I'm not sure if this is driven to incentivize having children, but the more general point of incentivizing children for the good of society is a valid one. A society that stops having kids (or importing them) will cease to be a society before too long.
Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
171–180 of 533 posts
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#172I 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?
In Japan, you pay by the person when it comes to hotels. Some will give you a slight discount for the second person. Others won’t.
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#173I 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?
kids dont make any income. a weekend trip for 4 in the same timezone costs us $3k to 5k. a cross country trip is 10-20k.
DINK > Solo >> anything else
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you wouldn't be alive if nobody had children, so it's quite selfish of anyone to be anti-children. It gets into philosophical territory, but the default "having a pulse = good" thinking is pretty shortsighted IMO. Life is inherently suffering and no one got a yes/no prompt before being born.
For a society it's not philosophical. If it wishes to exist past a few decades then it needs children, simple as that. Therefore societies are (and should) be skewed towards that.
I'll ask this in response: why does society need to exist at all?
Obviously ideas like yours are ingrained into us at a biological level and it logically makes sense if we want to survive as a species... but there is no inherent reason other than "just because" right?
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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…
I just invited myself along on a "girl's cruise" to Alaska that my wife was doing with her friend (who's actually my second cousin). As the third person in the cabin, my fare only cost $99, plus some fees, compared the several thousand each my wife and cousin paid.
There were quite a few solo travelers we met on the cruise, though - I think they mostly had solo inside cabins with no view.
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
> Traveling solo essentially costs double automatically because of lodging Travelling with somebody else brings costs down. Hotel rooms have the same surface for single and double occupancy (in fact they are usually the same rooms!). Even if you remove the surface of one single bed, the room stays almost the same. So, it’s much cheaper for 2.
provided you have someone to go with :)
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#177I love how the author thinks they've discovered something super secret, when they have in fact just learnt about "Group Discounts". Author will lose their mind when they buy 10+ of the same thing from AliExpress.
Airfare typically has group anti-discounts, where if you buy more tickets on a single reservation than tickets available at the lowest fare bucket, they’d sell you all the tickets at the higher fare instead of mixing fares
That's my experience as well.
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#178it truly is unfortunate how society punishes you for being single. Insurance, tax, credit worthiness, even health care.
i wonder how low birthrate societies like Japan or South Korea are like, is it worse to improve birthrates? or is it better because being single isn't an anomaly?
More importantly, the number of single/solo people isn't even low in the US. If i had to ballpark it, at least a quarter of the population is like that. Lots of married people travel solo for business for example. Why aren't some airlines playing capitalism well by offering "business elite" flights where solo travelers get a loyalty discount and there are no children on the flight? Not for all destinations but at least popular ones like to vegas or NYC LAX.
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#179I 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…
Bulk discounts don't "penalize" smaller purchases, they reward larger purchases. Companies offer bulk discounts on basically... everything. This is like pointing out that the Dollar Store penalizes people for buying small quantities and thus suggesting that Costco should raise prices to "make it fair".
No, it is discrimination based on marital/family status.
If they were willing to sell me 5 flight coupons for a discount, that would be acceptable. There is nothing I can do as an individual to take advantage of the discount.
Re: Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
#180Earlier 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.
The other things priced into the "experience" are why I call out cruises separately. With a hotel, I get it, a room is a room. But a solo cruiser is eating half the food, drinking half the drinks, taking up half as many seats at shows...
Maybe that's the problem. Cruises rely on people spending a lot of extra money onboard the ship, or drink packages, nicer dinners, excursions, etc... fewer people doing that, with less social pressure to spend extra, means less money for them and they have to make it up somewhere.