A Travel and vacations forum. TravelBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » TravelBanter forum » Travelling Style » Air travel
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Avoid Delta and Atlanta



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #21  
Old June 26th, 2006, 01:05 PM posted to rec.travel.air
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Avoid Delta and Atlanta

On Mon, 26 Jun 2006 07:00:05 -0500, Hilary
wrote:

As early as possible. People travelling to Australia and NZ for Christmas
and New Year often booked the moment the dates became available, otherwise
they lost the dates they wanted at the cheapest fares.


That makes no sense from the airlines perspective, if the fares are in
such demand, why do they offer any cheap flights?

Jim.
  #22  
Old June 26th, 2006, 02:49 PM posted to rec.travel.air
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Avoid Delta and Atlanta

On Mon, 26 Jun 2006 08:34:07 -0500, Hilary
wrote:

As early as possible. People travelling to Australia and NZ for Christmas
and New Year often booked the moment the dates became available, otherwise
they lost the dates they wanted at the cheapest fares.


That makes no sense from the airlines perspective, if the fares are in
such demand, why do they offer any cheap flights?


It's not "cheap" flights it's "cheapest". There is always a range of
fares, but in some cases the range is wider than others.


So why have a range at all, if these flights sell out immediately? it
seems rather strange, anything that sells out immediately normally
suggests you can charge a higher price, especially if it's selling out
immediately 11 months ahead!

Jim.
  #23  
Old June 26th, 2006, 04:23 PM posted to rec.travel.air
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Avoid Delta and Atlanta

In article .net,
Hilary wrote:

What airlines are those? I've seen a few turd-world airlines that have
fixed fares, but in the US and Europe every airline I can think of has
fares that vary all the time, starting from high, then getting lower,
then increasing again as time gets closer.


The basic fares don't change. They have specials which come and go


My point exactly. Nobody who wants to save money books 12 months in
advance, because there will always be some sale later on when the same
flights will be selling cheaper.

As early as possible. People travelling to Australia and NZ for Christmas
and New Year often booked the moment the dates became available, otherwise
they lost the dates they wanted at the cheapest fares.


I don't believe you. The cheapest Christmas tickets to Australia and
NZ are usually sold in the spring, not previous Christmas. In any case,
you were talking about Delta. Does Delta fly to Australia or NZ?

(I've also seen people do the same for trips to Florida during the
summer: June 30th was a very popular date and savy travellers booked very
early.)


Are you saying that July is the best time to buy tickets to Florida
for next June 30? This is nonsense. Let's do a little experiment.
Give me a route to Florida. I bet that tickets on that route for June
30, 2007, will be cheaper in November than in August.

Give me a route where you think today's price for a flight in June
2007 is the best price one can possibly get, i.e., there won't be any
time between now and then when the same seat on the same flight will
be selling for less.


As I said before, it depends on the airline and route.


So I am asking you - which airline and which route? Frankly, I just
don't believe you. Buying tickets 12 months in advance makes no
sense whatsoever. It is possible that there are some Delta routes
where prices only go up, but I have yet to see them.

People with limited holiday, or with needs for specific dates,
or people booking for very busy routes will all tend to book as early as
they can.


People do all sorts of stupid things. Most people know very little
about airfare pricing and yield management. They assume that airfares
are fixed - once the cheap bucket empties out, only expensive tickets
are left. It's usually the other way around. Airlines try to sell
midpriced and expensive tickets first, then resort to sales a few
months out, then jack up prices again 21 days before the flight.

  #24  
Old June 26th, 2006, 06:48 PM posted to rec.travel.air
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Avoid Delta and Atlanta

On Mon, 26 Jun 2006 09:37:29 -0500, Hilary
wrote:

So why have a range at all, if these flights sell out immediately? it
seems rather strange, anything that sells out immediately normally
suggests you can charge a higher price, especially if it's selling out
immediately 11 months ahead!


The cheaper end of the range sell out very quickly for the most popular
dates.


So why do they offer tickets that sell out very quickly? it doesn't
make sense to offer such fares.

The point of the range is that some people won't travel at all
rather than pay fares higher than a certain amount - these people book
early to get the better fares.


You don't need to cater for such people if your plane is going to be
full anyway.

Some people don't/can't book early for
whatever reason, and they end up paying the higher fares. This way the
airlines cover all their bases.


But you keep saying that the plane will fill up anyway at these peak
times, if that's the case there's no point offering the discounts
early, they might aswell wait until a few months later if the seats
really aren't selling.

Jim.
  #25  
Old June 26th, 2006, 06:53 PM posted to rec.travel.air
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Avoid Delta and Atlanta

In article .net,
Hilary wrote:

Not all flights have specials, as I said before.


So far, you haven't given me any flights that don't have specials.
You say that EI doesn't have specials, but I don't believe you.
Just type ``Aer Lingus sale'' into Google. Next time I see them
advertising a fare sale, I'll make sure to post it here.

Are you saying that July is the best time to buy tickets to Florida
for next June 30? This is nonsense. Let's do a little experiment.
Give me a route to Florida. I bet that tickets on that route for June
30, 2007, will be cheaper in November than in August.


Let me recap slowly. Schools in Scotland break up at the end of June.
1st July is when the prices jump to peak-season prices. There are only a
limited number of seats on each date. People who *don't* want their kids
to miss school (or who are teachers themselves) and *do* want good prices
book as early as possible because otherwise it costs them more later.


Give me a specific route. How about GLA-MCO? You can bet your bippy
that GLA-MCO fares for travel on June 30, 2007, will be cheaper in
the winter than when they are first released in July 2006.

So I am asking you - which airline and which route? Frankly, I just
don't believe you. Buying tickets 12 months in advance makes no
sense whatsoever. It is possible that there are some Delta routes
where prices only go up, but I have yet to see them.


I already gave you an example earlier: EI. Any route, but most
particularly their transatlantics.


Are you saying that EI does not drop prices on transatlantic flights?
That the cheapest transatlantic fare on EI is the one you can buy 12
months in advance? I don't believe you. Again, give me a specific
flight and fare for May 2007. I promise you that there will be a
cheaper fare available on the very same flight between now and next May.

Buying tickets early may not make
sense to you but there are many reasons why other people do this, and they
are valid reasons. Just because you don't agree with them or have more
flexibility or different priorities does not mean these people don't
exist.


Alright, you convinced me that such people exist. What they do doesn't
make an ounce of sense, but I can see why some people would rather pay
more to book it early so that they don't have to worry about it later.
Even then, lots of things can happen in 12 months... Plans change,
airline schedules change, airfares are guaranteed to drop, etc. etc.

  #26  
Old June 26th, 2006, 07:05 PM posted to rec.travel.air
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Avoid Delta and Atlanta

Jim Ley wrote:
So why have a range at all, if these flights sell out immediately? it
seems rather strange, anything that sells out immediately normally
suggests you can charge a higher price, especially if it's selling out
immediately 11 months ahead!


And just because there won't be a seat sale on those dates doesn't mean
that the flight won't have advance booking standard return fares that
are much cheaper than full fare Y class tickets. (aka: what used to be
called APEX fares, standard return tickets booked 14 to 21 days in advance).

When they populate a flight that far ahead, they offer standard/default
booking classes and fares. And even on domestic routes because you often
have to combine a domestic fare to an intl one and often this requires
both be booked in the same booking class.

So, lets say they populate the christmas season for LAX-SYD, they may
offer some 50 seats in V class (standard advance purchase return fare).
Once those 50 seats are gone, you're left with more expensive fares.
Since this is a busy season, you can't expect seat sales to appear later
on, so you want to snatch enough V class seats to fit your family on
that flight before they are all gone. (note: airlines may use different
booking class for standard apex fares, but V is fairly common).

However, airlines don't have to announce a seat sale to "lower prices".
Say the 50 V class tickets sell out 11 months before the flight; 2
months before the flight, the airline may have sold only those 50 seats
and none other, so they may reallocate some Y seats into V seats to
allow more people to book in V. But with experience, an airline will do
initial allocations based on past demand and may not have to
dramatically adjust capacity for each booking class in a major way for
such a busy season.
  #27  
Old June 26th, 2006, 07:10 PM posted to rec.travel.air
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Avoid Delta and Atlanta

Hilary wrote:
airlines cover all their bases. They get good advance bookings (which
*all* airlines prefer) but don't lose too much money with them.


Actually, with wild fluctuation in petrol prices, airlines have lost
money. Say a passenger bought a ticket before airlines raised prices and
instituted fuel surcharges. He may have paid in advance, but his ticket
won't cover all the fuel cost increases that have happened since.

Airlines with serious hedging are much more protected against this
since, at the time they sell a ticket, they already know what the cost
of their fuel will be at the time the passenger actually travels.
Airlines without serous hedging cannot product what the actual cost of
transporting that passenger will be a year from nwo when he shows up at
the airport.
  #28  
Old June 26th, 2006, 07:18 PM posted to rec.travel.air
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Avoid Delta and Atlanta

VS wrote:
My point exactly. Nobody who wants to save money books 12 months in
advance, because there will always be some sale later on when the same
flights will be selling cheaper.


Hillary has shown you examples where this is NOT the case. There are
many periods where it is know that there will NOT be any seat sales. In
such cases, the initial capacity allocations don't change much and the
trick is to get your reservation early so that you can get the lowest
available fare before they are all sold.

If you are going to be travelling in a off season, then yes, you are
pertectly correct that the odds are high that a seat sale with lower
prices will be announced a couple of months (or less) before the flight,
so it is then not the best solution to book a year ahead.

Seat sales happen in seasons/periods where there haven't been enough
people who bought tickets at the standard fares. So they announce a
lower fare to try to attract more people.

Now, if they is gong to be a bird flue epidemic in Australia during
Christmas, then it is quite possible that the airlines would all
announce heavily discounted fares to try to get people to go. In such a
case, you would have lost out by buying a standard ticket a year before.
But the odds of that are fairly low and you cannot predict such an occurance.
  #29  
Old June 26th, 2006, 07:34 PM posted to rec.travel.air
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Avoid Delta and Atlanta

Another aspect of advanced fares.

If you buy a RTW ticket, you will want to have premilinary bookings on
each route in order to validate that your itinerary is valid under RTW
rules. While some of the later segments can be OPEN-DATED, they prefer
if you can book everything. For this to happen, flights as far ahead as
possible must have seats available in standard booking classes.


Note however that the above doesn't actually require the airline publish
fares for every booking class that is available. Bit it does require
the airline allocate seats in the booking classes that are valid for the
RTW fare.


There are enough examples where booking a year early is desirable or
necessary. There are examples where this is truly the only way to get
the cheapest fares on a route during a busy season where capacity is limited.

Say you have a 400 seat aircraft. And experience tells you that about
300 are desperate enough to pay full fare in order to travel just before
christmas. That still leaves 100 seats. So they offer apex V class fares
a year ahead, and people first flow to those, which sell out quickly.
You get 100 people who get cheaper fares with the caveat that they paid
a year early for that privilege. And later on, you'll get 300 people who
will pay the full fares. End result: full aircraft.
  #30  
Old June 26th, 2006, 08:00 PM posted to rec.travel.air
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Avoid Delta and Atlanta

VS is a know-it-all troll. Just put him in your filters and be done
with it.

 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Delta Insider Articles List in Atlanta Journal-Constitution Robert Cohen Air travel 6 June 7th, 2006 02:43 PM
DAL to become World's largest TransAtlantic carrier A Guy Called Tyketto Air travel 14 October 27th, 2005 02:43 PM
Airline Biz Crisis: Not Difficult To Predict Robert Cohen Air travel 28 October 19th, 2005 01:42 PM
Delta Halfing Their $100 Fee For Ticket Changing Robert Cohen Air travel 1 December 18th, 2004 10:33 PM
Many Delta Articles In Major Atlanta Newspaper Robert Cohen Air travel 3 October 29th, 2004 10:30 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 11:57 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 TravelBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.