Great Rate From Contintental-How Can There Be So Much Difference?
 

I just booked two airline tickets for next April, from Louisville Ky to San Francisco. I got them on-line from Continental Airlines at a rate of $311(for both). Is that not incredible? Delta wanted $521 per ticket. How can there be so much difference?

Sound like a great price to me. Flying from the midwest, I can't remember the last time that I was able to travel to the west coast for under $200 a person.

Sounds like a glitch in the system, they don't have "sales" this far in advance. <BR><BR>Let's hope they don't read Fodors and fix the glitch, maybe some other people can take advantage of this before they do.

I don't know if it was a glitch or not. After all, I started on Hotwire which gave me a price of $160 per person. From there I went to their "partner" Orbitz who was offering near prices on Continental Airlines. So from there, I went to Continental's website where I got the $311 price. The only problem was that I was thinking of flying into Reno and returning from San Francisco, but the price it gave me for that ticket was around $640. So I guess I will just fly into San Francisco, and have a bit of a longer drive goind to Lake Tahoe.

Continental has been aggressive on pricing recently. Don't knock it...just buy!

You got a lucky break. Hope you locked in the fare and purchased. <BR><BR>Funny part is that you're flying from Louisville to Cleveland (probably), then on to San Francisco. But if you try to purchase a ticket just for the Cleveland to San Francisco leg, you'd be paying 3 times as much. <BR><BR>This is part of the reason the airlines are going bankrupt, you see it all the time. You are occupying a seat on two different flights, but they're charging you less than someone who's occupying a seat on just one of those same flights. <BR><BR>Creative mathematics I guess.

The Cleveland-San Fran thing is the price you pay for being in a "hub" city.The fares are always higher. That is one of Continental's hubs.