N00b here - is that actually where the optimal prices emerge, rather than many months prior? I used to wonder why the optimal prices didn't emerge the day before the flight, because I'd assume airlines would rather fill a seat with lower profits than waste the space, but I guess that could cause forecasting issues if everyone waited until the last second.
On other hand if someone like travel agency has pre-paid for seats in block, selling them at any price will lower the losses. So different actors have ways to act differently.
1) as the flight is released (e.g a year in advance or more)
or
2) about 5 weeks out.
If they haven’t been able to sell the seat yet, the airline is in a big hurry.
If they have sold almost all the seats, the last 1-2 will often be crazy expensive though.
High risk.
I waited till the second to last day and the price was 240, one day later it hit 200. (definitely a gamble, the flight seemed maxed out when I was boarding).
I could have slept in an hour longer and drove 4.5 hours directly to Montreal instead of going to Boston first with the connection.
I used to hate business travel, then took a role that required a fair bit of it. Getting used to the routine, finding ways to be efficient, and realizing that even the occasional irregularities aren’t so bad gave me a perspective that while I don’t love it, it’s far more tolerable than how I used to view it.
I recently had a five month period where I took a plane ride every single week for work. A “frequent traveler” so to speak.
To me, the big difference between basic economy and regular is the ability to cancel (for a credit) up until the flight takes off. When you travel once in a while, this isn’t worth that much. When you travel every week, it’s huge. For example, when I travel (round trip) 3-5 times a year (which is my normal cadence), I’m not gonna really care if I booked an 8pm flight but last minute decided that I have time to get on a 6pm. An extra two hours not-at-home is no big deal, maybe even a good thing. When you travel every week, the ability to change later minute is huge (and contrary to popular belief, I found that it is often the case that last minute flights are the same price or cheaper, depending on the route, though it can also be wildly more expensive).
In addition to changing my mind about when to leave, don’t get me started on delays. If I saw my flight was delayed two hours (which often means that it’ll end up cancelling or taking off 6 hours late), I’d immediately book an alternative (if I could find one at a decent price) and then cancel one of them right before departure.
Aside from this, seat selection is important, especially if you travel a lot (the lifestyle is hard enough to begin with). You can usually buy seats in basic economy and the whole thing will be cheaper, but assuming you are going to do that, then the difference is gonna be $25-30 which is basically the “right to cancel” fee.
Why? I don’t fly that much, especially for work, and I’ve never had a problem getting to use my credits from cancelling flights. The price difference between credit-refundable and full refundable is usually significant and doesn’t offer me anything.
The issue is boarding priority and you may not have overhead space and still be forced to gate check your carry on (for free).
In the case of Delta, it’s a combination of not being able to choose your seat, no refunds or airline credit for canceling or changing your flight and no miles earned toward future flights.
I can’t speak for the other airlines.
This has been my experience, too. Some airports have a half-assed process where it's partially self-service and partially done by a human. In Denver, they have booths outside to check bags. You scan the QR code, pay in the app, and it prints your tag at that booth for the worker to take. Convenient right? Wrong.
I'm second in line, so I scan and do the whole process, then the worker leaves to help a disabled woman. No problem I thought: I'll just go to another booth to have it re-printed. Nope, apparently once you print the tag, employees can't do anything about it and you're forced to buy another checked bag or hope that the original worker comes back (I'm not taking that chance if I have a flight to catch)
This is really bad advice. You should search using a flight search engine like Google Flights, not a single OTA, and book directly with the airline unless an OTA has a much, much better deal. The $10 that Orbitz might sometimes save you comes at the cost of having to talk to their customer service, not the airline’s, if you want to change your trip.
Example: You search for a flight from YWG to BKK in business, and it wants to route you YWG-YVR-KIX-BKK, which is basically fine. The flight time from YWG-YVR is under 3 hours, so it'll show you fares where that leg is in Economy, but YVR-KIX is in business, which is also, fundamentally, fine, although it would be nice to filter that. A short hop being Economy to get you on to the long leg in Business is usually acceptable. HOWEVER, it will ALSO show you fares where KIX-BKK (a 6 hour flight) are in Economy, and it won't allow you to filter this, so this messes up any ability to sensibly filter flights by price. If I am searching for a flight in Business, please allow me to filter out ones where *9 hours* of that flight is actually in Economy.</rant>
Free food, drinks, booze, superior in every way. If I know I have access, I’m not too bothered with spending extra time, or minimizing my airport time. The absolute minimum should be fast track tho.
Edit: Also, the real benefit of upgraded class when boarding is guaranteed overhead luggage space, if you only have carry-on luggage.
OTOH, I have had pretty good, though expensive, food at some airports. Certainly not all of them have that option.
This is reasonable advice going to the source airport or NYC where subways run 24/7.
Be mindful at the destination though, when trains may not be running etc. I've had a number of close misses at SFO when the last BART out was just past midnight and a slight delay would leave me spending 4 hours there or $100+ in cab fare.
Even though most domestric lounges are hit-or-miss, it's a way to trick myself into getting to the airport 30 to 45 minutes earlier than I would. That way, if I'm running late, worst case I miss the lounge or cut short the time.
For those complaining that lounges are overcrowded with mediocre food, it's true and getting worse. However, it's buffet style - select a healthy salad option with a reasonable protein. Non Priority Pass options are somewhat worthwhile -- United Clubs have gone through a massive upgrade post Covid and so far haven't been too crowded. They also allow access upon arrival, if you really need to fire off some emails and hydrate upon landing.
As for in-flight, for former gaming geeks, try classic emulators. They won't require internet and drain very minimal battery life on your latop.
The adjacent hack is to bring an empty water bottle in your carry-on, which you fill once you clear security. Then, you have a full bottle of water and can decline everything from the "beverage cart" on your flight, meaning you never need to worry about managing a precarious open cup of liquid and ice sitting on your in-flight tray.
That’s especially true in ATL with a lounge at each gate for delta more or less. I still don’t know where the Centurion lounge is in LAX as often as I’ve been there.
The Reserve easily pays for itself with the once a year round trip companion pass good for anywhere in the US, Caribbeans, Mexico or Central America and the hotel credit and the Platinum the same with the credits.
My wife and I have averaged around a flight per month since Covid. With a lot of random trips back home to ATL where Delta has nine lounges
Perhaps I’m too precious but economy class is awful compared to business class. Lie-flat seats are a significant improvement over economy. If you are spending your own money, sure, stick to economy so you can spend your money on other things that are more important to you… but someone else’s money? What conceivable reason is there to choose economy if someone else is paying.
Not taking advantage of someone else's generosity.
If that's not good enough, don't think the someone else doesn't notice being taken advantage of. They won't say anything, but in the future you may be "overlooked" for other opportunities.
Your sponsor then may say "no worries, we'll take care of the upgrade cost!" then you're golden. In any case they'll respect your integrity.
Companies also tend to overlook excessive travel expenses if the employee is bringing home the bacon. But don't put hooker expenses on it! (Yes, I've seen this happen.)
Then on the other hand, you don’t have to choose the cheapest airline possible, so you can choose the one where you have status and get automatic upgrades (Delta Platinum Medallion in my case) and a higher chance for upgrades.
Of course you can pay for the upgrade yourself. But why would I spend my own money to do so. They are so strict though that every time my receipt after flying showed I was in an upgraded seat, I had to also send in the email as proof that my upgrade was free because of status.
Most likely because they were tired of being defrauded. As usual, it only takes a few bad apples to sour things for everyone.
Later, when submitting expenses, the upgrade had to be marked as a personal expense, to be netted against per diem or paid back directly.
Early in my career managers did a very poor job of explaining that this was allowed.
I frequently took my wife with me on work trips and we would stay a few extra days. I would buy her ticket separately, have separate receipts when we ate out so I could have mine reimbursed and put the extra days as personal in Concur.
Our favorite chain hotel is Embassy Suites where you got a good free breakfast and an afternoon happy hour with free alcoholic drinks so she would benefit without it costing the company.
Funny enough, since expenses reimbursement approval was done by a department outside of the US, they consistently disallowed my hotel expenses because it showed two people in the room even though it didn’t cost more and was within policy. I just had to tell the hotel only to put 1 guest.
I know the hotel check in thought I was having an affair with someone even though my wife was standing right there with me.
While I do enjoy my automatic C+ upgrades at time of ticketing because of status on Delta, I’m short and average size so main cabin doesn’t really bother me especially if I can get an exit row seat. It wasn’t bad flying nine hours to London two months ago.
First, I never ever ever use a third party portal. If things go wrong, now you have to deal with customer service from two places. I know American charges fees if you make changes to your flight that you book through a third party portal.
Second, flights are more expensive two weeks out, and this isn’t pre 2020, as far as I know, unless you buy the cheapest ticket, all airlines let you make changes or cancel flights for an airline credit, If you book directly.
I’m not sure what he is referring to specifically as “basic economy”. But on Delta it means - no refunds not even airline credit, no seat selection, and you don’t earn miles for flying. Economy is the lowest I will go.
I do care about frequent flyer programs. My home airport until 3 years ago was ATL so of course we flew Delta. It’s still our preferred airline because we end up in ATL a few times a year and the only airline that flies into my parents city in south ga is Delta.
With Delta with status (and lounge access via credit card especially in Atlanta) makes everything better.
The issue also is not the variability of time at the airport especially with digital ID, Clear, TSA pre check and even with a check bag either using curb side check in (again Delta in our case) or Sky Priority check in (thanks to status), it’s the time to get to the airport and not worrying about traffic. Being at the airport killing time with my computer, tablet or phone - even if I didn’t have lounge access - is better than worrying about Atlanta traffic when I lived on the other side of the metro area.
> You have a safe upper bound of how long it takes. I agree that adding 30% is mostly safe enough for taxis
That’s true for the most part.
He also mentions not checking bags. I agree with the sentiment. But that is diametrically opposed to buying the cheapest seats where you are last to board and not worrying about status which would get you earlier boarding.
Get an airline credit card for one based in your city and checked bags are no longer a cost. Aside from a few minutes to drop and pick up. Usually there are other perks like food and beverage discounts on the plane, etc. I fly to the Caribbean once a year on the miles we accumulate.
This one really bothers me. The Portland airport mandates all food prices to be the same as at the businesses off-airport locations. As a passenger that makes it really great. As a free-market worshipper I have some concerns about this but it seems to work really well in practice and we get excellent options. Unfortunately, other airports don't rely on free-market competition to result in great offerings either but instead usually have most vendors operated by the same concession company like HMSHost, SSP Group. This gives a captive audience to a quasi-monopolist. It's the easiest situation to avoid a monopoly or cartel situation and foster competition, yet most airports seem to either be operated by people who don't care, crooks or idiots.
Free market in a location owned by the government where the government gets to control who the vendors are and what the customers are allowed to bring in? Thats not a free market to begin with.
1 - bypass queues - if possible, get fast track. Generally not that expensive.
2 Place to sit - Lounge access. If you have a long layover, 50 bucks will buy you decent food and a place to chill.
oriettaxx•4h ago
The longer time you spend there the more $$ you leave there: shops pays a huge rent, and I have no doubt one statistic Airport use to raise rents is the average time we spend inside the airport (by the number of passengers, of course).
Security, and supposed security, is part of it.
scarface_74•2h ago
https://www.themirror.com/travel/american-airlines-removes-m...