Although I had originally posted this in US I was wondering how airlines in general do this.
I see that often times people build a MR around a great fare they have found. I realize that fares can be loaded any day or time.
Is there a better time/day than usual to find ridiculously low fares that have been loaded incorrectly, or is it like finding a four leaf clover- just keep looking and you may get lucky?

Thanks Mike

Not 100% sure but I think the fares are loaded into the CRS systems at least 4 times a day. Mistakes just happen--no one time is better than the other. The CRS systems do have brakes installed where it will flag/pull a fare if it detects a much larger than normal amount of selling on a fare/route with one airline.

Since this is a question about airfares and deals rather than miles and points, I'm going to move the thread over to TravelBuzz.

There certainly are some members of the board who know -- really know -- the answer to this question. Just not sure whether they're in a position to share the information or not . . .

Either way, discussion will follow in TravelBuzz.

Regards,
Gary
aka gleff
MilesBuzz and Delta moderator

Fares are constantly being loaded into the system.

But if you're looking for deals from one of the top 50 heavily traveled cities, check out http://www.air-fare.com. I go there every day to see what the latest fares are between my hometown and frequently-travelled city pairs.

Also, after a while on FT, you'll get to know which cities are cheapest to do mileage runs are. For example, PDX to MHT, PVD, BWI, EWR and CHM are often really really cheap and don't require a 1-day minimum stay.

According to Tom Parsons of BestFares.com,

During the business week [Monday through Friday] airlines generally update their fares three times a day [12:30, 5:00 and 8:00 P.M., E.S.T.]. On weekends they generally update at 5:00 P.M. on Saturdays and 3:00 P.M. on Sundays. When a major airline starts a fare war, it generally attempts to take advantage of the 8:00 P.M. weekday or 3:00 P.M. Sunday "update" so the competition is prevented from matching fares until the next "update" i.e., [12:30 P.M. the following day]. This gives the sale originator a 24-hour price and advertising advantage over the competition.

Hope this helps!

In the past, I would wait for the UA update/change at 11:59pm Central time on Wed for the best rate adjustment down. This is for flights IAD-Europe.

Fares are updated constantly. But fares are not updated constantly at the CRS level- they are only updated several times a day. There are certain times of the day where the CRS' are loading more fares than at other times (Tom Parson's explanation is partially correct). There are set times to release but also on-demand releases each day.

The above applies for domestic US/CA fares and transborder fares. International fares are much different- they do not have the on-demand release capability of domestic fares. It also can take CRS' several hours to load international fares, sometimes even weeks to load changes to rule provisions.

Now inventory is constantly changing, and AFAIK tickets that are reserved but not ticketed cancel at midnight, freeing up inventory.


[This message has been edited by whlinder (edited Nov 25, 2003).]

Thanks for all the great info!

Just curious: does anyone know or have a guess which 12:30 Parsons is talking about.
I tried using the only logic that I could think of- which would give a longer time spread- and it didn't help.
12:30pm is 4 1/2 hours from 5pm
12:30am is 4 1/2 hours from 8pm

Mr Parsons often makes quotes that make little sense if one takes the time to carefully analyze them.

MisterNice

I thought it was 12:30 P.M., but I guess I could be wrong.