I can never figure out airline prices...

aphex

Moderator<br>All Things Apple
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Jul 19, 2001
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i remember asking about this in the past, but can't find the thread.... think the search is still screwed...

anyway...

tell me how this makes sense...

Roundtrip Non-Stop
Miami ---> Zurich, CH
on Swiss is $820

Roundtrip
Miami ---> Milan, IT (with 1 layover in Zurich, CH)
on Swiss is $700


Ehhh, why is the 2nd one cheaper, considering it consists of the exact same first leg AND an additional short flight to Milan?

 

FoBoT

No Lifer
Apr 30, 2001
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fobot.com
sense? they spin a wheel and whatever price the wheel lands on is the price they charge, what is so hard to understand about that?
 

BoldAsLove

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May 10, 2005
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flight 1 is more booked up than flight 2, so they start to charge more for the ones that are booking up. It makes perfect sense.
 

aphex

Moderator<br>All Things Apple
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Jul 19, 2001
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Originally posted by: BoldAsLove
flight 1 is more booked up than flight 2, so they start to charge more for the ones that are booking up. It makes perfect sense.

huh? The demand on flight 1 should be the same.

Flight 2 uses the exact same flights as flight 1, just adds an additional flight to milan. even the roundtrip uses the exact same flight from Zurich -> Miami, just with an additional milan -> zurich flight.
 

MulLa

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Jun 20, 2000
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Very often people just wanted to get to their final destination quickly and stop overs are less desirable.
 

MixMasterTang

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Jul 23, 2001
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America Airlines has an official statement on their website (forgot exactly what the policy is referred to) but their explination is that in order to compete with different airlines for different routes sometimes their pricing will be weird.

For example say airline B flies non-stop from LA to Boston for $500 but Airline A doesn't have any non-stop flights from LA to Boston, they will mark the flight from LA to New York to Boston down to 500 to compete with airline B even though their normal flight from LA to New York is $600. And if you book LA-NY-BOS only for the LA-NY portion of the flight they will cancel your return trip since you didn't stay on for the entire flight.