I was looking a thread in which Clifton wrote the following: "But it's all very strange none the less! I bought an open jaw last month from St. Louis into Casablanca and return from Granada for this coming spring. It was about $700 even. Today that flight is $662. The strange part (and don't ask why I'd even check this) is that r/t just the Casablanca is showing as $742 and r/t to Granada would be $729 for the same dates, same alliance, from the same airline website. Yet the open jaw is a fair amount cheaper than either round trip would be."

What sorts of strange pricing have you noticed?

Over the past couple of weeks, I've checked prices for a few tickets. I've noticed that prices can flutuate within $100-$200 within a couple of days. And fares can go up and then come down.

The problem is when you go up you don't know if they will come down.

For example, I'm flying to Paris tomorrow and coming back from London on Sunday. That ticket price flutuated within $150 over a few days. I finally bought it for $525. But I missed this fare the first time. And surprisingly, the fare went up and then came down to $525 the next day -- and even at around the same time of the day. Both days the lowest price was around 8 am in the morning.

Next weekend is very busy for most travellers. But I'll be using FF miles for Istanbul, flying out on Thanksgiving Day. That ticket is still $650 or so, but it was over $700 and then started dropping again. No one seems to want to visit Istanbul for Thanksgiving. And these are direct flights!

Sometimes the fares for different locations don't make much sense. Usually London is the cheapest to fly to from New York, but once the cheap tickets sell out, I've noticed that Germany can be cheaper to get to. Frankfurt, for example, usually seems to be a particularly undesirable location.

Why do you think fares fluctuate so much within such a short period of time?

I've never snagged a mistake fare. But I've wondered why airlines make these mistakes.

<i>Why do you think fares fluctuate so much within such a short period of time?</i>

Since SABRE invented it in the 60s and 70s, all the airlines have used highly sophisticated &quot;yield management&quot; or &quot;revenue management&quot; software that measures seat inventory takedown and release in a dynamic environment. The aim is to maximize revenue through a mixture of pricing/availability and timing adjustments based on constant updating of demand for seats on given sectors/routes.

It may seem mysterious to consumers, but it's a fundamental part of the transportation and hospitality business. Ever wondered why some rooms are sold at rack rate in a given hotel, while others are sold for pennies through Priceline? Yield management. Google &quot;airline revenue management&quot; and be ready with your calculus Cliff's notes...

This is nothing new. There have been reports of TAs watching airline prices &quot;go up and down before their eyes&quot; in the past.

True -- but then the airfare stays at $525 for about two hours, and then jumps to something else for the rest of the day?

Oh I forgot to mention the BMI example. For Paris to London, for the flight I wanted, it was $69. I saw the fare for a couple of hours, but then it jumped to $300 and stayed there for a few days. Finally I had to give up and buy a ticket on Eurostar for $169. Then of course, afterwards the fare went down to $69.

So early doesn't mean cheap either!

Sorry Eurostar was $159.

Gardyloo is correct.

Prices of airline tickets are like stock prices, they are constantly monitored and fluctuate minute to minute.

It seems strange to us because we can't see what our fellow consumers are doing. Tickets are for all intents and purposes being sold in an auction that isn't just silent, it's also invisible.

About the open-jaw fare that Clifton saw, was it the same in both directions? I.e, into A, out of B, might be less than a roundtrip to either A or B if this situation occurred:

outbound fare a to b, Tuesday: $30.
return fare b to a, Saturday; $60.

Total roundtrip a to b $90.

outbound fare a to c, Tuesday, $50.
outbound fare c to a, Saturday,$35.

Total roundtrip a to c, $85.

OR: open jaw, a to b, Tuesday, return c to a, Saturday: $30 plus $35 is total $65, making it cheaper than either a roundtrip a to b, or a to c, for same dates.

In other words, Open jaw in the instance Clinton cited could have happened to capture the cheapest legs of both composite roundtrips.

We booked our Italy trip back in August. With priceline I got tickets from Orlando to Rome, then Rome to Palermo and finally Palermo to Orlando. I never had any intentions of using the Rome/Palermo leg, as I have a rental car and are doing the ferry from Naples. However, the price with the Rome/Palermo leg made the airfare lots cheaper, to the point that it actually paid for the ferry ride.

Go figure, MCO-FCO then PMO-MCO was way more expensive than MCO-FCO, FCO-PMO, PMO-MCO. Oh, and I'm not worried about incurring the penalty for not using the FCO-PMO part. It is on different days, different airlines.

Airline pricing makes no sense at all!

We've had a joke in our house for years about Air Canada's &quot;random fare generator,&quot; but as Gardyloo points out, there is nothing random about it whatsoever. And yes, a fare can move upwards and downwards if you simply log off and start afresh.

I suspect you'll see more fare fluctuation on routes with strong competition. (Using Canadian examples, you won't see the same volatility on Toronto-Sudbury as you will on Toronto-Calgary.)

Another interesting development is discounting the base fare if you give up certain benefits. Air Canada will discount their lowest fares a certain amount of you forego checked baggage, frequent flyer points, and the ability to change your ticket. Conversely, they offer seat selection for an additional fee. Their website is laid out to upsell you to the next higher fare by pointing out the specific benefits of paying more for the same seat (or a lot more for a wider seat up front).

Anselm

By the way, I guess this isn't the airlines' fault necessarily, I've noticed that different websites can give some wildly different prices. Orbitz was horrible for CDG to LHR. Sometimes it gave you cheap flights. Sometimes it said that flights were over $600.

Expedia was much better.

I've noticed that Orbitz is great for AA flights.

I really do think it's partly random. A few weeks ago I looked at flights for Asia, and I think Orbitz was asking for $4000+. I suspect that the system was down at that point.

But I don't understand about this supply-demand stuff is this -- if the flight is close to full and you're asking an exorbitant amount, why would the fare suddenly drop within a few days? That flight is supposed to be full anyway. Oh well.

You can see an insider view of the process on the &quot;free range fare&quot; calculator screen at http://skyhighairlines.com/.