I've been keeping an eye on prices for flights to a particular airport in Spain for a couple of months now, waiting for prices to drop a bit before booking for our summer holiday in July.
Since Christmas, the price with Ryanscare from Stansted has fluctuated between £450 for 4 people, return, and £680, for our specifiec dates. With BA, from our preferred airport, Heathrow, it's constantly been around 6-700 notes.
Today, all of a sudden, Ryanscare are up to just under 900 quid, and BA has rocketed to £2.4k.
Why? Are they trying to take advantage of people thinking about holidays over the Bank Holidays and going online to book?
Is the price likely to come down in the next few weeks?
Wish to hell I'd booked at £450, suppose I was being greedy and expecting too much, hanging in for a "special".
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
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Which airport in Spain? Not Valencia or Reus??
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Nah, Almeria. Murcia prices have gone the same way today also. It's literally happened overnight.
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I only wondered about those two because there is a Spanish music festival mid July that's geographically between the two.
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I fly BHX - NYC frequently, and have noticed that during the summer the flights are cheap if you buy them months in advance, or if you buy them with a week or so to go. The period between can get very expensive indeed.
I have no idea why this is, but it has been consistent for a couple of years, to the point that I now don't bother trying to guess at dates a long way in advance, I just use Kayak to work out the cheapest place to buy with a couple of weeks to go. The difference between vendors can be £2-300 on a £500 fare.
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I heard a Japanese Professor interviewed on the radio last year, who had done extensive research into flight prices. His conclusion was that the optimum price for any given flight is available 8 weeks before departure. It'll be interesting to see how my flights are priced 8 weeks before departure, which will be second week of May, after the Bank Holidays.
Hope to hell they've come back down a bit. :-(
Kicking myself.
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have you tried www.skyscanner.net?
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Pricing on flights is a bums on seat calculation - aim - fill the plane and maximise income.
Set a price say £150 gives a good return, and see how it goes, slower than thought - make it £120....................plane fills up to say 80% - up price to £180, 90% full £250-£300.
Hotels work the other way, they start high months in advance, a week to go they will reduce if they have lots free, day or 2 before they can panic and almost give them away.
Stansted and Heathrow too expensive - look for flights from "local airports" rather than big International ones.
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>> Stansted and Heathrow too expensive - look for flights from "local airports" rather than big
>> International ones.
>>
Have done. East Midlands is the same price as Stansted, also Queasyjet from Gatwick. Thomas Cook don't fly on the days I need. No other flights from regional airports close enough to home. And all other airports in Spain are too far away from our final destination.
Bah. Think I might have missed the boat, so to speak.
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You are lucky TC don't fly on the days you want! They are beyond dreadful!
www.airlinequality.com/Forum/thoscook.htm
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It's just the way the pricing systems work.
Even at £900 for four people return to Spain in peak period that's surely not too bad - £225 per person. Would have been paying more than that before the advent of low cost carriers.
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This is true, CGN, however I just feel a bit miffed at myself for not jumping on the £450 price.
If I book now and it goes down again, I will have gotten all I deserve.
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Have you tried booking for just two people? It might be worth comparing prices between different party numbers in case that is also strangely affects their marketing.
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I really don't see the point in hanging on and watching flight prices, you risk getting lumbered with a high cost, a high cost airline, or worse of all no seats at all. Sure if you don't care about your destination then book it 48 hours in advance and save a fortune.
But if you want to go to a particular place, at a particular time, book it early. You really wont end up spending through the nose, and you get there.
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I have now learnt my lesson, Z.
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Classic pricing strategy for items being pre-sold. Aeroplane seats. Blocks of flats.
Offer them cheap for the early birds. That way you know you've got some customers and you have their cash (which is helpful) and you know you can afford to run the service/build your block of flats.
Once your business plan is viable, you can put the price up and you will sell them.
There comes a point when you finally want to get shot of the remaining product, so you have a sale. In flat sales that's when you have only a couple left to sell, the development is comlete and it's costing you money to keep the marketing suite open. For a time-sensitive product it's shortly before it expires.
I'm very impressed that you thought you could get the flights for less than £55 per person per trip.
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>> I'm very impressed that you thought you could get the flights for less than £55
>> per person per trip.
Classic case of greedy wishful thinking on my part. Promises of special offers, £8 each way, that sort of schamozzle. Quite embarrassed to be frank, but there you go. I'll either now have to pay the higher prices or risk hanging on for the fire sale.
Like I said, lesson learnt.
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For package holidays, I think many think you can get a bargain last minute deal. And you probably can if you don't care where you go to. We have found if we book early you can also get good deals and choose/research where you go to. Last September we went to Greece for two weeks and it cost less than £500 for two of us. We'd booked it over a year in advance though.
We go to Tuscany in May for a week and that was a good price for a three bedroom apartment with a hire car. That was booked last July.
The downside of booking early is you also pay the deposit early but it does spread the payment.
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For super cheap flights look for where the price is cheapest and go there :-)
You need to include travel to airport, parking fee, transfer to airport to city in destination etc. if applicable.
MSE site has a flight checker tool for that purpose.
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My lady penguin and I have been booking early, like 9 months in advance, but I have to say that we are thinking about seeing what is available "Next Month" and buying holidays at short notice. I get a weekly e mail from a firm called Travelzoo - typical result here
tinyurl.com/5wfpac7
Caution advised! I have had offers, checked the hotel on Tripadvisor, it becomes clear why the holiday is so cheap. A week all inclusive on the Red Sea for £300, in a 5* hotel, looks tempting but needs checking!
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Like you PP, the weekly TravelZoo email has been tempting me. I'm tempted to give it a whirl in June and go for whatever they're shilling then.
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Skoda - I got a week all inclusive in Cyprus from these people 2 years ago
www.qwertytravel.com/
I paid £70 extra to fly BA at sensible times instead of Carpair wirh an 0500 check-in and it was still good value overall
Last edited by: Perky Penguin on Thu 21 Apr 11 at 17:01
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>>Today, all of a sudden, Ryanscare are up to just under 900 quid, and BA has rocketed to £2.4k.>>
I've been doing similar research for a long haul with BA and eventually realised that all the economy seats had been sold on a number of the flights I'd been checking, so the next price up was relayed.
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The prices quoted seem to have lasted only a day.
They are back to the original levels again as of last Friday. A glitch? Can't think why else they'd behave like this.
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I always book my flights as soon as Easyjet release there flights. Saved me between £300 and £500 every year for the last 5 years. I do have the advantaged that I know where I am going to though.
Booked my flights in September 10 for £405 for 4 of us. Now costs £815.
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Flight prices - what's going on? - rtj70
