Why do I get wildly different prices when I shop from day to day for
my trip?

I wish there was a pithy one line answer to this question, but alas,
there
isn?t. With your indulgence, let me boil down a War & Peace sized
answer into
half a page.

Remember, the more you understand how airlines think, the better
chance you have
of getting the best possible deal.

In general, it costs an airline anywhere from 8 to 15 cents a mile per
seat to
run an airplane. You can see a sample breakdown tracked by the
government below:

http://www.bts.gov/press_releases/20....html#table_09

What does this mean for the air travel consumer?

Let?s use an example from last night?s 8pm U.S. Domestic airfare
filing.

Northwest Airlines filed an airfare from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to
Portland,
Oregon for $160. At 5,386 miles, those seats are selling at 3 cents a
mile.

It doesn?t take a rocket scientist to figure out they are ?losing?
money by
selling some seats at that price.

Why do they even offer that low price on some seats?

The airlines get nothing for an empty seat, so they are willing to
sell some
seats below cost.

The airlines must manage how full they can get a particular plane, and
knowing
some people will pay more than others, they try to manage right mix of
people.

The airlines have price points for a particular flight that can range
from 3
cents to 2 dollars per mile. In general, business and last minute
travelers pay
the hefty amounts while many leisure travelers fill up what?s left at
below
cost.

The airlines spend tens of millions of dollars on computer systems to
analyze
exactly how many seats and at what price they have to sell them to
make the most
profit.

Every time you make a query for a price quote, these computer systems
kick into
action deciding which price point to release for a given flight.

In theory, it should come as no surprise that the quote can differ
every time
you make it.

I apologize for the long-winded answer. But, as one of my favorites,
Paul
Harvey says, ?Now you have the rest of the story?.