Lowest Airline Fares - Are We Being $Gouged$ For Early Booking?
Posted on | January 28, 2009 |
I remember seeing a television show a couple of years ago on New Years Day. The journalist spent a week with American Airlines and it was explained that there could be around eight different price categories on any given flight. That means someone that bought an airline ticket at a discount rate in economy at under $100 dollars might be sitting next to someone who paid over $800 for a similar seat in the same class.
Is that legal, price gouging that much from the lowest airlines fares? According to the airlines it is. Their methods indicate it is legal and that they can’t be stopped. They call it scaled pricing. I call it price gouging. However, they choose to disguise their practice by using fancy and engineered terms, it is nothing more than that, gouging, which is basically a consumers’ term for extortion.
- Image by Jaako via Flickr
Have you noticed that you can buy a train ticket, a limousine ride, or a bus ticket up to one minute before departure and the price stays the same? Well, that is just not so when it comes to buying a plane ticket from an airline.
There seems to be a formula for buying the lowest airline fares. But a pattern, if any, is not always so apparent. My experience tells me that most often, and don’t quote me because I may be wrong in my perception, that if you buy a ticket well in advance of your flight that you will pay a premium. Buying a ticket that early will only guarantee you a seat on the plane, not the best price. If you to wait too long to purchase a ticket, the price only goes up and up and up… My best experiences for buying at the lowest airline fares are at the 2 but not more than 3 week mark. Earlier than that the prices go up. The next widow for opportunity seems to be during the 10- 14 day window. That seems to be the cheapest, but not always.
Buying a ticket with 7 - 10 days notice is pushing it and gives mixed results. More often than not, buying a ticket less than at less than 7 days before departure, you are in for a way more expensive ticket. 3 days or less will definitely cost you even more exorbitantly so. But as I said earlier, don’t quote me because some flights do cost the same no matter when you buy your ticket right up to flight time. I can only guess it’s because those flights are not likely to sell out.
So what gives? When the power went out in New York City back in 2003 there were store operators selling a 12oz bottle of water for $5. That was price gouging and we yelled loudly at those despicable store operators for selling a basic human need, water, at unbelievable prices. Legal action was also taken against gas station operators for artificially raising the prices during the blackout. There has often been the same wrongdoing taking place during large scale hurricane destruction in this country.
So what about the airlines? Artificially raising prices for what is, today, considered basic transportation. Shouldn’t all the prices be more relative? I know that I may be cutting off the bonus of a cheap flight by booking early and possibly missing out on the lowest airline fares, but what about when my job confirmations come in too late and I am forced to pay for a cheap seat in economy at a very premium and first class price? What’s your opinion?
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Tags: Airline > Airline price gouging > airline ticket > Cheap Tickets > Pricing > Ticket Price > Ticketing > Transportation > Travel
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