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How do airlines decide what fares qualify as “sales,” and why do they advertise certain fares, but not other, much lower ones? Why is United Airlines promoting a “sale” between Washington and Boston for $109 each way, when there are currently six published lower fares in that market, beginning with $49 each way?
For the most part, I don’t bother to figure out why airlines do certain things anymore. I just gather all the information I need about what they do and try to work with it — or around it. Years of watching fares have taught me not to fall for those “sales,” because in many cases, I can find a much lower price to the same destination, on the same dates and on the same carrier.
Both United and American Airlines are currently advertising two fall sales on their websites. My review of the American fares showed that most of them are indeed the lowest available prices at this time. There are a few small exceptions — for example, I found a fare from New York to San Diego that is $5 lower than the advertised $164.
There are many more and much bigger differences on United. The unadvertised — but published — fares between Washington and Boston, in addition to $49 each way, are $54, $64, $74, $84 and $99. They all have fewer restrictions than the $109 “sale” price.
I say between Washington and Boston — not from Washington to Boston — because domestic fares are the same in either direction, unlike international fares, which are usually very different.
Let’s take another example. The advertised fares between Denver and Los Angeles in two separate United “sales” are $99 and $89 each way. However, I found $68 each way. In addition, Denver-New Orleans is on “sale” for $123 each way, but there is also $109, and even $89.
Some of the advertised United fares are truly the lowest published at this time. For example, $88 each way for Washington-Chicago, $108 for Chicago-Denver, and $157 for Chicago-Los Angeles.
There is another catch that could increase the benefit of the unadvertised fares to you. Typically, “sale” prices require a round-trip purchase. In contrast, most of the lower fares I found have no such condition. In fact, the major U.S. carriers have been publishing more and more truly one-way fares in recent months, which has always been the case with Southwest Airlines and other low-cost carriers.
To United’s credit, some of its current sales don’t require a round-trip purchase. That is, indeed, the prudent thing to do. If a round trip is mandatory, why advertise one-way fares? Of course, for marketing purposes, but I’ve always found that a bit dishonest and deliberately misleading.
I mean no criticism of United for promoting as “sales” fares that are higher than other published fares. I wrote this to warn travelers that they should check all existing fares between two cities before settling for what they think is a “sale” or the best deal.
Those of you who have attended my “On the Fly” Seminars know how easy it is to bring up on your computer screen all fares published by every airline on a certain route in just seconds.
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Continue reading about When an airfare sale is not quite a sale
The observation that everybody is a TV critic was made a long time ago, but in the last few years I’ve also noticed that most people think they know how to travel — both how to book a trip and how to handle all aspects of the journey.
At the same time, we keep hearing and reading horror stories about mistreated and overcharged passengers, ruined vacations, missed weddings or funerals. Those tales often end with the affected travelers’ solemn pledge never to fly the airline that wronged them again. But are the airlines the only ones to blame or should travelers share at least part of the responsibility?
Having flown almost 2 million miles and visited more than 80 countries, I’ve seen it all –- airline agents who offer completely different answers to the same questions, and others who simply make up rules to avoid dealing with an issue; flight attendants whose dislike for their job is evident in everything they do on board; rude and demanding passengers who fail to recognize when an airline employee actually does them a favor… MORE
Continue reading about Time for travel school — you are invited
Have you been accused by airline agents of trying to “game the system” by asking if they could open up for mileage redemption seats they obviously won’t sell for cash? Now a top airline executive is encouraging fliers to alert agents when the system fails in its predictability, so it can be “tweaked.”
Before you do that, however, make sure you know what you are talking about — learn all booking codes used by the respective carrier, if you haven’t already, and be able to access and understand its inventory data. Just because there are dozens of open business-class seats months before a flight doesn’t mean you are entitled to an upgrade or an “award” ticket.
Still, many frequent fliers have enough knowledge and experience to sense when the yield-management system — the computer software airlines use to predict how a flight will sell — is not working properly. The problem is that most agents are unreceptive when a customer points that out, saying they don’t tell inventory management what to do, because it knows best.
Continue reading about ‘Tweaking’ airlines’ yield management
Having covered American diplomacy for a decade now, I’ve received many “diplomatic” answers to my questions — but none more so than “Yes, but not really.” I was reminded of it by the recently negotiated Open Skies aviation agreement between the United States and Japan.
The idea of the Open Skies accords, which Washington has with more than 90 countries, was to liberalize air travel between the signatories, allowing flights from any city in the first country to any city in the second without the previously imposed government restrictions.
However, the deal reached with Japan in December has one glaring exception — U.S. carriers can have only four pairs of takeoff and landing slots at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, and only between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Even though the document hasn’t been signed yet, there are no plans to change the Haneda limits…
How would you like to fly to Australia in Qantas Airways’ luxurious first class on its new Airbus A380 aircraft for $1,200? You could actually buy such a ticket last week, but as regular readers of this column might have guessed, that was yet another case of a mistake fare.
Just like 2009, the new year began with a major airline making an error when filing a fare, and then deciding not to honor the issued tickets. As I wrote last January, Swiss International Air Lines published a $300 business-class fare from Toronto to several European and Indian cities. In November, British Airways filed a $560 round-trip coach fare from the United States to India.
On Wednesday, it was American Airlines’ turn. A frequent flier noticed that the $1,200 fare from Los Angeles to Sydney, which is typically an economy price, now booked into first class — not even business. Similar fares were available from other U.S. cities…
Continue reading about Airlines refuse to honor mistake fares
