can someone explain this airline pricing to me?

[purbeast0]

when i was looking for flights from the DC area to Turks and Caicos, there was a flight that went from DC -> Philly -> T&C. it was a round trip for like $509. i then thought about driving to philly since it's 2 hours from here, and flying out of there to just have a direct flight.

so when i went to check the flight from Philly -> T&C, the price was like $600.

can someone explain to me how this makes any sense at all?

 

[NutBucket]

It's not suppose to make sense. That's the point!

 

[Elixer]

Could be they are trying to fill up seats...

 

[jpiniero]

That's got to be it. How many people do you think would bother flying from DC to Philly?

 

[who?]

If you fly out of a hub without flying into the hub somebody who is going to fly into the hub can't get the seat out that you're going to be taking so they might not sell that seat into the hub. I wonder if someone who lives in Philly would drive to DC to get a better deal.

 

[who?]

Years ago the online reservations tried to force me into returning at the same time of day I left. When I called the agent at the airline it she had to try about four times before she got me going away in the morning and returning in the evening. I'm glad that got fixed.

 

[purbeast0]

That's got to be it. How many people do you think would bother flying from DC to Philly?

it's actually not even DC, it's BWI which is like 30 miles closer to philly and DC is heh.

 

[MixMasterTang]

Airlines base their prices on departure city to destination, even if you have 3 hops in between. A flight from Lax to sfo is often the same price if you connect through slc or Atlanta. Weird jacked up pricing system basically.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

Also they might have used cookies to see that you'd been there before. That might be an internet rumor though.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Douglas Adams

The same holds true for airline pricing. Do not even attempt to understand it, if anyone ever figures it out it's just going to turn into something worse.