Explain flight prices?

Can anyone explain why flight prices change so much based on travel dates. Looking at BA's website for next years hols, if I select the dates 12/10 outbound and return on 27/10 I have one set of prices, however I can also see the price to return on 30/10.
Now if I select dates 12/10 outbound and return on 30/10, all the fares prices change. I would have expected the prices to remain the same (see screen captures) can anyone explain the price changes?



http://www.orlando-guide.info/forums...1_Flights1.jpg



http://www.orlando-guide.info/forums...8_Flights2.jpg

I'll have a go!

As you'll no doubt know, there are many tickets codes on most flight ranging from deep discount economy to full fare First Class and more or less everything else in between. I've been told that certain fare class outbound/inbound pairings aren't permitted (particularly in discount economy) so you might be finding that the ticket class on an outbound on a particular date is only available when a certain class is also available on the return.

The other reason might be that changing dates makes the fare fall within or outside minimum stay requirements for that particular class of ticket.

I'm by no means sure that this is the explanation for what you're seeing because it's only when you know the fare rules for each fare class that you will be able to definitively answer the question.

Is it not because the dearer ones are for weekend and the other a week day.
We keep changing the day until we get a cheaper price.
Not with Ba only with Delta or Virgin as Ba may go on strike Brrrrr and either lose our time or have to hang around until strike is of or on.
Last time we used Ba we had to go on the shuttle from Manchester with Ba but not with the 2 I said before ,Why not try them Jim.
MAUREEN
www.onlinefloridavillas.com/villas/1683.aspx

Also it can simply be down to the fact flights are requested more on that day- which could be part of a school holiday

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Susan J
Also it can simply be down to the fact flights are requested more on that day- which could be part of a school holiday
[/quote]

Not really.

I think the question being posed is why the outbound flight price on the same date changes when the inbound date is amended. Greater availability can't be a factor determining the fare on the outbound because that flight is common to both itineraries.

Well actually it happened to me- I had to change an inbound flight date to one within a school holiday, and it did put the flight up outgoing- no sense, and should be against every trade rule, but it can happen

Just to give some idea how many fare classes there are, the below are the fares available from BA on the dates mentioned above: Each fare will have particular rules associated with it. The fares for school holidays in between the dates listed are exactly the same but the reason why they might be more expensive is because the lowest fare class tickets are snapped up early so only the higher fares remain.

Of course, the situation is different if you change your flight dates to another fare period such as summer holidays.

Fare Basis Airline


NLXRCGB BA N Round-Trip 301.00(GBP) E 22/08/11 14/12/11 SU / 12M
SLXRCGB BA S Round-Trip 344.00(GBP) E 22/08/11 14/12/11 SU / 12M
VLXRCGB BA V Round-Trip 391.00(GBP) E 22/08/11 14/12/11 SU / 12M
LLXRCGB BA L Round-Trip 442.00(GBP) E 22/08/11 14/12/11 SU / 12M
MLXRCGB BA M Round-Trip 498.00(GBP) E 22/08/11 14/12/11 SU / 12M
KLXRCGB BA K Round-Trip 559.00(GBP) E 22/08/11 14/12/11 SU / 12M
HLXRCGB BA H Round-Trip 626.00(GBP) E 22/08/11 14/12/11 SU / 12M
BLXRCGB BA B Round-Trip 700.00(GBP) E 22/08/11 14/12/11 SU / 12M
TLXAPGB BA T Round-Trip 776.00(GBP) E 22/08/11 14/12/11 SU / 12M 21
ELXAPGB BA E Round-Trip 1091.00(GBP) E 22/08/11 14/12/11 SU / 12M 21
H2JB BA H Round-Trip 1260.00(GBP) E
Y2 BA Y Round-Trip 1260.00(GBP) E
EAPGB BA E Round-Trip 1532.00(GBP) E SU / 12M 07
B2JB BA B Round-Trip 1560.00(GBP) E
IHAPGB BA I Round-Trip 1803.00(GBP) B 01/09/11 31/03/12 SU / 12M 14
W2BA BA W Round-Trip 1852.00(GBP) PE
RHAPGB BA R Round-Trip 2018.00(GBP) B 01/09/11 31/03/12 SU / 12M 14
D2BA BA D Round-Trip 2550.00(GBP) B -- / 12M 07
Y BA Y Round-Trip 3572.00(GBP) E
C2BA BA C Round-Trip 3722.00(GBP) B 03
WTP1 BA W Round-Trip 3802.00(GBP) E
J2BA BA J Round-Trip 5479.00(GBP) B
J1 BA J Round-Trip 6560.00(GBP) B
F1 BA F Round-Trip 10576.00(GBP) F

The rules are simply there as a way to apply the correct fare to a booking - as such the rules effectively apply to all fares, they just direct the fare quote accordingly. Multiple rules will be applied, and the most restrictive fare will result.

But honestly it's pointless trying to look at the website of any airline and then try to deconstruct the rules from that. Many combinations of rules could (most likely will) end up at the same fare, as there are many more combinations of rules than there are fares.

The most obvious/visible rules are things like what class you're flying in, what flight change or ticket refund capabilities you want, school holidays, Saturday layover, flying midweek. national holidays etc. But it could also depend on which direction you're flying, your nationality, what sporting/cultural/industry events are on that week in either city pair...the list is huge and the combinations are almsot limitless.

One thing you can be sure of is the airlines will charge as much as they can get away with and still fill the aircraft. Beyond that, you're guessing.

It could also just be that in the few minutes it took you to switch between fares the outbound price went up. I have entered flight details and found the pricing change many times throughout the course of a day. On quite a few occasions when trying to make a booking, if it's timed out a different price comes through when the same information is re-entered.

But I suspect KG's explanation looks the likeliest, it could be that the fare class originally quoted only applies to the outbound provided none of the round trip is at a weekend.

I can sense you're getting frustrated. The answer, from experience, is to give up trying to figure them out, you can't win!

I know what you mean though I've found that with BA when trying to price up flights and there doesnt seem to be a logical explanation. If I pick a date to travel out and a date to return and price that and then change either of them for comparison even by a day then the other leg is automatically repriced and sometimes comes out a different price. It can't be anything to do with availability as if I reprice the original dates they still come up the same so it's nothing to do with how many seats may have been sold in those few minutes etc. I much prefer Virgins table option where you can see immediately what the comparison is by changing dates a bit.