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Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups

thriftytraveler.com

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Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups

#101

Post by tshaddox »

n8cpdx wrote: post #20
Aurornis wrote: post #2

I never would have understood this as a young, single person. Now that I have a family there are several times per year where we price out the cost of a solo ticket for one parent, the price of taking one or two kids, or the cost of all of us going for something. Having a quantity discount would absolutely tip the scales for us for certain trips. People will look at this as penalizing single travelers and want everyo…

Traveling solo is already brutal because hotels and Airbnbs are priced on the assumption of two travelers. Traveling solo essentially costs double automatically because of lodging, and it kind of sucks there’s a double whammy with airfare where, unlike lodging, the penalty doesn’t actually make any sense. I guess as a family be grateful that all hotel rooms come with a 50% (or more) discount per traveler?

It's probably also worth noting that the majority of these hotels and Airbnbs are also designed to accommodate two or more travelers. Thus the complaint isn't really "single-person rooms are priced that same as two-person rooms," but rather "single-person rooms don't exist, which means I have to pay for more space than I need." In this sense it's not really any different than any other product that you wish was sold in smaller quantities.

Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups

#102

Post by MichaelZuo »

ghaff wrote: post #89
al_borland wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cruises are especially bad for this. I’ve never gone, but I’ve looked at but after I had 3 independent people tell me to take one in the span of a few months. Most are priced assuming 2 people in the room and if you’re solo it seems like they expect you to buy 2 spots. I’ve seen a couple where they have a few solo cabins, but the amount of effort to surface this stuff turns me off to the whole thing. The only reason…

>if you’re solo it seems like they expect you to buy 2 spots Cruises are probably more complicated because they price things other than your cabin into the "experience." (Though I think the Queen Mary 2 a few years back was slightly less than 2x for just me.) But the random Marriott doesn't really care if there is one of you or two when it comes to pricing.

Why wouldn’t they care?

I imagine 2 people use roughly twice the bedding, towels, toiletries, etc., on average.

Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups

#103

Post by tuckerman »

darth_avocado wrote: post #31
Aurornis wrote: post #2

I never would have understood this as a young, single person. Now that I have a family there are several times per year where we price out the cost of a solo ticket for one parent, the price of taking one or two kids, or the cost of all of us going for something. Having a quantity discount would absolutely tip the scales for us for certain trips. People will look at this as penalizing single travelers and want everyo…

We as a society already penalize people without families: 1. Higher taxes and fewer deductions 2. Higher workplace performance expectations 3. Higher costs in every aspect of life 4. Fewer options eat out, expensive solo tickets at events etc. This is just one more example in a long list of examples of how being by yourself is penalized in the society.

Is it possible to distinguish between society penalizing being single and society incentivizing having children? Since society's existence requires that people have children (even in the fairly short term, someone younger has to be around to take care of the older folks) it seems reasonable to incentivize it.

I guess it's all relative, lower taxes for A compared to B looks like higher taxes for B compared to A, but I suspect most of this comes from a) incentivizing people to form as many families w/ children as possible and then b) since there are so many families w/ children, people build businesses that assume most people will be in families.

Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups

#104

Post by ghaff »

al_borland wrote: post #95
darth_avocado wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We as a society already penalize people without families: 1. Higher taxes and fewer deductions 2. Higher workplace performance expectations 3. Higher costs in every aspect of life 4. Fewer options eat out, expensive solo tickets at events etc. This is just one more example in a long list of examples of how being by yourself is penalized in the society.

I went to buy tickets to a comedy show last year and they wouldn’t let me buy a single ticket. I had to buy 2. It quite literally doubled the cost, and then a seat went empty. If someone were to buy 3 tickets, it could just as easily leave an orphaned seat.

I've never run into such a thing across many years. I buy single tickets to Broadway/West End shows a lot of the time and I often land great tickets.

Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups

#105

Post by tshaddox »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #59
sidewndr46 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really find this relevant in the US because airline pricing is already the ultimate brutal form of pricing. Not only are they allowed to bill you whatever they want, they are never under any actual obligation to put you on the plane.

This seems surprising to me. I was under the impression that airlines are pretty low profit margin industries, pulling in only around 3-4% in a decent year, and that of that the airline tickets themselves are the lowest margin items percentage wise, with other things like baggage fees being much more load bearing.

The fact that their brutally anti-consumer business is also not even that profitable for them is really no consolation to the consumer.

Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups

#106

Post by 4ndrewl »

darth_avocado wrote: post #31
Aurornis wrote: post #2

I never would have understood this as a young, single person. Now that I have a family there are several times per year where we price out the cost of a solo ticket for one parent, the price of taking one or two kids, or the cost of all of us going for something. Having a quantity discount would absolutely tip the scales for us for certain trips. People will look at this as penalizing single travelers and want everyo…

We as a society already penalize people without families: 1. Higher taxes and fewer deductions 2. Higher workplace performance expectations 3. Higher costs in every aspect of life 4. Fewer options eat out, expensive solo tickets at events etc. This is just one more example in a long list of examples of how being by yourself is penalized in the society.

OTOH when you retire those other people's kids will be powering the economy that will be financing your pension.

Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups

#107

Post by 6stringmerc »

paulgb wrote: post #6

I think this is fair play, they can charge how they want (within reason) and it’s not too different than other bulk discounts. But someone should totally make a site for finding strangers to book the same flight with :)

Ride-Along Roulette

Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups

#109

Post by legitster »

> In this case, the rationale for charging solo travelers more is fairly clear: It's just another way for airlines to continue “segmenting” their customers, charging business travelers paying with a corporate card more while offering a better deal to families on the exact same flight.

I think the explanation is wrong and the author is jumping to conclusions. Airlines have long offered "bulk" discounts. Their goal is to fill as many seats on a flight as possible. What we are seeing here is their group pricing creep into their direct sales.

Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups

#110

Post by tshaddox »

Mistletoe wrote: post #94
reliabilityguy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make the same argument about food too: buying chicken at Costco is way cheaper per pound than in Whole Foods or Aldi. Are they also penalizing single people? No: buy more, pay less per unit.

You can’t freeze a hotel room.

The hotel also cannot easily split and recombine rooms and beds on demand. They have to decide upfront how many single-person and two-person rooms to build, based on what they perceive the market desires.
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