Insane airline fares

NealRomeoGolf

NealRomeoGolf

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We currently live in Germany. My mother in law passed away this past week so we had to head back to Texas to take care of things. My wife was still in Texas acting as her mom's caregiver.

With that as background....we purchased 3 roundtrip fares for me and the kids from Frankfurt to DFW. $1400 for each. For being less than 24 hours i thought that was really good. My wife only needed a one way back. We had a partially used segment so all I needed to do was use it. But i was curious what a one way would be. $3000. Insane. Charge someone 2x for a one way?

Why is airline pricing as bad as medical service pricing??? It makes no sense!
 
Did you explore/request bereavement fares??


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gsengle said:
Did you explore/request bereavement fares??


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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My wife's change fee will be waived once we can show them the death certificate. My company covers the other 3 airfares so the money isn't the issue. I was just floored at the pricing difference.
 
Something surprised me farewise a few days ago. My friend changed her reservation to return to JAX from CVG a week later than originally planned. Total cost for the change was 97¢. This was two days before the original departure date. I was stunned.

Cheers
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
But i was curious what a one way would be. $3000. Insane. Charge someone 2x for a one way?
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Yeah that’s pretty crazy. Might as well just purchase a round-trip and then not use the return half.

Sorry to hear about the circumstances, Neal.
 
Condolences, I just went through the same with my wife's family (twice in 24 months). We did GA of course since it's close. But I've dealt with this from Texas for 10 years now. I can fly to Europe for less than to my native PR, and that's only 2000NM from IAH. 6 month lead time when buying tickets too, so no reprieve. Terrible schedules too, ever since the airlines got smart and started slashing capacity/frequency and charging premiums for the "luxury" of a schedule inside a human's typical diurnal circadian rhythm. Never mind the dynamics that ensue as second tier effects of 100% load factors all the time (human carnage for all to see on YT).

Americans are spoiled when it comes to the domestic CONUS market pricing. "Near international" is a complete bloodbath. This year bought the house and finally put my foot down with the grandparents. No more. I can't keep patronizing that yearly 3,000 scalp on our 2+1 for a 7 day visit. That's a lot of places and memories I could be flying GA with the wife and kid on that money. I'm sure Hawaii is the same to be fair, but at least there's mileage to justify there; the Caribbean is shorter from texas than a conus transcon.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
We currently live in Germany. My mother in law passed away this past week so we had to head back to Texas to take care of things. My wife was still in Texas acting as her mom's caregiver.

With that as background....we purchased 3 roundtrip fares for me and the kids from Frankfurt to DFW. $1400 for each. For being less than 24 hours i thought that was really good. My wife only needed a one way back. We had a partially used segment so all I needed to do was use it. But i was curious what a one way would be. $3000. Insane. Charge someone 2x for a one way?

Why is airline pricing as bad as medical service pricing??? It makes no sense!
Click to expand...

By the two way and only travel one way
 
Most people buying such a ticket want a round-trip ticket so that is where most of the competition targets.

Discounts, to fill what would otherwise be empty seats, are usually only applied to the round-trip fares. If you compared the full-fare r/t price against the full-fare one-way price you'd get a different result.

The people who need one-way tickets, usually because their travel doesn't meet the restrictions of the round-trip ticket, can and will pay more for the schedule that they need.

There aren't just two fares, a one-way and a round-trip. There are many of each. On any particular flight, some of those fares may already be sold out so the lowest price you see for the flight isn't necessarily the lowest price that was offered on the flight.

Buy a round-trip with a return well into the future. When the need to travel comes up again you may be able to change the return flight into something that will work for you.
 
As an aside, Bereavement fares are often lousy deals. Look at other options as well.
 
Sounds like it's too late, but you could have sent her DFW-FRA on Wow.

I just got here using them. When are you coming back?
 
gsengle said:
Did you explore/request bereavement fares??
Click to expand...
Bereavement fares are a joke, at least they have been for me in the past. I've learned over the years that fare prices change on the hour with virtually all airlines. I've checked a fare one hour that was $600 round-trip from PHX to DEN. The bereavement fare was the same price. The next hour it was $169... go figure. :dunno:
 
azblackbird said:
Bereavement fares are a joke, at least they have been for me in the past. I've learned over the years that fare prices change on the hour with virtually all airlines. I've checked a fare one hour that was $600 round-trip from PHX to DEN. The bereavement fare was the same price. The next hour it was $169... go figure. :dunno:
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It’s all based on algorithms.
 
Ryanb said:
It’s all based on algorithms.
Click to expand...
Sort of like this?

dart.jpg
 
azblackbird said:
Bereavement fares are a joke, at least they have been for me in the past. I've learned over the years that fare prices change on the hour with virtually all airlines. I've checked a fare one hour that was $600 round-trip from PHX to DEN. The bereavement fare was the same price. The next hour it was $169... go figure. :dunno:
Click to expand...
Kind of like German gas prices. They basically change hourly. But at least you know that most expensive is in the morning and cheapest is late in the evening.
 
jordane93 said:
Sort of like this?

dart.jpg
Click to expand...

It's anything but that from the airlines point of view.

Ryanb said:
It’s all based on algorithms.
Click to expand...

The airlines are selling a perishable commodity. Not much different from a greengrocer selling lettuce.

When the wheels leave the ground every seat on that plane reaches its best before date. Every empty seat on that plane is like spoiled lettuce - permanent, unrecoverable lost sale. The fare systems/algorithms are trying to maximize the value of the seats on every flight. That's why fares seem so volatile -there's a time function in the pricing.

For international travel there's also a "what the market will bear" function. I used to work for a Houston based company that had a large project underway in India. It was cheaper to buy the round trip tickets originating in India and return than in Houston. Same airline, same plane, same biz class fare class. Half the price.
 
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