docbert

Airfare pricing is basically the definition of "dynamic pricing" - or at least, it's one of the definitions of "dynamic pricing" as there are multiple.

If you're saying that airlines don't change prices based on a particular user, you're correct.


Possibly a cancellation of another flight that caused them to move a number of people to that flight, or any of a dozen other similar situations that can cause availability (and thus prices!) to change with no notice.

meehgz

That's what I thought for a brief moment, but nothing on the standby list on the flight status for that flight indicates that to be the issue. Plus it's a route with at least half a dozen nonstop options through the day...

Just checked again and it's back at Y3. Wonky. Haven't seen this much back and forth on any SDC attempt I've made in the past.

1P

If there's no dynamic pricing, how do you explain this?

T fare available on a particular flight
Two days later, the lowest fare available is H
Two days after that, I was able to purchase a V fare.

Exactly the same itinerary every time. Something strange going on there.

mgcsinc

Potential aircraft swap?

Sounds exactly like traditional fare and bucket pricing to me...

Did any of these searches produce different results from a search using an OTA?

docbert

As I said above, airfare pricing the basically the definition of dynamic pricing.

The problem is that there's multiple things called "dynamic pricing".

One of those definitions is what some websites do when they track a user, and then modify the price based on their prior history. Each user potentially gets a different price, and doing things like clearing cookies in a browser, or using a different computer, can result in seeing a different price.

Airlines do NOT that do.

Another definition of dynamic pricing is pricing that changes based on demand, competition, and a dozen other factors that nobody other than the people/algorithms setting the price actually understand. The price may change daily, or even more frequently - but it doesn't change based on the individual user looking, or their previous history.

Airlines DO, obviously, do exactly that.

So yes, United does use Dynamic Pricing (second definition above), but they do not use Dynamic Pricing (first definition above). Confused yet?

Kacee

There are at least two aspects to this.

First, fares themselves can change based on both external factors (e.g., what's the competition doing?) and internal factors (e.g., loads are lower or higher than we expected). So the $1330 W fare SFO-HKG I've been watching for weeks just dropped to $1297 this morning.

Second, within the fixed fare structure, prices for a particular ticket will change based on fare bucket availability. This can be affected both by sales of all inventory in a particular bucket and IM-instigated changes to fare bucket availability (e.g., zeroing out P or opening G).

mgcsinc

Sorry, but so far as I'm concerned, this is called "pricing," not "dynamic pricing," and all industries, from retail on up, do it.

Folderholder

One time I was on my computer, signed in at ua.com and looking for a flight. Found it, but kept searching for alternatives. 5 minutes later the same ticket had gone up by $200. I tried my iPad, not signed in, was quoted the original lower price so I bought the ticket with the iPad. Dynamic or not, it was screwy.

docbert

Lets say a shop has 50 of a particular item to sell when they open in the morning. Someone comes in and buys 4 of them. A few minutes later, someone else comes in and want to buy 1 - but in the interim the price has gone up 20%.

A few hours later someone else comes in and buys 2, but finds the price has dropped back to the original price. Then 5 minutes later they try and buy another 1 only to find the price is now 50% higher.

How often does that happen in retail? I'm not saying it doesn't happen (eg, Amazon has been doing exactly this recently!), but it's not the norm.

On the other hand, this is exactly how airline pricing works - the first person bought all of the inventory in a particular fare bucket, so pushed the next purchaser to the next fare class. Then inventory management decided to change availability for some reason (maybe a weather report), making the cheaper fare class available again, etc.

mgcsinc

My brother works in retail. They change they're prices quite quickly, and do so based on inventory. No, it's not as quick as the airlines, but it's a difference in degree, not in kind. That difference in degree does not "dynamic pricing" make.

fly2work

So just an update. I ended up on my original flight and a nice GS customer service agent put me straight into the remaining BizFirst seats on both my return flights NRT-IAH and IAH-DEN. I asked her about moving to the other flight and got this response. "That is possible if you want to as V space is available. I'll waive the change fee and there is no fare difference." Checked online and sure enough V=2. Same aircraft as before, same seating config. Dynamic pricing at its best!