Strange problem with Orbitz -- 1 vs. 2 passengers -- have you noticed this?
 

Hi, I noticed this curious thing about Orbitz. I searched for some flights on Orbitz, and when I indicated there was 1 traveling, the prices were cheaper than when I indicated there were 2. Obviously I'm tempted to book for 2 separately, but I'm concerned that there is truly just 1 seat left....

Have you noticed this before?

Very curious.

I didn't understand this: <<Obviously I'm tempted to book for 2 separately, but I'm concerned that there is truly just 1 seat left....>>
It would be nice to have some way around this pricing, but wouldn't you get the higher rate for one if you tried to book for two, but separately? Or maybe I'm misundertsanding.

Two tickets cost more than one, I'd never ever realised that, and I suppose two weeks accommodation costs more than one?

You're talking rubbish, look at the taxes and things like that, honestly!

Well, I'll give you a rundown of what I did. I decided to run the following experiment. I had two parallel browsers. I put in everything. The ticket came out to be roughly $620 per ticket. I bought one of them at that price. When I went to the other and tried to buy it at that price, the price was no longer available.

Poof!

If I had started with saying that two were traveling, then the tickets came out to be at least $800 for each.

So, obviously I was in a bind. I didn't want to book a separate flight for my mom. I called Orbitz. Apparently there's a courtesy cancel in this case. I canceled the flight I booked, but there's a $6 fee.

So... Very hard to outsmart Orbitz, I'm afraid.

Well, m_k2, as usual, you're talking rubbish.

I know my math very well, thanks. I can give you a rundown on the Borel-Cantelli Lemmas and why monkeys will type the complete works of Shakespeare infinitely often, if you're so inclined, but I doubt that your small brain can tolerate it. It's as black as the clothes of Helmut Lang and Jil Sander. :-)

Actually I just received an e-mail from Orbitz. The fee is $10, customarily charged by them on all reservations.

I need to try this again....

I just reread your initial post. I had misread it, and I thought you meant that if you bought two tickets together, it would cost LESS than twice the price of one. That's why I couldn't understand how you could get the cheaper "two for" rate if you wanted only one ticket. Never mind.... I was just confused.

So, you see my problem now? Basically if you asked for 2 initially, you'd get billed the higher rate. But if you bought the tickets separately, you might get one of them at a lower rate.

I suppose if you had a cancelation to play with, it's ok to experiment. I sort of panicked a bit, when one went through and the other wouldn't.

We need to offer a reading comprehension course for some of our Fodorites. I knew exactly what 111op was saying and was very surprised that other didn't!

I'll give you another example.

Now, for some alternate flights on Continental, for 1 passenger, the base rate started off at $564.

If I said that two were traveling, the base rate went up to $597.

So, if I wanted these flights, I could again play the game of trying to book the two separately and get a discount of $60.

I'm pretty sure that this might work, as the increase wasn't dramatic. Perhaps for the Delta flights I wanted, there truly was 1 seat left at a lower price.

Still, potentially you could save by booking all your tickets separately -- but I obviously wouldn't recommend it. What if for some reason there wasn't a courtesy cancelation?

Yes, I see what you mean. I guess to make sure there are seats to spare you could enter an inquiry re 3 or 4 seats, to be safe, and then if there's availablility for 3 or 4, hurry up and in quick succession purchase two separate individual tickets. I didn't realize you could cancel without a huge penalty. I always have a huge flash of anxiety a second before purchasing a flight online, because I thought I couldn't change it. (Maybe I'm better off telling myself that, actually.)

Jil Sander has lots of oranges/yellows/reds/ochres in her pallette this season, Helmut Lang has the usual coloured metallic interjections such as blue which is juxtaposed with a monochome background.

Ok, their stuff is too expensive for me anyway. I'm glad that you can afford it.

But just remember one thing, m_k2 -- I don't need you to lecture me on mathematics, even though I admit that my arithmetic skills are getting rusty. It's a topic I know well, and I suspect that I know it much better than you do, thank you very much.

Sadly the irony here is that I'm quite positive my mathematics is far more advanced than yours!

I'm sure that the reason for this price increase is either that you're not analysing it properly or you'd find that after booking one flight the "second" would also go up - these sites aren't out to get you!

Really, m_kingdom? Do you mind answering these questions?

1. Express exp(i theta) in terms of the trigonometric functions.

2. Without using a calculator, explain whether e^pi is larger than pi^e.

3. State the two Borel-Cantelli Lemmas, and explain why monkeys typing at a typewriter independently will crank out the complete works of Shakespeare infinitely often, with probability 1.

4. State the simple form of the Central Limit Theorem, followed by the Lindeberg-Levy version.

5. State Ito's Lemma in stochastic calculus.

6. Solve the differential equation f'(x) = f(x).

I can give you some more questions if you're so inclined. Do you want to test my math ability here?

m_kingdom2, did you wear all these same styles when you were posting as "Miles Kingdom"? Have you invented a double? Is that doubling act what makes you fancy yourself a mathematician? This is all so mysterious. But when it comes to real skills, I'd depend on 111op.

It?s been a while my dear:

1.The first is very easy - Rcis(theta)= Rcos (alpha) + Rsin (beta)

2.the former as the higher the power the larger the absolute value

3. If you?re pressing random keys, and you sort the letters out you can write most anything - so it?s something like that?

4. That?s stats and is to do with moving from discrete (counted) to contiunous distributions. e.g. If P(X<10) on a binomial you?d take P(X<10.5) (or maybe 9.5 - I forget now).

5. I?ve no recall of ever learning this

6. Integrate both sides with integrating factors and find the specific solution

Obviously, I've more important things to do now (like *really* plan a trip in two weeks :-) ).

But in case you're curious, the simplest form of the central limit theorem states that for a sequence of i.i.d. (i.e., independently, identically distributed random variables) with 0 mean and finite variance (without loss of generality take this to be 1), (X1 + ... + Xn) / sqrt(n) converges in distribution/law to the standard normal variable. The Lindeberg-Levy form is much more general -- the random variables need not have a variance, for example.

As for a function whose derivative is equal to itself, obviously it's got to be the exponential function + constant.

Granted, anyone can find all of this through a Google search, but please, m_kingdom, don't claim to know something that you don't (even on random internet chat forums) and expect not to be called for it.

Ironically, my degree (all those years ago) included modules in linear algebra, calculus, and statistics... My career changed direction, but I still passed the exams!

Ok. I did well in Latin in high school. Would I claim that I know Latin now? No. I can't even conjugate "to be."

Could we not argue about this, m_kingdom? Sometimes you just have to admit that you're wrong, even on internet chat forums. And it behooves you to admit this, or at least keep silent, when it's been (tacitly) proven that you're indeed clueless on certain subjects.

Hi 111op,

If you go to http://airtravelcenter.com/onetrav.htm

you will get two tickets for 2X the price of 1 ticket every time.

If they don't have two seats, they won't do the booking.

So you're saying this never happens on airtravel, ira?

It's interesting. I found the same problem with Expedia. The flights on Continental for one traveler is about $30 less than the base fare for two travelers.

Very interesting. I think that there must be some way of benefitting from this -- but obviously there's a risk that you get to book one at a low price and then can't book the other (which was what happened to me with the Delta flights).

I read these subjects at university level - the highest level attainable. If I chose to the letters after my name allow me to teach this subject, so I would claim to know something about it.

I'm surprised that British universities don't offer doctorates, m_kingdom.

And I can't imagine you're allowed to teach math when you can't even figure out that the function whose deriviative is itself is an exponetial function + constant, then I think that it's probably good that you not teach any mathematics.

You should stick to Jil Sander and Helmut Lang. My knowledge of that is not comprehensive at all. I'm not going to be able to catch you on that.

I've never used Orbitz, but can offer some suggestions:

i) Some sites charge various kinds of so-called 'booking fees' that are charged on a per ticket basis. However, I admit that would only explain differences of around $30 - $40 at most.

2) Then there's the fact that airline ticket prices fluctuate quite a bit anyway. But yes, this should mean that if you make enough attempts, sooner or later the second ticket ought to be lower priced than the first. The tricky part would be to have a big enough sample to rule out price increases due to market fluctuations (but I assume that's why you're conducting this informal 'poll.' )

3) There is more than 1 seat left on the flight, but only 1 seat left in the booking category the site initially promoted. For example, the first seat might be in the lowest discount category, but the second seat must be drawn from the seats allocated to the next category up (or two or three or whatever) thus bringing up the average. Or the first seat is a teaser price limited to a quantity of one.

Alas, the ways of yield management are mysterious. Good luck!

But, you see, Sue, I'm not sure if that really explains it. It seems to me that I could buy one ticket at a lower price, and the second ticket at a higher price, but if I buy two tickets at once, then they can both be charged the higher price.

In other words, the per-ticket price for two tickets doesn't seem to be an average of the low and the high price.

Also, on Orbitz, each ticket is charged at $10 service fee, so the service fee consideration is the same however you book the tickets. I'm more intrigued by the way the per-ticket price is generated.

Of course, I realize that perhaps there could really be one ticket left in a lower price category -- at least that seemed to be the case with the Delta flights I wanted. But even in that situation, it seemed to me that I would have been better off buying the two tickets separately.

Anyway, I guess I'll wait some more. I can't believe that I've not yet bought my tickets and I'm supposed to be leaving in two weeks. Maybe it's a good recipe for disaster, and I can just stay at home instead. :-)

Sorry, I forgot that of course the site would probably break down the ticket costs at least to the extent of displaying the booking fees, not just display some lump total price for the tickets ordered.

If it isn't a question of a higher average, then frankly my friend, I'm at a loss. (But then we're talking not just yield management systems of the airlines, but the consolidators' systems on top of that. I think NASA space programs are probably easier to comprehend....)

I gotta admit, your nerves are a lot stronger than mine when it comes to buying airline tickets. Two weeks? Yikes! But who knows, you might cadge a real deal. Or get to have a really cheap vacation at home....

When you had 2 browsers open were they both on Orbitz or did you have one on Orbitz and one on Delta?

I know you can do this on Expedia but not sure about Orbitz - but have you tried taking out a 24 holding option on the first seat and then checking for the second. You'll have 24 hours to find a matching fare without having to actually pay for anything and no penalty to pay if do not confirm the first seat reservation.

Hi 111,

I can't say that it *never* happens, but I looked up ATL to FLR, London and FCO and the price for two tickets was 2x the price for one ticket.

Hi, kyb, the two browsers were both in Orbitz. Basically I was only able to get one at the lower price. When I tried to book the other, it was gone.

David, I don't know about the hold option in Orbitz. There could be one, but I didn't investigate. They charged me $10 for my cancelation.

Anyway I'm going to look again now. I guess if prices are through the roof, I don't have to go.

I'm happy to report that there's a happy ending to all this.

I just bought two tickets from Orbitz on Delta at $617 each. I'm leaving for Frankfurt and flying back from Madrid. I just have to book the rest of the flights now or tomorrow -- I'm planning to start with the Rhine, then fly to Lisbon, and then visit Andalucia.

I'm glad it worked out for you. I guess you are going afterall!

Yeah, now I need to book the rest of the tickets. I guess I can't do it today though because I need to go meet some people now.

It's just funny how I've ended up on a trip that I had no intention of doing -- Andalucia was never high on my list. But I figured that since I'm going to Lisbon, I really should see Andalucia. But after reading more about Andalucia, I'm much more excited about it.

111op, what you're forgetting is that Brits get very excited about their degrees. I used to work with a woman with a BS in physics. She referred to herself as a physicist, even though she had completed her degree 20 years ago, and had never worked in the field, or obtained an advanced degree.

Many Brits also announce the fact that they have a degree on their business cards, along with the "type" of degree they received, as in Miles Kingdom, BA Acc Comm, 2.2.

Ann, that's funny. What's that 2.2?