Airline ticket pricing

[roadwarrior]

One thing that is really confusing is how airlines price their flights!

I have been checking prices for a couple of months now for my football trips this fall. The Illinois State game in Normal is the ticket that I bought yesterday. Originally I had wanted to fly directly from Fargo to Chicago and drive the 2 hours to get to Normal. Both American and United had the exact same round trip fare of $503.00 for that plan, and the prices have remained pretty constant over the past couple of months. Then yesterday I looked at flying into Peoria, IL with a plane change in Chicago. (Peoria is about 30 miles west of Normal) The price on United was $314.80!

What is wierd is that I will be flying the same flights between Fargo and Chicago that the $503 fare was quoted for. So United will be flying me on two additional flights and getting me about 100 miles closer to my destination at the same time they will be saving me $188!

If anyone else is thinking about going on this trip, there were many empty seats on all four of the flights.

[sambini]

Im thinking of going by Amtrack?

[imabison]

One thing that is really confusing is how airlines price their flights!

I have been checking prices for a couple of months now for my football trips this fall. The Illinois State game in Normal is the ticket that I bought yesterday. Originally I had wanted to fly directly from Fargo to Chicago and drive the 2 hours to get to Normal. Both American and United had the exact same round trip fare of $503.00 for that plan, and the prices have remained pretty constant over the past couple of months. Then yesterday I looked at flying into Peoria, IL with a plane change in Chicago. (Peoria is about 30 miles west of Normal) The price on United was $314.80!

What is wierd is that I will be flying the same flights between Fargo and Chicago that the $503 fare was quoted for. So United will be flying me on two additional flights and getting me about 100 miles closer to my destination at the same time they will be saving me $188!

If anyone else is thinking about going on this trip, there were many empty seats on all four of the flights.

Good research Roadwarrior, in fact we had almost this same discussion over a campfire this weekend, and the prices quoted are accurate. Why can I fly here, for so much less than there.? There is absolutely no explaination for it.

Amtrak is one of his solutions for a game this year.

In the old days you could just jump off at the midpoint, and then catch it again on the return, but its call downling now and they cancel the flights.

[BisonBabe]

I plan a lot of flights for the president of my company. I find that if you check out the airlines websites as well as checking out Orbitz, Travelocity etc you can find some great deals. Often you can get a better rate if you have at least 2 days between arrival and departure. It takes some juggling sometimes

Glad you found a good deal it sure helps to save a little.

[Tatanka]

I have the same problem, especially fling into Chicago. it's absolutely ridiculous. I am going to chicago in mid september for a conference. price quoted all airlines was 850 clams. added a trip to houston ( now fargo-chicago-houston-fargo) and the price dropped to less than 500. no logic whatsoever...

[EndZoneQB]

I plan a lot of flights for the president of my company. I find that if you check out the airlines websites as well as checking out Orbitz, Travelocity etc you can find some great deals. Often you can get a better rate if you have at least 2 days between arrival and departure. It takes some juggling sometimes

Glad you found a good deal it sure helps to save a little.

Weekend stays help a lot as well, plus adjusting the time you leave can have a huge effect on price. The later you can book, the better deal you can usually find too. I like using price monitors and stuff to know when the best deals are available.

FWIW, try out www.kayak.com as it compares most major sites.

[chuckles]

It certainly is a 'game' to find out when the best time to book is. Check out http://www.farecompare.com/ They have some good tips on strategies to use and when the best times to buy (3:30 Tuesday) are. Sites like Orbitz and Expedia don't pull flights from discount airlines (Southwest/AirTran) so if they fly your route it's worth checking out their site directly.

I personally use Kayak's fare alert system. I get a weekly email of my trips that I have set up and the current fare. There are some weeks a fare will drop a mere $7 and the next week it drops $200. I generally try to avoid Chicago's O'Hare. The majority of my flights through there were always delayed and connections would be missed/canceled. Road, that $314 fare is about as cheap as you will find flying round-trip to two smaller airports. I have flown to PIA and BMI multiple times and paid right around a $315 fare from Fargo (on Delta). I haven't seen it dip any lower either. Congrats!

[ndsubison1]

I have the same problem, especially fling into Chicago. it's absolutely ridiculous. I am going to chicago in mid september for a conference. price quoted all airlines was 850 clams. added a trip to houston ( now fargo-chicago-houston-fargo) and the price dropped to less than 500. no logic whatsoever...

supply and demand?

[BigDeal]

supply and demand?

Makes sense. It's often cheaper for me to connect in SLC when I'm flying from DEN to FAR now that Frontier is out of the picture. Of course, United was never cheap to begin with. But... If my wife and I are coming back to the area, we fly Southwest to MSP for $400 and borrow mama and pappas car before paying $700 to fly directly to Fargo... Which sucks because I used to be able to do 2 people round trip from DEN to FAR for $500. Yes, that extra $200 is a BigDeal.

[Tatanka]

supply and demand?

Well, the addition of a second airline based out of O'Hare has resulted in almost double the capacity, in addition to Delta merging with Northwest and flying to both O'Hare and Midway. So supply would seem to be very high - or at least higher than it has been.

As for demand, I can tell you that none of the flights had more than one or two people on them when I looked.

Also, flying out of MSP would cost a grand total of $197 including taxes.

My Econ 101 would suggest that prices shouldn't drop by adding in 2000 more flight miles for the Houston leg, or simply that the usual rules of supply / demand don't apply... Truth is Fargo is one of the most expensive airports to fly out of. Hopefully sometime soon we can land a couple Southwest flights... perhaps to Midway or even to Nashville. This would drop fares across the board.