Here is my recent experience with travel websites.

4 days ago, SJC->SJD on Alaska on 3 travel sites, $494 RT

1 day ago, same FLIGHT, $454 RT on same 3 travel sites

This morning, 2 different flights show up at $454 RT on 3 travel sites. So, I get on phone to tell a family member. While he is booking $454 flight on bookit.com, I go to bookit.com, and the other 3 sites AT THE SAME TIME, and fare have gone up to $494! (for the same FLIGHT).

There is something more sophisticated going on here.

have the same travel dates, same destinations (seattle to bangkok – okay SEA to BKK) when i goto the price aggregates like kayak.com etc, one day the cheapest price is 850$. next day it’s 1150$ next day it’s $950 etc etc. and this is booking at least two months in advance for a two or three month trip home and back

There could be two things at work here. One, it could have been a pricing change. More likely, however, is that the airlines no longer had seats available at the lower fare level so it shows you a higher price. Let’s say they had four seats available for the cheap fare yesterday but then four people bought them. Now they have none available at the cheap fare, so you’ll have to pay the next fare up. Or, they could have decided that they could sell those four seats at a higher level so they just stopped selling at the lower fare. That could open back up the next day if they so chose. It’s complicated, for sure.

As someone who had been involved in transportation pricing much of his life, I appreciate the work of pricing analysts. What is so often missing in pricing, however, is understanding, or appreciation if you will, of what the customer is looking for. Of course, value, but simplicity, understandability, and a little consistency from day-to-day.

I TRY to understand airline pricing. I’m not looking simply for the cheapest fare, but whatever I get, I want it to have value for me, to look like I’m being treated fairly among all other similarly-situated buyers, and that it looks to me like the airline is being honest about what it is offering to me.

When I see an airline, like UA, currently offering $98.60 one-way, 1-day advance purchase fares for just about every IAD-LAX non-stop, I just shake my head and wonder what is going on. When I see UA, as it did today, send out an email announcing this weekend’s (June 5/6-7/9) E-Fares, and then indicate that tickets mush be purchased by last Friday, May 29, I wonder if anybody really has a clue what they are doing.

I agree with Cranky. One last suggestion for you is to at least TRY to understand the crazy world of airline pricing from the airline’s perspective. It will help you find the fares you are willing to pay instead of digging thru the outrageous ones that clutter and boggle the mind.

Why is the 2PM only available at $500 while the 7PM is still on offer at $129? Simple: All the cheap seats are sold out at 2PM but there’s plenty left for the last flight of the day.

Biz travelers tend to want to be home in time for dinner where leisure travelers at least want to be home in time for bed. Airlines know this and will offer the fewest cheap seats on a prime business flight (they’re required by law to offer at least one on all flights – the 2PM probably got exactly that one seat) while offering the run of the house later in the day.

To anyone who complains about airline pricing. It is what it is. Think like an airline pricing analyst. Ask what you would do with your inventory in the face of volatile demand, unpredictable competition and the need for any kind of revenue you can get.

I promise you will find the fares you prefer at the end of that rainbow.