Bait and Switch

[onefixedstar]

B and I are trying to buy tickets to Florida, and it's proving to be an exercise of immense frustration. What typically happens is that we go on to Travelocity or Expedia, and search for flights to various cities, and eventually find what looks to be the lowest ticket price we're going to get in the post-Christmas rush. And we click on it to buy. And we get a message like this:

We're sorry, the price of this flight has changed from C$440.91 to C$1,071.14

$440 to $1071. Incredible.

Comments

[semiotic-trader.livejournal.com]

a_just_society and I have mostly given up on using Expedia or Travelocity. We just buy our tickets directly through the airlines' websites now. The prices almost always seem to work in our favour that way.

[onefixedstar.livejournal.com]

We tried that too, and the prices were mostly higher than the original ones given on Expedia and Travelocity. Of course, that may not be true after adjustment.

[stillvisions.livejournal.com]

See, I got a similar message when I was booking for Vegas, but it was some weird sort of glitch - I checked for the same flight the next day and the price was in-between the cheap price (a price which was much cheaper than any other estimate I saw) and the crazy-high price.

I found this weird price gap happened when I shopped late at night - I'm wondering if there's some database backup or something that's making this weird price jump, or that for some reason it's not accessing the computers of the airlines properly, so it lowballs a price on one screen and then assumes a crazy high price when it can't confirm or something. When I went back during the daytime, the price was back where I'd initially seen it before the crazy price fluctuation.

[onefixedstar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what we were thinking last night. But I ran it again at 1:30 in the afternoon...shouldn't their database have been updated by then?

[sunir.livejournal.com]

This has happened to me before. The seats are auctioned in blocks; once there is limited availability, they automagically increase the price. What can you do? Try selloffvacations.com, I guess. Book early?

Flying during the week is also a good option.

[onefixedstar.livejournal.com]

My issue isn't really with the prices...I expect them to be high over Christmas, regardless of the day. I just don't like the fact that it gives me one price when I search, and then a different one when I try to buy. Well, and I do think $1000 is a bit expensive to fly to Florida.

[sunir.livejournal.com]

yeah, I had a right long yell session at Air Canada for that. Didn't do much.

[sunir.livejournal.com]

yeah, I had a right long yell session at Air Canada for that. Didn't do much.