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Air Fares 101 – Why do fares change all the time?

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Re: Air Fares 101 – Why do fares change all the time?

#81

Post by Someone1234 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #70
Someone1234 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't their point. In most of the world if a product's price tag says X then you pay exactly X at the register (e.g. £2 sandwich costs exactly £2 in cash, you hand then exactly £2 and leave). In the US that is not the case. Almost everything has a "hidden fee." You go buy a $2 sandwich but pay $2 + 6% ($2.12), if you get food in a restaurant you pay $price + 15-20%, an advertised $30/month cell phone plan is ac…

Try to buy an apple in California and see whether the sales tax was included in the price ;) I have a two-part theory as to the advertising of prices exclusive of sales tax (which, again, doesn't apply to the apple example, for those HN readers who live in Silicon Valley); it goes like this: 1. Companies that sell products out of more than one store would like to use the same advertising everywhere, instead of making…

> is something I've never heard of. All of my US cell phone plans advertised the exact price they charged.

Like hell they are. Here's a 1:1 copy/paste from a recent AT&T bill (only modified for formatting, and for privacy reasons):

      Surcharges & Fees
      Administrative Fee	$0.61
      Computer Aided Dispatch Surcharge	$0.06
      Federal Universal Service Charge	$0.82
      Municipal License Surcharge	$0.59
      Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge	$0.66
      Relay Service Device Fund Surcharge	$0.02
       Universal Service	$0.10
      Total Surcharges & Fees	$2.86
And:

      Government Fees & Taxes
      City District Sales Tax - Telecom	$0.08
      City Sales Tax - Telecom	$0.18
      County Sales Tax - Telecom	$0.05
      Local Wireless 911 Surcharge	$0.61
       State Sales Tax - Telecom	$0.81
      Unified Statewide 911 Charge	$0.09
      Total Government Fees & Taxes	$1.82
These are charged on top of their headline rates. Some of these are federal fees so aren't likely avoidable no matter where you happen to live.

Re: Air Fares 101 – Why do fares change all the time?

#82

Post by ovulator »

alexivanovs wrote: post #77

This is a great piece, definitely, but the question I have, do you - Americans - consider $500 a fair/reasonable amount of money to pay for a plane ticket? (I even had to lookup the average salary in the USA) I'm from Europe myself, and it usually costs us anywhere from $40 to $150 to travel anywhere in Europe, though the prices do go up if you want to go to a place such as China, Thailand, or even India. But then ag…

The US is much more spread out than Europe, much more. A flight between the major cities in Europe, say London to Paris will be maybe $100 one way. A similar trip (distance wise) in the US from New York to Boston would also be $100 one way. A lot of people in the US fly much further than that. A trip from New York to Phoenix Arizona (not even all the way across the country) is a similar distance to Lisbon to Helsinki and will probably cost about $400 for a round trip flight in the US, there and back again.

Re: Air Fares 101 – Why do fares change all the time?

#83

Post by selectout »

alexivanovs wrote: post #77

This is a great piece, definitely, but the question I have, do you - Americans - consider $500 a fair/reasonable amount of money to pay for a plane ticket? (I even had to lookup the average salary in the USA) I'm from Europe myself, and it usually costs us anywhere from $40 to $150 to travel anywhere in Europe, though the prices do go up if you want to go to a place such as China, Thailand, or even India. But then ag…

From my own experience (from MidWest, live in SF now), $500 is pretty average for a cross country. I can get most places I want to go (any major US City not completely across country) for about $150-$300 though and these are all round trips. It's just when I go from SF NYC/Boston/DC that I get the $500-$700 range. Or if I just book at horrible times or over holidays.

Re: Air Fares 101 – Why do fares change all the time?

#84

Post by geverett »

jexe wrote: post #20

So has anyone built a site that lets you put limit orders on airline seats yet? I'd love to, say, have something automatically book a $250 flight across the country if the price happens to cross that threshold in the next week.

We've been considering doing that at hitlistapp.com. For now, we just send you alerts when we find deals that we've determined are good (or great or spectacular), based on a proprietary algorithm for determining good deals that takes into account time to booking, price fluctuations throughout the year, and how desirable the destination is for you.

We're different from Kayak or Yapta alerts in that you don't have to set alerts for a specific destination/time - you can search for things for, say, '7-10 day trips to South America between January 4th and 30th' or 'a long weekend in Austin in the next quarter'.

Re: Air Fares 101 – Why do fares change all the time?

#85

Post by umeshunni »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #71
Someone1234 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't their point. In most of the world if a product's price tag says X then you pay exactly X at the register (e.g. £2 sandwich costs exactly £2 in cash, you hand then exactly £2 and leave). In the US that is not the case. Almost everything has a "hidden fee." You go buy a $2 sandwich but pay $2 + 6% ($2.12), if you get food in a restaurant you pay $price + 15-20%, an advertised $30/month cell phone plan is ac…

It's far from "a hidden fee." You simply have to know the rules. In some states, there is sales tax. In others, none. Sales tax may or may not be applied to clothing depending on state. Sales tax may or may not be applied to food, or only some kinds of food (e.g., alcohol always taxed), or only to food above a certain threshold. All in all there's nothing hidden about sales tax. It shouldn't be a surprise that people…

>> It's far from "a hidden fee." You simply have to know the rules. Sure. And the same could be said for airline pricing. You could 'know the rules' and look up fare buckets, availability and pricing on services like expertflyer or kvs.

Re: Air Fares 101 – Why do fares change all the time?

#86

Post by thedufer »

canvia wrote: post #45
saryant wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering airfares are the cheapest they've ever been in the US, I don't know how that's even remotely true. More of "the masses" are able to fly than ever before.

You sure about that? http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/airfares/programs/economics_and_... That shows 2014 has the highest CPI adjusted price since 2003 and the highest raw USD price going back as far as the data (1995).

That's a deeply misleading summary of the data. The table excluding inflation is meaningless in the context of parent's comment, so I won't even touch that.

Real prices have dropped 14% in the past 19 years, and have been basically flat since 2004, except for an obviously anomalous dip during the financial crisis (2009/2010). The prevailing trend lines are a steady drop of 1.7% per year from 1995-2004 and then a flat-line (.15% increase per year) 2004-2014. To go back a bit further, airfare dropped over 50% 1978-2006[1]. That is, the trend in the late '90s didn't start in '95.

So no, parent's comment isn't quite literally true (prices have gone up 1.5% in the last decade), but historically prices clearly trend down, which I think is the point.

[1] http://web.mit.edu/airlines/analysis/analysis_airline_indust...

Re: Air Fares 101 – Why do fares change all the time?

#87

Post by saosebastiao »

zrail wrote: post #26

Southwest, as far as I can tell, doesn't change rates once they've published. Three rate tiers, optional early check-in to get a better boarding order position, and free baggage. The most striking difference is that, in general, the flight attendants are happy . They smile. They joke around. Sometimes they sing songs. I was on a flight a few months ago where the entire plane played a game because it was someone's bir…

Additionally, they have the best leg room of any economy class that I've ever experienced.

Re: Air Fares 101 – Why do fares change all the time?

#88

Post by bliker »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #51
markdown wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't take away from your point at all, but I just wanted to point out that: > I can confidently pick up an apple, walk to the register, and expect to pay a dollar. This is true in most of the world, but not in the US, where you don't know what you're paying until you reach the checkout counter.

Well, you can weigh the apple yourself on the scales that occur all throughout the produce section... but yeah, I'd be surprised to see a flat rate for fruit by species no matter the size. Fruit is sold by weight, not count, in China too.

Surprisingly, in Denmark it is quite common to sell fruit like this.

Re: Air Fares 101 – Why do fares change all the time?

#89

Post by pimlottc »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #51
markdown wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't take away from your point at all, but I just wanted to point out that: > I can confidently pick up an apple, walk to the register, and expect to pay a dollar. This is true in most of the world, but not in the US, where you don't know what you're paying until you reach the checkout counter.

Well, you can weigh the apple yourself on the scales that occur all throughout the produce section... but yeah, I'd be surprised to see a flat rate for fruit by species no matter the size. Fruit is sold by weight, not count, in China too.

If you want to pick nits, some fruits and vegetables - like melons, pomegranate, pineapples, artichokes - are often sold by the head, not just by weight.

Re: Air Fares 101 – Why do fares change all the time?

#90

Post by geverett »

I've always thought it was ridiculous that people would go to a site like Expedia or Kayak, type in a date and destination, and just hope that they get the cheapest fare. As this article explains so well, prices are fluctuating constantly and the chances that you'll be lucky enough to be searching for the flight at the optimal time are close to nil.

Most flight search engines now let you set up alerts to track prices, but I also think those aren't ideal because if you're flexible about where or when you might travel you'd have to set up thousands of alerts. (example: I'd like to go somewhere warm for a weekend in January from New York. There are 113 warm weather destinations within 4 hours of New York; I can leave on Friday or Saturday and return on Sunday or Monday; there are four weekends in January = 1808 alerts to set!).

This is exactly why we built Hitlist (hitlistapp.com, available for iOS and Android), an app which monitors airfares across swathes of destinations and dates and sends you notifications when there are ridiculous fares. Some of you might find it useful!

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