah, well, maybe I'll catch another good sale in the future.

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There is choas under the heavens ... and the situation is excellent.