There is a big problem with trying to game the system with the airlines: The pricing is done using control theory. In fact, they have the most mature application of control theory to pricing out there, probably by virtue of being to first to apply it in that way.
Practically, that means that you can only game the system if nobody else knows how. If you are the only one that knows how, the algorithms probably can't detect and compensate for the error. As soon as news breaks out, the algorithm starts compensating. We saw this about 10 years ago when there were a few companies that started promoting the ability to search for Y-class fares...it was all but a year or so before the pricing stabilized. The same problem is currently happening for the hidden-city ticketing trick [1](the algorithms are compensating, although the airlines put in some manual systems when it first broke news).
The same goes for these ideas of "the best time to buy". Not only is historical data not good enough, but the more well known the data becomes, the worse the predictions become. This has already happened to some degree with the "buy as early as possible" crowd. Now it is more expensive to buy early than it is to buy late...something that wasn't previously true.
The lesson? If you figure out a way to game the system, don't tell anyone else.
Or, create a system where the airline benefits from you gaming the system.
For example, imagine you 'game' the system in such a way that you will definitely be in an otherwise-empty seat, and you would only buy a ticket if you successfully got your intended discount. Then, airlines wouldn't be incentivized to 'adjust' and you could keep getting discounts.
We are playing with a few prototypes to do exactly this at http://www.projectcaspini.com. Sign up for the mailing list if you are interested.
I'm really interested in how these ways to game the system spread throughout a given market. I've referred to it as the "psychology of markets" and heard it called "behavioral economics." Could you recommend any other sources to read more?
In the states, the more I deal with cellular companies and airlines, the more I hate them.
It's not just me: it's a common opinion. One prominent business magazine had a cover a few years back titled something like "The companies we all hate"
Consumers like to purchase things in atomic units and simple terms. If I go to the grocery store, there's a bushel of apples. The sign says "Granny Smith apples: $1"
I can confidently pick up an apple, walk to the register, and expect to pay a dollar. The grocery store can advertise their wares and prices in the paper or online and I can plan on going to the store and making the same exchange. People like being able to predict how much of one thing they have to trade for an amount of something else. When lots of competitors do this in a market that anybody can participate in, it's good for everybody.
But when I buy an airline ticket? The rules are many times so byzantine that entire cottage industries have sprung up in an effort to capitalize on them. How much does it cost to fly coast-to-coast? Beats the heck out of me. There is no answer. Could I pick up a job where I had to fly ten times from point A to point B with a few day's notice and be able to include travel costs in the price? No, not unless I were to charge up to 17 times the cheapest rate.
Complex pricing systems may be great for the airline, but they're damaging to the free and open market. Instead of using rapidly-changing yield management systems, we'd all be better off if they just used an cross-carrier auction with transferable tickets. Let downstream providers handle liquidity.
I doubt this will happen, and instead there will be more penny-pinching, crazy rates, and unhappy customers.
Well, you can weigh the apple yourself on the scales that occur all throughout the produce section... but yeah, I'd be surprised to see a flat rate for fruit by species no matter the size.
In most of the world if a product's price tag says X then you pay exactly X at the register (e.g. £2 sandwich costs exactly £2 in cash, you hand then exactly £2 and leave).
In the US that is not the case. Almost everything has a "hidden fee." You go buy a $2 sandwich but pay $2 + 6% ($2.12), if you get food in a restaurant you pay $price + 15-20%, an advertised $30/month cell phone plan is actually $45 after "taxes and fees," and so on...
Within Europe/EU in particular these types of hidden fees are actively combatted. Just within the last few years a few airlines (e.g. Easyjet) got into trouble for charging both a credit card or debit card fee (approx. £3-5) which wasn't reasonably avoidable and wasn't mentioned in their adverts.
The US in general is rather consumer hostile on the grounds of "business freedom."
Not that I disagree with you, but at least in the produce case, the real price is only a small percentage more than the price on the tag. On the other hand, airplane tickets fluctuate wildly in price and if you don't know the rules you could end up paying more than twice what you need to.
I hope that was their point, because if "it's too hard to calculate tax yourself" was the point, it's a bad point, especially in the modern era of smartphones.
It's less about being hard to calculate and more about being annoyingly unnecessary.
A basket of 10 random goods in a grocery store may have wildly different taxes applicable to them.. there are sales taxes, sin taxes (on tobacco, alcohol, etc), and others. These aren't listed on the price tag, so are essentially hidden.
Here in Fiji, I walk into a grocery store with $100 and can arrive at the checkout counter knowing I have $98 worth of goods and can expect $2 change for my bus fare home. I don't even have to know how to multiply numbers to figure this out... simple addition gets me there.
I agree that it's annoying and unnecessary and I won't defend it, but that's rather different from "you don't know what you're paying." You only don't know what you're paying if you don't want to figure it out. All the necessary information is available.
It's far from "a hidden fee." You simply have to know the rules.
In some states, there is sales tax. In others, none. Sales tax may or may not be applied to clothing depending on state. Sales tax may or may not be applied to food, or only some kinds of food (e.g., alcohol always taxed), or only to food above a certain threshold.
All in all there's nothing hidden about sales tax. It shouldn't be a surprise that people are expected to know how the sales tax system in their state works when they are interacting with it every day.
> It's far from "a hidden fee." You simply have to know the rules
But that's the same thing! If people don't know or understand the rules, the fee is hidden to them. You could say that people have should educate themselves, and my reply would be that there's infinite amount of complexity that could be added to the pricing if needed: "Oh, on cloudy Wednesdays, when Jupiter shines and the Yen is down.. it's 2$ extra"
There's nothing else to say on that topic. I won't further debate what is or is not a "hidden fee." That's my definition, if it isn't in the headline price and is unavoidable then it is a hidden fee.
Your attempted defense of the US system is ineffective because it applies to all hidden fees. Any company ever that uses trickery to load additional fees on you could say, "well, you simply have to know the rules."
>> It's far from "a hidden fee." You simply have to know the rules.
Sure. And the same could be said for airline pricing. You could 'know the rules' and look up fare buckets, availability and pricing on services like expertflyer or kvs.
There's also "taxes" inside malls, counties, and cities. And various vendors take different approaches to how they collect. In SF, I've seen surcharges for some "restaurant employement" thing, and have noted different rates at different restaurants.
Try to buy an apple in California and see whether the sales tax was included in the price ;)
I have a two-part theory as to the advertising of prices exclusive of sales tax (which, again, doesn't apply to the apple example, for those HN readers who live in Silicon Valley); it goes like this:
1. Companies that sell products out of more than one store would like to use the same advertising everywhere, instead of making one ad per sales tax region they're present in.
2. This causes everyone to have to advertise prices the same way.
Actually, now I'm curious what the tax scheme was when you ordered something out of the Sears catalog.
Most of your examples have something going for them, but this one
> an advertised $30/month cell phone plan is actually $45 after "taxes and fees,"
is something I've never heard of. All of my US cell phone plans advertised the exact price they charged.
Prepaid plans across all US carriers generally have all taxes and fees included in the advertised price, except for standard sales tax (if your state/locality normally charges it).
If you want to pick nits, some fruits and vegetables - like melons, pomegranate, pineapples, artichokes - are often sold by the head, not just by weight.
Southwest, as far as I can tell, doesn't change rates once they've published. Three rate tiers, optional early check-in to get a better boarding order position, and free baggage.
The most striking difference is that, in general, the flight attendants are happy. They smile. They joke around. Sometimes they sing songs. I was on a flight a few months ago where the entire plane played a game because it was someone's birthday.
If Southwest flies anywhere close to where I'm going, I make a point to fly with them. Even if they're slightly more expensive, the drastically less toxic experience makes up for it.
As a parent, I fly Southwest so that I can take advantage of the two free checked-in bags you get per ticket. Not having to wrestle several overfull bags of clothes on and off of the plane makes Southwest a great bargain for my piece of mind.
You should never have to pay for checked bags: just gate check the bags instead.
This new checked bag pricing has made the (already crowded) overhead compartments even more crowded. If your flight is full, or nearly so, there will not be enough overhead space for the carry-ons and the flight attendants and gate agents will start gate checking bags. Even if there is space, it may be toward the back of the plane, possibly behind one's seat.
This can be a big inconvenience for people who want to carry-on. If your carry-on is several rows behind you, you have to wait for the entire cabin to deplane before you can go back and get your bags. If you're on a tight layover, this can be seriously problematic.
As a result of this madness, the gate agents are always making announcements that they would like to gate check your bags (for free, of course).
Frontier: Checked baggage $25 web / $30 at airport. Carry on $30 web / $35 at airport. Gate check $50. Basically you're punished for gate checking, rather than committing in advance to either a carry on or checking before security. And it means no matter what you're paying for anything other than a personal item.
The Frontier gate check fee seems to only apply to items that are not eligible to be carry-on. It would not make sense to charge to gate check a carry-on item (as you are often required to do when the overhead bins are full).
That and the fact that they do family preboarding which really makes everyone happier (no screaming crazy kids in the lobby) and probably increases boarding throughput (no backup while moms wrestle carseats into window seats)
I'd guess they're comparing against airlines that charge for all checked bags starting from the first one, rather than airlines that give you one for free.
As in, if they had to pay to check bags, they would bring them all as carry on, where with southwest they can check them for free and not deal with. I'm not paying to check bags either.
This is incorrect. WNCO has a big revenue management department, meaning they change pricing based on supply and demand. I believe they use PROS, but I can't recall 100%.
I'm not 100% sure it is "legal", but I had the pleasure of flying on southwest with them half-singing half-joking throughout the mandatory safety stuff.. it was a pretty hilarious change of pace. Unfortunately, Southwest, though fairly cheap for where I go, has 2 stops minimum no matter what where as everywhere else can make it 1 stop
Had a similar experience on Southwest when flying from Phoenix to Vegas.
I initially cringed as the attendant started talking on the the mic and making a joke, as any world weary traveler probably would. I soon found myself laughing as the rest of the crew joined in with mimes and singing and call backs. It was definitely one of the best flight experiences I've ever had.
My most fun safety announcement was on Alaska Air when the flight steward came on an said something like "This is a very exciting flight, as it's the very first flight for our two pilots." (Everyone starts getting nervous at this point.) "Captain John and Captain Jane, please stand up and wave to your passengers" at which point two (unaccompanied, perhaps) kids stand up with huge grins and wave to the other passengers.
It was a good way to get the attention of everyone before we could all go back to ignoring the rest of the safety instructions.
They definitely change prices based on time. I've seen hikes around the 21 / 14 / 7-day marks from a flight, as well as longer-term changes for flights around Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I too very much enjoy Southwest. Seems like people either love them or hate them (mostly because a lot of people want assured seat locations rather than the "bus model" Southwest utilises).
One additional note: While airfares do get progressively more expensive (on average) as you get closer to your flight, if you book too far out you will actually pay MORE. A lot of discount fares don't open until around six months before a flight (approximately), sometimes less. So if you book too far in advanced you'll pay close to a "full fare" (or at least miss out on some of the better discount classes). This, I suspect, is because the airline hasn't yet calculated how many discount classes they'll be opening up, so they just give you a "default"/safe price that they likely won't regret.
Just something to keep in mind from someone who often plans travel 6+ months in advanced. Booking flights 3-4 months in advance is fairly safe, longer or shorter and you might suffer for it.
So has anyone built a site that lets you put limit orders on airline seats yet? I'd love to, say, have something automatically book a $250 flight across the country if the price happens to cross that threshold in the next week.
We've been considering doing that at hitlistapp.com. For now, we just send you alerts when we find deals that we've determined are good (or great or spectacular), based on a proprietary algorithm for determining good deals that takes into account time to booking, price fluctuations throughout the year, and how desirable the destination is for you.
We're different from Kayak or Yapta alerts in that you don't have to set alerts for a specific destination/time - you can search for things for, say, '7-10 day trips to South America between January 4th and 30th' or 'a long weekend in Austin in the next quarter'.
> 1.as a consumer its hard to do more than "technical analysis" on a chart of the ticket price to figure out where to set your limit order
You don't do any analysis on the price. You just introspect, and figure out what is cheap enough to make you get up and fly, and that's the price you set.
Good overview. Having worked at a GDS subsidiary and written about this topic, another thing to add is it depends on how many caches there are between you and the root database. Airfares are heavily cached so the data that is shown in search results is often stale; only the final booking (when you actually pay) is the real number. The more contention for seats as you get to the last few the more likely the final price can jump. For example, Google's flight data is very stale since they don't do any booking, they don't really have to update all that frequently, which means they can return results from their own cache fast.
Great explanation, however why do I never see "Your fare has increased $55" on sites like Expedia but sites like CheapAir.com have it all the time. I expect Expedia and CheapAir.com have the same source of data therefore it does seem like a bait and switch situation.
Expedia may decide to eat the difference (it can go up and down) and other folks may not be able to afford this (remember that airlines only give like $10 per ticket, not much margin).
What no one is telling you is that the actual published fare tariffs don't change that often. What does change and is dynamically managed by the airlines revenue management departments is the availability of different fare classes that the tariffs book into. It's the combination of fares and fare class availability that determine the current fares available for a flight (and not just the lowest fare).
On ExpertFlyer, we show all of this hidden raw information that normally only travel agents have been able to see as we buy the data from the airline reservation systems. The first few pages of our education guide give a simple overview of how this works: http://www.expertflyer.com/edu-guide.pdf
I've been a subscriber for several years, and this is the first I've seen the Education Guide. It might just be because I'm oblivious, but perhaps you might want to make it more prominent on the "New to ExpertFlyer" page?
I've learned everything in there by osmosis at this point, but the strategies would have been a cool thing to know when I was getting started.
I was hoping for something that explained the part where they get you to pay a higher fare by tracking you on the Web. But maybe an insider site like this wouldn't be willing to talk about that.
There are many sites that describe this happening, such as [1]. And I've seen it happen to me: a fare would go up by $50 while I was searching, and opening a private browsing window would make it go back down.
I don't mean to sound standoffish, but as far as I know this isn't true.
I have yet to see real proof that airline companies get you to pay a higher fare by tracking your searches/browsing. While I'm sure you saw a $50 difference, it was likely a slightly different search, which is almost always what happens when people claim they've noticed this.
Obviously this is just one more anecdote, but this exact same thing happened to me on the Iberia website about two years ago, while looking for flights from Europe to South America.
I kept track of my searches in a spreadsheet, so I know for a fact that the price went up slightly (I think it was by 20€), and went back down immediately when I switched to a different browser.
Again, this was unfortunately too long ago for me to have reasonable proof, and it hasn't happened since (perhaps because I now tend to avoid Iberia anyway; they're pretty crappy in other ways as well).
I experienced this just the other day. My father was looking at a price in his computer that I couldn't get (I was getting one that was $500 extra). I erased the cookies of the AA site, refreshed (exactly the same flights, the same days, everything the same) and bam! $500 dollars cheaper.
Your threshold for proof is too high. We're not talking about physics here, these aren't immutable laws to be scientifically investigated, these are systems designed by humans. The wise thing to do is assume they will do anything to screw you until proven otherwise, not the other way around.
Personally I don't search airline tickets outside of incognito , and preferably not without VPN or tor protection as well.
A couple of weeks ago I were searching for a flight on Easyjet with a friend, and every time we searched for the flight, we got a different price. We tried from incognito, tor and from a phone. Most of the differences were in the cents or at most a few euro, for a 45€ flight.
I know Air Canada does this pretty blatantly. When searching for flights they constantly go up by $50 - $100 an hour then magically reset to the original price when I open up an incognito browser window.
I've only worked a little with the inventory back end so you can take what I say with a grain of salt. Different points of sale can have different yields and report different available seats in each class of service. So the price for a travel agent or a partner airline can be different. If a website detects you are searching for a holiday flight, and are back, they could switch the point of sale that they give you quotes from.
they don't track individual users, they track the search queries, this makes me wonder if flight search services are just rising the entire market prices, instead of a user only searching once, they constantly search the same query.
> [...] this makes me wonder if flight search services are just rising the entire market prices, [...]
Not in general. The airlines account for that. (Otherwise, if the market could bear a higher price and still get reasonable demand, the airlines would have raised prices to that level in the first place.)
The all inclusive branch also does this, you search a nice holiday, get hyped, tell your family or mates, and when you get back a day later it's suddenly 200 euro's more..
Maybe to point out that the number of seats in a fare bucket doesn't need to change at any second for the displayed fare to change. For most airlines, the fare buckets are not independent and bookings in one bucket may decrease availability from other buckets. These formulas make it unnecessary to change the number of seats allocated to each bucket all the time. Most changes you see during the day are just the result of new bookings and cancellations that are coming in live.
The volume of pre departure cancellations can be crazy for some routes to a point people wouldn't even believe.
I've always thought it was ridiculous that people would go to a site like Expedia or Kayak, type in a date and destination, and just hope that they get the cheapest fare. As this article explains so well, prices are fluctuating constantly and the chances that you'll be lucky enough to be searching for the flight at the optimal time are close to nil.
Most flight search engines now let you set up alerts to track prices, but I also think those aren't ideal because if you're flexible about where or when you might travel you'd have to set up thousands of alerts. (example: I'd like to go somewhere warm for a weekend in January from New York. There are 113 warm weather destinations within 4 hours of New York; I can leave on Friday or Saturday and return on Sunday or Monday; there are four weekends in January = 1808 alerts to set!).
This is exactly why we built Hitlist (hitlistapp.com, available for iOS and Android), an app which monitors airfares across swathes of destinations and dates and sends you notifications when there are ridiculous fares. Some of you might find it useful!
1. Why is it an App and not a website?
2. As you noted in your other comment, it would be best if you can have my credit card on file and buy tickets on my behalf automatically.
1. We want to be both (and have a website coming soon!) but started with app because it's so important to get these notifications on the go and ideally be able to book immediately. and 2. we're working on it!
You can keep track of where we are if you have any interest by subscribing at blog.hitlistapp.com.
Just installed it. Is there a way to set multiple home airports? There's a bunch of airports near me that I'd drive to if a good flight were available.
There is in v2.3, which is the latest on iOS (Settings>Home Airport>select up to 10 nearby airports). We haven't gotten that far on Android yet but should have it in January.
Corollary: this implies that booking flights which are the cheapest/most inconvenient will likely end you up in a less populated plane. Double win!
This is another reason to be wary of ubiquitous tracking for marketing purposes. Say I want to fly from Kent to New York via London. I book my expensive transatlantic flight and once that is secured, book my domestic flight.
But if Big Data is watching my actions, what is to stop the airline hiking the price of the domestic flight as soon as they see me booking the transatlantic flight? At that point I am committed and will be forced to pay much more than I had planned for the domestic flight.
Switch the order in which you book the flights.
Since we assume separate bookings and sequential booking order this puts lower risk into your first purchase, and also Big Data then has all transatlantic flights from London to choose from to hike your price.
I think the absolute dynamic pricing is what annoys me - it's like an inverse Lake Woebegone effect - simply everyone who gets on a plane assumes that they overpaid.
I suspect there is somewhere in the behavioural economics literature a pricing mechanism that has many benefits of dynamic pricing but allows the buyer to feel I control - they know the complete range of fares and the complete range of prices and so feel able to buy without the fear if missin out.
This is a great piece, definitely, but the question I have, do you - Americans - consider $500 a fair/reasonable amount of money to pay for a plane ticket? (I even had to lookup the average salary in the USA)
I'm from Europe myself, and it usually costs us anywhere from $40 to $150 to travel anywhere in Europe, though the prices do go up if you want to go to a place such as China, Thailand, or even India. But then again, that's Asia!
The US is much more spread out than Europe, much more. A flight between the major cities in Europe, say London to Paris will be maybe $100 one way. A similar trip (distance wise) in the US from New York to Boston would also be $100 one way. A lot of people in the US fly much further than that. A trip from New York to Phoenix Arizona (not even all the way across the country) is a similar distance to Lisbon to Helsinki and will probably cost about $400 for a round trip flight in the US, there and back again.
$500 is pretty normal for cross-country flying. Keep in mind that the USA is gigantic - JFK-LAX is approximately the same distance as Frankfurt to Tehran.
Prices are much lower for closer distances - it's not at all unusual to be able pick up ~$150 round trips for shorter routes.
I live near Washington, DC. If I fly to, say, New York, then $500 would be outrageous. I'd expect to pay $100-200 roundtrip for that, depending. It's about an hour's flight.
If I fly to Miami, I'd expect to pay $200-300. That's about two hours.
If I fly to San Francisco, then $500 becomes a reasonable price. That's a six hour flight.
It makes no sense to talk about "a plane ticket" in isolation. From where to where? How far?
From my own experience (from MidWest, live in SF now), $500 is pretty average for a cross country. I can get most places I want to go (any major US City not completely across country) for about $150-$300 though and these are all round trips. It's just when I go from SF <-> NYC/Boston/DC that I get the $500-$700 range. Or if I just book at horrible times or over holidays.
I fly across the country every few months (live in Arizona, family in Pennsylvania) and I usually pay around $450, round trip.
I could pay less, but I stick with US Airways so I can rack up miles. When I made less money I'd fly whatever airline was cheapest - just under $400 was common.
I've done it all: bus, train, and drove myself. Flying is the best deal, hands down. There's no comparison - round-trip cross-country for $500 is a modern miracle.
An article like this needs to at least mention that the relatively unsophisticated pricing approach by Southwest has led it to generally outperform the rest of its competition for decades (I know, staying out of bankruptcy is not a very high bar).
Since their fares are not comparable since they don't let anyone show theirs in the same list as other airlines, you really cannot know if they are cheaper or not. In reality this means they are able to set their prices on average higher than those who have to compete in a list. Better control vs. more exposure.
Much of Southwest's profitability actually comes from doing a great job hedging against fuel cost changes, rather than making extraordinary margins on the seats.
"We did that Uber shit before it was cool." -- The airlines.
Another thing that surprises most people is how expensive business and first class are, relative to coach. After all, if you're only getting 1.5-2x as much space, it doesn't seem fair that you'd have to pay 10x prices. The truth is that many of those seats are filled via upgrades to frequent fliers and more fairly priced in that view. But someone who asks for an assured first-class seat (which is where the 5-10x premium is charged) is identifying himself as a captive buyer. About half of the first-class seats are upgrades (especially to make room, because airlines often overbook) given that day, and those are cheap or free, but the other half are a mix of business travelers under time pressure, invited conference speakers whose flights are booked by a third-party, and people with disabilities. While people complain about the "assholes" in first class getting marginally better treatment, a surprising percentage of the people up there aren't rich at all, but have disabilities (e.g. back and knee problems) and can't fly coach, and those people fly once a year (!!) at most, because they can barely afford it. Perversely, the disabled guy of modest means is going to see a higher fare for a first-class seat than a business traveler on a corporate rate.
Oddly enough, air travel is getting to the point where airlines are intentionally making coach travel worse to make up for a decline of first- and business-class passengers since 2008. While one might think that the purpose of the checked bag fees is to make a little extra money (and that's part of it) there's a much larger gain in filling up the overhead bins (thanks to those horrid checked-bag fees, overhead bins always fill up early) and then selling early boarding for $50 per ticket. Waiting spaces at many terminals have been deliberately neglected for acoustics and outlets, to push people into buying first-class tickets just to have access to the lounges. Natural demand for first class seats hasn't recovered since 2007 and, even with the economy back, it won't, so air travel is now an experience where unpleasantness is deliberately induced.
Disabled people do not have to buy first class tickets. I am disabled, and often am seated in the very back of the airplane. There is a narrow aisle chair (a very skinny wheelchair) to help people get into the plane and through a plane's aisles. Airline agents at the gate often nicely switch my seats closer to the front of the plane, but not to first class. You are claiming some things that absolutely aren't true, here.
I don't think the comment author claimed that disabled people have to travel first class, but that some people with disabilities choose to travel business or first class because travelling in economy is too painful / not practical.
"if you're only getting 1.5-2x as much space, it doesn't seem fair that you'd have to pay 10x prices"
Business aren't obligated to offer you prices that you think are fair. I don't understand why people think they are. When people say something is a rip-off or unfairly priced what they really mean is that they aren't willing to pay that price for the product.
What a business chooses to charge you is entirely up to them, and they can be as rational or irrational in your eyes as they like.
I don't think that it's dynamic pricing that makes people hate the airlines. It's the rash of bad-faith activity around the dynamic pricing.
For example, decreasing legroom and forcing disabled people into business class tickets they wouldn't have needed, were it 20 years ago when coach seats had enough room, is bad-faith activity. Likewise, this "boarding group" nonsense where "Group 5" means you'll have no overhead space and have to wait at a fucking baggage claim, despite carrying your bags to the terminal, is bad-faith activity. So is (in Asia) denying airport lounge access to coach passengers instead of pricing it a la carte as is done in the US, and so is the non-transferability of tickets (which is disingenuously argued to be because of 9/11, but really is just there to steal from people).
There's a ton that airlines do that is dishonest, in bad faith, and generally engineered to make for an unpleasant experience in coach, just to make up for the continuing decline in demand for first-class travel due to (a) teleconferencing in business, and (b) better medications for sleep and relaxation (e.g. modern benzodiazepines).
If you want to charge some narcissistic business executive 10x for 50% more room, go ahead. But that's not what we're talking about.
For example, decreasing legroom and forcing disabled people into business class tickets they wouldn't have needed, were it 20 years ago when coach seats had enough room, is bad-faith activity.
How are coach ticket prices now compared to 20 years ago? It's not bad faith if it's a way of decreasing prices (by packing more people) for most clients.
User canvia posted information about this in another tree [0][1]. I think a good summary would be decreasing prices up until about 2003, when they seem to level out around the high $300's, with an apparently exceptional drop in years 2009-2010.
To be fair, they're not forcing anyone into anything. As much as I loathe handing over my money to airlines - an experience I sometimes have to face three times a month - they are a for-profit commercial enterprise with no requirements for how they operate beyond government-imposed ones.
Want something legitimate to complain about when thinking of flying the friendly skies? Think about the airlines whining about the cost of fuel (and jacking up their ticket prices over 10%/year) when fuel prices are significantly less than four years ago when their whining was strongest.
Or, if you're like me, think about their failure to solve one major gripe by stating, "do not place your bag in an overhead bin at the front of the aircraft unless you're sitting in the goddamn front of the aircraft."
There should be a government imposed minimum seat pitch. The current distance between the back of one seat and the front of another is too small for the top 10% in terms of height of the population, disabled people, and older people.
Then airlines cannot use "competition" to argue why they should make seats smaller and smaller, as all competition would have to adapt also.
I don't care if they're a private business. That means nothing to me. When all airlines have the same tiny seats and no alternative that isn't 5-10x more expensive, that is collusion, not competition.
Particularly in the US, you can pick any airline you want but the products are identical.
> I don't care if they're a private business. That means nothing to me. When all airlines have the same tiny seats and no alternative that isn't 5-10x more expensive, that is collusion, not competition.
It's not collusion, because air travel is effectively a commoditized market. That means there is continuous downward pressure on pricing exactly because the product is nearly identical everywhere. It is a zero-sum game though with regards to seat size. I don't think they can realistically go much smaller though; as a person of average height (5'7") even I have trouble fitting in their seats.
That said, there are airlines that cater to "comfort". Virgin America is one of them. They're not doing so well: it turns out that most customers either don't know or don't care about the quality of the flight, just the price. Virgin's prices are 10-20% higher than their competitors, but they just can't seem to fill their flights. Virgin has scaled back their routes as a result.
Indeed. Everyone says they want legroom! then everyone goes on the internet and just buys whatever's cheapest. Same with people who talk about workers rights then go shop at Primark.
I think a part of this, though, is that everything is geared toward comparing only price. I don't fly often enough to have a good sense of what airlines are going to genuinely be more comfortable, so I weigh more heavily the thing I'm more certain of. That doesn't mean I wouldn't be willing to pay more for a more comfortable flight.
When all airlines have the same tiny seats and no alternative that isn't 5-10x more expensive, that is collusion, not competition.
People like you have been saying this for a long time. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of airline customers have been saying, much more loudly, much more consistently and with money rather than words (i.e., in how they book and what fares they book) that all considerations other than the number of dollars in the ticket price are null and any and all devaluations, reductions or after-the-fact fees are accepted and encouraged if they bring the initial dollar amount of the ticket lower.
The market has been doing a terrible job of making such considerations visible. I'd like to book a flight from city A to city B on an A380. There are two possible routes on two different carriers, and I'm happy to pay the (fairly small) premium.
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to actually do that, to manually go and find the flight times and numbers that correspond to an A380, and then to find those in a search engine (either Kayak or the airlines')? Especially when there's a stopover. Both airlines have a ton of other flights on the same route, which is just noise that I have to filter through. But I'm willing to spend a couple hours doing that to book a slightly less miserable transatlantic flight.
If comfort information was readily available and visible on a flight search, people would actually be able to make that choice. But it's not, so it's not reasonable to draw the conclusion that people don't care about it. It's not easy to research the differences, to the vast majority probably don't know them.
Again, the market does a terrible job of making such considerations visible because not enough consumers care. It's not like online travel agencies don't want to distinguish themselves or airlines don't want people to know they're operating A380s
There shouldn't be any difficulty in adding an "A380" filter to a search engine (even for third parties, it's a field in the schedules datasets), but the set of people searching for flights mostly by aircraft type, on routes where A380s actually operate isn't necessarily larger than the set of people who will check the A380 box out of curiosity, be surprised at how few options they get and then book on a different site.
It's perhaps telling that SeatGuru, with its excellent and unique rich data on airline seating, comes with a pretty bog standard search tool.
That would increase airlines' cost per-seat-mile, which will increase the average ticket costs for the majority of the public and decrease seat availability (and result in the cancellation of marginal routes).
Airlines have near universally tiny economy seats because the vast majority of people are sufficiently satisfied with small seats to be unwilling to patronise an alternative airline with slightly more expensive but larger economy seats. Why should we subsidise people that want premium economy at a lower price?
Then what happens is you effectively impose a surcharge on the 90% of the population who do not need a larger seat pitch, which hardly seems fair either.
You don't have competition on seat pitch because there are not enough people willing to pay the increase for the comfort to sustain an airline.
Older people and disabled people make up a measured percentage as well. So less than 90%. Additionally everyone benefits from more seat pitch, even if just to allow them to more easily use things like a laptop in economy (which is not viable now if the person in front of you reclines fully).
> You don't have competition on seat pitch because there are not enough people willing to pay the increase for the comfort to sustain an airline.
It has nothing to do with "comfort." It isn't a luxury feature in the same vein as a complementary back massage, hot flannel, or free alcoholic drink. It is what people need so they aren't in physical pain for the duration of the flight.
Now, yes, extreme seat pitch (e.g. business/first class) is absolutely about pure comfort. I am talking about a bare minimum so an adult can fit their butt, legs, and knees between the back of their seat and the back of the seat in front when reclined.
If airlines want to save some money, remove recline completely.
> Older people and disabled people make up a measured percentage
> as well. So less than 90%.
How does being older have anything to do with needing more leg room?
Depending on the disability that may not matter either.
> Additionally everyone benefits from more seat pitch
As an anecdote I'm 183 cm (or 6") and I actually find it really
uncomfortable to sit at the optional incline offered by airlines, I'd
like to either be sitting straight up or lie completely level, nothing
in-between. So I'm not benefiting from it, unless it's getting quite
close to 90 degrees.
> It has nothing to do with "comfort. [...] It is what people need
> so they aren't in physical pain for the duration of the flight.
I'm relatively fine with the current seat arrangement, and I'm happy
that airlines aren't being mandated to increase prices for everyone
due to some government-imposed seat size regulations.
I'm happy that I have the option to choose airlines like EasyJet for
shorter trips which are essentially glorified cattle carts with wings
on them, but which would allow me to affordably go somewhere over a
weekend. If I want more seat space there's always something like KLM's
Economy+, or other similar premium arrangements.
> If airlines want to save some money, remove recline completely.
Aside from the fact that you're entering into a voluntary business
arrangement with the airline, and it's somewhat presumptuous to assume
that you're better aware of how they could save money than they are:
When you're sitting down in a chair your upper body isn't taking up
volume in the space going up vertically from your knees, so there's
space for the seat in front of you to recline into that space.
So this suggestion doesn't make sense. It's not an either-or, maybe
airlines would benefit from removing or reducing recline, but that's
not mutually exclusive with saving money by reducing the space between
seats.
>"It has nothing to do with "comfort." It isn't a luxury feature in the same vein as a complementary back massage, hot flannel, or free alcoholic drink. It is what people need so they aren't in physical pain for the duration of the flight."
I'm not in "physical pain" from the seats as they currently are. The key qualifier that you should add is "some" and replace "need" with "want", perhaps even "feel is necessary". Neither of which apply to me. I neither want more space, nor do I feel it is necessary for me in any way, hence why I suggested you change your view on the matter by adding the qualifier "some".
Many airlines offer seats with a few inches more legroom for a modest increase in price. If you want more room, pay for it. Despite your protest to the contrary, you can.
> To be fair, they're not forcing anyone into anything.
I see this argument a lot of time but I still don't really know how exactly that redeems companies bad business practices and user hostility. What is the purpose of this argument? Saying that it's ok? If not, what else?
Also, what is the alternative? Use a cargo ship over seas? Choose from another 5 companies with same crappy business practices?
It's offensive behavior, to be certain. But unless it's legislated otherwise, it's "okay", yes.
For the record, I'm 6'3" with rheumatoid arthritis, and I despise flying in coach. But I have to separate the irrationally perceived personal affront by the airlines from the reality of the situation: I am flying by choice. If I had a specific accessibility concern (and not a convenience or comfort one) the airline would accommodate me.
>"I see this argument a lot of time but I still don't really know how exactly that redeems companies bad business practices and user hostility."
It's not supposed to redeem them, that's where you took a wrong turn.
>"What is the purpose of this argument? Saying that it's ok? If not, what else?"
I believe the purpose is to tell people to "relax, it'll solve itself", or perhaps: "relax, if there was no coercion, then this is precisely what the market wants, or is willing to bear"
> Also, what is the alternative? Use a cargo ship over seas? Choose from another 5 companies with same crappy business practices?
It depends on where you're going. If it's an overseas trip, you could video conference or telecommute. If it's not, you could drive yourself or take a bus.
In the US? Hah. I once looked up the time it would take to take a train from Seattle to Chicago. Three days, one way. I would have to spend a week vacation just traveling to and from my destination. The flight between those two cities is four hours. Trains in the US are substitutes for driving, not flying.
Non-transferability is the only one on your list that upsets me. That's some annoying crap.
But the rest, I find no fault in. I doubt that disabled people really get forced into a business class ticket. Buy a regular ticket and get on the plane. If you can't use a normal seat, not your problem, get the airline to figure it out. I'm pretty sure that kicking you off the flight when you have a ticket just because you're disabled would violate the law pretty hard.
The more bags you have, the more you'll pay, whether it's for checking them in or for earlier boarding, or paying with time by getting your bags afterwards. I have no problem with people who use more paying more. If I bring no luggage, why should I pay the same as somebody who brings a bunch?
Plenty of places have tiered access to services, and airports have plenty of places to sit and eat and drink, so I don't see the big deal with airport lounge access. I've never actually been in one so maybe they're way nicer than I give them credit for.
I don't see how this stuff is either "dishonest" or "bad faith." "Dishonest" to me would be the time a flight was hours late even though the status board continued to say it was leaving on time. "Bad faith" to me would be the time my flight was canceled because of SARS and no effort was made to inform me before I showed up at the airport to discover nobody at the check-in counters. Thankfully, these don't happen too often.
Airlines (Soviet service and morale, capitalistic price fluctuation) are a perfect microcosm of corporate capitalism, which exists to give the worst of both systems (that is, capitalism and socialism) to the masses and the best of both (social safety net/impunity of socialism, extreme upside of capitalism) to a well-connected elite (often called "the 1%", but closer to 0.1%).
Considering airfares are the cheapest they've ever been in the US, I don't know how that's even remotely true. More of "the masses" are able to fly than ever before.
That's a deeply misleading summary of the data. The table excluding inflation is meaningless in the context of parent's comment, so I won't even touch that.
Real prices have dropped 14% in the past 19 years, and have been basically flat since 2004, except for an obviously anomalous dip during the financial crisis (2009/2010). The prevailing trend lines are a steady drop of 1.7% per year from 1995-2004 and then a flat-line (.15% increase per year) 2004-2014. To go back a bit further, airfare dropped over 50% 1978-2006[1]. That is, the trend in the late '90s didn't start in '95.
So no, parent's comment isn't quite literally true (prices have gone up 1.5% in the last decade), but historically prices clearly trend down, which I think is the point.
Airfares are most definitely higher than they were in the mid 2000's. The global recession saw a big cut back in capacity and that capacity hasn't been added back in to the system to offset the ever stronger economy. Flights are fuller than they've been in a long time meaning higher fares etc.
> Airfares are most definitely higher than they were in the mid 2000's
We've established that. The data shows that flights this year were about 13% higher than at the lowest point, which was 2009 (recession). They are a little under 5% higher than the lowest point during the "mid 2000's". These numbers (~.25% increase per year over 10 years) are fairly insignificant when you look at the broader trends (>1% decrease per year over 3-4 decades).
How much of that is down to taxes and fuel prices? Oil has dropped recently but for most of the past 5-6 years it's been much much higher than it was back then.
Even if that's true, that would ignore all the new fees for services you used to get for free. Some new fees you now have the pleasure of paying:
- Fee to check even one bag. You used to be able to check at least one under a certain size for free.
- Fee to pick reasonable seats on many flights. Those isle and window seats are available, and they can be yours for only $10!
- Fee to board at a reasonable time. Otherwise you're stuck at group 5, which is really group ~15 after the platinum, executive platinum, star, super star, golden star, etc. groups that go before group 1, which you can pay an extra $10 to join!
"Fee to check even one bag" means that people traveling with small amounts of luggage can pay less.
"Fee to pick reasonable seats" means that people who prefer a lower price can pay less in exchange for getting worse seats, while people who insist on better seats have to pay.
"Fee to board at a reasonable time" either means that people with more carry-on luggage pay more, or it means that people who don't understand that being on the airplane earlier doesn't make you arrive earlier pay more for no reason. Either way, it's more opportunity for people who want to pay less to do so.
I'm not a big fan of airlines, but I don't see the problem with paying for optional services. Why should each ticket come with a free checked bag? Sure, it's nice when I'm actually checking luggage, but it means I've basically lost out on $25 (or whatever) on those occasions that I don't. Maybe you think, well, I never travel without checking a bag. But lots of people do, and there's no reason they should pay the same price when they don't need the same service.
"people who don't understand that being on the airplane earlier doesn't make you arrive earlier pay more for no reason"
Being on the plane, where I no longer need to be paying attention, is less stressful. That's not worth a lot to me, but it's not worthless.
On the topic more generally, my biggest objection to piling on the fees after the fact is a lack of price transparency - it makes it much more difficult to compare the same thing across airlines. Of course, that's a problem we could solve with software...
Well then if it's worth something to you then it should be worth paying for.
Price transparency is a problem, but not a huge one in my own experience (yours may, of course, vary). Airlines are rarely close enough in price for things like baggage fees to tip the scales, and when they are it's not too hard to see just what their policies are.
"Well then if it's worth something to you then it should be worth paying for."
Agreed - that wasn't intended as an objection to paying, but as response to your implication that it was silly to want to. I understand that it wasn't intended very strongly; I was just sharing a view from the other side. I'd happily pay ten cents to board first. I wouldn't pay $100. Whether I'd take any given intermediate price depends on a lot of things...
"Price transparency is a problem, but not a huge one in my own experience (yours may, of course, vary). Airlines are rarely close enough in price for things like baggage fees to tip the scales, and when they are it's not too hard to see just what their policies are."
I've definitely spotted a case or two where different baggage fees made the difference as to which flight was cheaper, and even when I'm not looking for the absolute lowest price I'd like to know just how much I'm trading away against all the various other variables (time of day, number and length of layovers, past experiences with the airline, &c).
Trying to wrangle all the other variables is interesting. I don't think we can blame the airlines for much of that, but it doesn't ultimately matter whose fault it is, we have to figure it out anyway.
I imagine you've seen it, but Hipmunk at least takes a stab at balancing some of those issues into a single "agony" score you can sort by.
> "Fee to check even one bag" means that people traveling with small amounts of luggage can pay less.
"Pay less" is how the airlines would like to phrase it, but as a consumer I care more about the comparison to what I paid yesterday. And today, if you're not paying for those services, you're actually paying the same amount that you used to. They're just charging other people more.
It's not like the prices went down when they converted these previously-free services into paid services. They just decided to start charging extra for something they used to give away for free and are busy enjoying the extra profit.
Sure, they're a business and they can charge whatever they want for whatever they want. But don't try and spin it as a win for the consumer so they can choose to pay less.
Airline tickets are cheaper than they have ever been. And there's pretty decent variety in what gets included in the ticket price versus what's an extra fee, so if you feel that baggage fees are a ripoff, pick an airline that includes a checked bag with your ticket.
From a link posted above[1], the Department of Transportation Statistics would seem to disagree with your assertion about ticket prices. Someone simply dismissed it as "misleading," but that wasn't exactly convincing. Especially since as a consumer, I care about the average fare I'm having to pay.
I do think baggage fees are a ripoff, and I don't pay for them. That doesn't mean that I have to like the fact that they've started charging for services that should be a part of normal service (like checking a bag the airplane has to fucking carry anyway). Nor does it mean that I have to believe their claims that it actually benefits me as a consumer to be nickled and dimed for everything I'm worth.
I'm surprised they haven't started charging more for seats that recline. Maybe that will be next.
it's cheaper because more and more jobs require constant travel so they have much more of the good predative revenue. for example at work I've never seen a 300 mile trip for less than 350. ever. let alone the la-Chicago for 100 they mention in the article. that would look like a bug in my employee's booking system.
what they get from the rest is just icing.
so, convince yourself of that lie all you want. but the system continues to be awful and inefficient. only the demand changed. to their advantage.
You're not looking very hard, and you're seeing discount hub connections. It's incredibly easy to get a 600$+ ticket for that many miles. [I'm not talking about business or first class tickets.] The cheapest you can go is about $60 on advanced LA-SFO OW tickets. (Outside of Southwest or the discount flights).
How far ahead and what days are you traveling and how many days apart is your start and return trip. I fly RDU -> SFO regularly. If I'm 21 days out and my trip is 3 days or more I can get it for $500 - $600. If I reduce it to 2 nights it goes up to nearly $1000. So "cheap" tickets still exist but they're much harder to find than they used to be.
This sounds like this would be fertile grounds for an airline to be disruptive.
Imagine what would happen if there was an airline that could set fixed prices for, let's say, the next 2 or 4 weeks. So you can search for a ticket price on the 1st of a month and it would be the same as on the last day of the month.
I know that this is probably not realistic since you can't just open up an airline like you can a startup, but it would be interesting if it was possible and see who gets a bigger revenue/piece of the pie: the airlines with the uber-sophisticated yield management systems, or the one that treats customers as people and not factors in an equation.
It's probably very difficult to even do the mental experiment, but I sure would be glad to see these kind of companies show up. I know there are already lots of companies that treat customers as their most valued asset instead of just a cash-cow, and almost in all cases that I can think of, these companies are doing great precisely because there's more and more people that want to be treated like people, and are willing to pay extra for that, instead of getting the lowest price and be kicked in the behind in the process.
It's actually pretty easy to open an airline, all things considered. You don't need that much capital, since you can lease the planes. And you get your fare revenue before you render the service---ie an inherently cash flow positive business.
I wonder if we're confusing cause and effect here. Are half of those first class seats upgrades because they couldn't be sold? Or are they priced at such an exorbitant price and manipulated to ensure half remain free to reward high revenue frequent fliers? You seem to be implying the latter.
I've had a first-class upgrade be only $15 more than the checked bag fee. One should always check the price and compare it to the fees they are expecting to pay anyway.
$30 for a day pass to a first class lounge? I can't believe that at all. Can you show me which airports and lounges offer that because I'm going to take them up on it.
Um... All airports with United or American lounges? It's $50 a day, though. With American, they actively try to sell you a day pass on their in-airport check-in terminals.
Edit: please don't correct actual life experience with a quote from Wikipedia.
United Club is the name of their "first class" lounge, as people incorrectly refer to them. Those United Club Lounges have complimentary booze [1]. And no airline is going to allow a passenger to board who had obviously consumed the amount of alcohol you're referring to. I know: I practically lived at the T3 United Club lounge at O'Hare for many years, I was traveling so much. Not as much any more, but when I've been delayed significantly and I'm super-stressed because I'm speaking at a conference or something, I still occasionally get a day pass.
The United lounges you're referring to are considerably more elite, and most travelers don't even know they exist. Again, taken from actual experience and not a quick perusal of a Wikipedia article.
American's "Admiral's Club" [2] no longer offers complimentary liquor.
That's United Club - that's not the first class lounge at all.
If you read the wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Club it says you can buy access to United Club, but doesn't say that about the first class lounge. In fact it says:
"the access rules are significantly more restrictive than for United Club. Access to Global First Lounges is generally restricted to United Global First passengers, Star Alliance First Class customers, and Global Services passengers confirmed in Business Class."
In the first class lounge you get free food and drink including alcohol. If you could really get in for $50 a day, you could easily eat and drink that much worth.
> If you could really get in for $50 a day, you could easily eat and drink that much worth.
Or just get an American Express card (Platinum, ideally - no additional fees) and net access to the Centurion lounge and all Delta lounges (when flying Delta).
The Centurion lounge is second-to-none domestically, and the Delta lounges aren't half-bad when it comes to the free booze (some are self-serve - Jack Daniels, Grey Goose, etc.)
And they haven't reduced the fee even while losing Continental lounges when it was bought by United.
For my money, the Citi AAdvantage Executive card is a better similar card, because it now gives you access to all AA and USAirways lounges. While you're right that in my experience the Delta lounges are better (the only amex lounge I've been to is at mccarran), what matters most to me is a lounge in the cities i connect thru.
The Citi card is the same AF as the Amex Plat but Plat has policy of never waiving first year AF and Citi often has a promotion doing just that (or a portion of).
But on the other hand, with that $400 you also get free Global Entry & PreCheck, $200 of airline incidentals per year (in-air food, baggage overages, upgrades, whatever), unlimited free companion tickets when you purchase tickets for yourself via their concierge service, free gold/elite status with most major car rental and hotel chains, and whatever other non-travel benefits there are. For frequent travelers it can pretty easily pay for itself.
That's because they're a huge international airline and they have to keep things kosher.
GS is a special invite status reserved for celebrities and high ranking politicians. My assumption is that they need that space so that they can load the person from the tarmac or have them check out of the airport. Thats speculation, but those individuals do have different needs from an airline. [Also onboarding needs as well as that they don't enter from the jetway]
GS folks board normally, though sometimes will get called by name to board first. GS is invited essentially on revenue only (though perhaps special people have special handling). If your spend is above $50k, you probably have a fair chance of getting invited to GS.
United Clubs simply aren't first class lounges. Just because a true fact is on Wikipedia doesn't make it less true. Also the complimentary booze has been pretty cut back and they now charge bar-like prices for many items. In general their service level for first class passengers in their main region seems to be declining (particularly the in flight meals-I've had stuff I'd send back at a burger king).
Lounges can be between $30 - $100-ish depending on location, quality, amenities etc. There are lots of really great lounges that can be had without expensive flight tickets - http://www.plaza-network.com/ it's interesting that most people don't know about independent lounge providers. These lounges have massages, showers, tasty food, etc. For people who don't travel enough to warrant a membership but still wants a nice experience it's pretty awesome.
I started using airport lounges when I joined LoungeBuddy (since I had no idea it's even a thing worth checking out before), and it's definitely is a much better experience.
(disclosure - I do iOS work at LoungeBuddy and we pretty much have all the information on all the lounges on the entire planet, including access rules and entry price of they offer walk ups etc. http://www.loungebuddy.com/ )
yeah, I've seen $30 for a day pass for your guest when you've got a fancy membership, and Delta day-pass rates tend to be closer to $50 (similar to the rates they have here -- https://www.delta.com/skyclub/purchasemembership_performRequ... -- but you need to buy it associated with a ticket somehow so the only rates listed are bulk rates).
You can also buy the membership, or apply for the credit card that gets you the membership as a miscellaneous benefit.
For all the bad press about US inequality (and our health insurance system is a disaster) and for all our right-wing politics (the two-party system allows the authoritarian/psychotic 30% that every country has to gain a major foothold; EU loonies and racists are split between left and right but ours have been successfully corralled to right and "the base" of a major party) I will actually go on record to say that, at heart, Americans aren't very elitist or classist.
In other countries where the rich are held to be simply better people, and act with impunity, the rules are very different. See, the Midwestern neurosurgeon in the US is, in technical terms, not a fucking prick, so he doesn't mind sharing the lounge with a guy who bought a day pass. On the other hand, some lieutenant for a third-world despot, or some unionbusting murderer in a Chinese factory, is going to be pissed if he finds out that someone from economy class was let in to the lounge. So overseas, in countries where the rich are just a lot worse, a lot of lounges have no-day-pass policies.
You can bribe your way in, but that's icky. I have no problem with cheating a large corporation, but foreign airlines are pretty awful to lounge agents who are caught taking bribes.
There's a difference between the regular lounge anyone can buy day passes/memberships to, and the premium-class lounges for international flights. Access to the former does not get you access to the latter; typically, only an actual premium-class international ticket for that day, or possessing top-tier frequent-flier status in the airline or alliance, gets you into those.
In the US, you can. In less enlightened countries, that's not the case. Of course, for a 2-hour domestic flight, the lounge is just a perk rather than a necessity.
> In less enlightened countries, that's not the case.
Less enlightened? Wow, I don't even know what to say to that. Even if you're just referring to their louge policy that's a pretty strange turn of phrase, but I doubt that was the implication.
The lounge really has nothing to do with the length of the flight, rather, it's the length of the layover. Though I suppose you mean as compared to an international lounge where the hot shower is desirable.
Now THOSE lounges are worth some self-righteous envy. I had the pleasure of using one a few years back. Did wonders for my feeling like a herd animal for my second leg.
Practically, that means that you can only game the system if nobody else knows how. If you are the only one that knows how, the algorithms probably can't detect and compensate for the error. As soon as news breaks out, the algorithm starts compensating. We saw this about 10 years ago when there were a few companies that started promoting the ability to search for Y-class fares...it was all but a year or so before the pricing stabilized. The same problem is currently happening for the hidden-city ticketing trick [1](the algorithms are compensating, although the airlines put in some manual systems when it first broke news).
The same goes for these ideas of "the best time to buy". Not only is historical data not good enough, but the more well known the data becomes, the worse the predictions become. This has already happened to some degree with the "buy as early as possible" crowd. Now it is more expensive to buy early than it is to buy late...something that wasn't previously true.
The lesson? If you figure out a way to game the system, don't tell anyone else.
[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873235398045782597...