Booking USA Flights - Am I bumping the price up myself?

talksoncorners

Hello,

Does anyone here know quite a bit about booking flights to the USA (or possibly other places?)

I've just been searching for fares on the usual suspects (Expedia, Lastminute.com, etc), and I found a flight to Memphis in November on Lastminute.com at a pretty decent price (I was going through the different departure and arrival dates to find the cheapest, as I wasn't overly fussy what days I travelled).

So, I thought I'd try expedia.co.uk with exactly the same dates to see if they were any cheaper - They weren't (about 50 quid more expensive).

So, when I went back onto lastminute.com to check the price again, I realised it'd gone up! (to £80 more that it was before!!!)

Is this some kind of system the booking companies have in place, where if there's multiple searches for the same flight, they jack the price up because they think there's more demand?
I'm scared to check again now, as the price might go up again, because they think ANOTHER person is interested in this same flight, and all I may be doing is bumping up the price even further!


Also, does anyone have any recommendations for cheaper flight searches over to the USA?

JoseChungsDoomsday

it's a bit of a urban myth that this happens, could just be that expedia updates their prices faster than the others.

someone told me once that flight prices go up everytime 20 seats are sold... sounds like rubbish to me!

fatboyonadiet

Try www.aa.com

pin

Its just the way it goes, availability changes all the time. Also airlines hold seats back and release them later, so you never know, it may become cheaper if you try a few days later (but cannot confirm that). This has happened to me a few times.

_Andy_

may just be that you're seeing different fare bases come up as the previous ones (more discounted fares) sold out.

Backbiter

Try Opodo. I find their site easy to use when you are playing around with different dates and airports, and has found some fares and routes that other sites haven't.
I also find Thomas Cook's website good.
http://www.opodo.co.uk/
http://www.thomascook.com/

Murphy_The_Cat

fatboyonadiet wrote:

Try www.aa.com

I love the AA computer, the price & available routes can vary by tens of pounds per day and by 100's of pounds over a few days. But in fairness to AA, if you stick with it on their website you can get some cracking deals & there AAdvantage frequent flyer programme is one of the most generous.

Can I suggest that you enrol on the AAdvantage programme (it's free & you get your 1st 1000 miles credited) and search again using the "flexible dates" search and keep going back every day or so and trying again - you may be surprised how it fluctuates. Also be sure to register for any flight offers that may be going. AA often has 4 day seat sales taht sell out quickly, again its free to register.

One thing to note with AA is the definite "seaons" that they have for travelling e.g until the end of Aug is peak, 1st Sept to 31 st Sept is mid, and 1st Nov -15 th Dec is chaepy time. Delaying / Brinking forward your flight by a few days can save you £100's.
For example, in May last year I paid £834 all in for 3 seats to Nashville, because the time of year I was flying was "cheapy" time.

MTC

exel1966

talksoncorners wrote:

Is this some kind of system the booking companies have in place, where if there's multiple searches for the same flight, they jack the price up because they think there's more demand?
I'm scared to check again now, as the price might go up again, because they think ANOTHER person is interested in this same flight, and all I may be doing is bumping up the price even further!
QUOTE]

It's NO Myth. The websites track the number of searches on a particular flight. Having purchased in the region of 40-50 transatlantic tickets on line, i've stumbled across this problem a few times, particularly with BA and Expedia. Try clearing your cookies and history, it works !!!

cundall

exel1966 wrote:

It's NO Myth. The websites track the number of searches on a particular flight. Having purchased in the region of 40-50 transatlantic tickets on line, i've stumbled across this problem a few times, particularly with BA and Expedia. Try clearing your cookies and history, it works !!!

Very true this happened with me for flights on virgins website, deleted the cookies and then searched again.. I also run two browsers (IE and Opera) and when i have got a good price i will start using the other browser though this just saves me the effort of deleting the cookies...