40love

Hi I've been monitoring flights to Sydney from regional airports in NZ and can't make head or tail of how pricing works.

For example, all week some $427 L class fares have been available TRG-SYD but every so often these don't show up in the search and instead only T class $447 is available.

I know that there is some dynamic pricing shenanigans going on here, and all week that I've been looking at this the price can fluctuate between $427 and $447.

However this morning I tried to book 7 pax and was offered the $427 L class - now only $447 T is available.

I guess it is possible that 7 TRG-AKL fares have sold today but really I'm just expecting to see tomorrow that $427 L fares are available again.

This is not only confusing it really messes with the head and confidence to book flights. Is this just standard?

akl_cat

When you were doing the dummy searches, were you always searching for 7 pax or were you just searching for 1? If you are booking multiple pax on the booking, then they will all have to be on the same fare class. For example if there were only 6 seats left at L, when you search for 1-6 pax you can see the L fare. But as soon as you bump it up to 7 pax then you can only see the next fare class up that has 7 seats left, which may, but not always, be T.

It is quite possible that there were only 7 seats left at L for TRG-AKL, and only 1 got sold. But as you are booking for 7 you automatically see only T.

Equally possible that it is just dynamic pricing tactics. The only way to find out is to do a dummy booking for a smaller party and see if it makes a difference.

40love

I'm aware of the pax having to be on the same fare class from domestic bookings. Annoying when you have 1 less fare available than your party and then have to split the booking if you want the lower class.

I was making dummy searches of 1, 5, 9, etc until I found the "break point" which happened to be 7 on today's search. I'm pretty sure one day in the past week I found that 9 still had me on L (I couldn't do more than 9 as you will be aware).

40love

Side note that I'm so confused that on one day there is a GAS $315 (P) option that offers more APD and SPs than the $318 (V/F) option

sbiddle

There is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happening here..

You wanted to learn about airline ticketing? You certainly won't do that in a week, it's something that takes years unless you work in the industry where you might begin to understand things a little quicker.

Unless you understand married fares you won't understand why prices change.

40love

Being reposted in a fare bucket thread for reference purposes

sbiddle

FYI this is largely irrelevant in relation to your actual question about why fares keep changing.

40love

Thanks for that. Yeah I was just unable to search for the amazing fare bucket list easily as it was embedded in the F class question thread so reposted it here for future search engines.

40love

Still looking and scanning. Why is PE cheaper ($722 - Y/A) than Seat ($762 - H) on the same flight? The table above suggests that the $762 fare is "flexi" but the booking portal doesn't imply any flexibility.

Thai-Kiwi

H class economy is fully flexible, A class is PE Saver with less flexibility - that explains the fare difference. To see the fare type, you need to expand the flight details and that will show the fare class and fare type with a hyperlink to the conditions.

JamesBigglesworth

Because pricing is often dynamic *within* a class, and the marketing label has exactly zero to do with the fare rules?

Thai-Kiwi

H class economy is fully flexible, A class is PE Saver with less flexibility - that explains the fare difference. To see the fare type, you need to expand the flight details and that will sloe the fare class and fare type with a hyperlink to the conditions.

racekp

It's not uncommon to this see with PE being similar or cheaper than full economy. It's often around school holiday travel where families are buying up Y seats pushing into the higher buckets while PE largely remains unsold creating the discrepancy

40love

I didn't notice the "fully refundable" in the grey on black but I did cotton onto the difference in fare class. It's just a bit confusing as a newbie given that flexibility is sold within the fare product domestically but for TT flexibility is sold as an (expensive) add-on. So therefore I didn't expect flexibility to be in the "Seat" product given this background. I'm aware of the upcoming June changes to the products and flexibility being sold within fare products.

nzkarit

Domestically it is not in the fare it is an add-on as well. Just presented differently.

Also not 100% sure why so focused on fare buckets.

Domestically just look at the price and which product.

Internationally look at the price& conditions.

Getting bogged down in the weeds isn't going to help really.

AirNZ with their backend system & how they do add-ons booking class is more a legacy hangover than something customers need to worry about