Ryanair Strategy - Advice Required

zenmaster

I want to book some specific Ryanair flights.

When I looked on Saturday they were about £15 but when I came to book on Sunday they had gone up to £40.

I know their prices fluctuate and, if you hold your nerve, they will often fall (a workmate got a £30 flight to Glasgow for 1p at Christmas by playing the waiting game).

My dilemma is that I want 14 tickets so the longer I leave it the less chance there will be of getting that number.

What do you reckon? Wait them out or bite the bullet and pay the full whack?

Does anyone know how often they update their prices? Is it worth checking more than once a day?

The other thing that occurred to me is that, by making several enquiries for that number, it may have affected the price as they think it's a popular flight. Is that likely?

I'd be grateful for any advice.

Thanks.

budgetflyer

First, make sure theres plenty seats by asking for more than you need ie in your case ask for 18.
Next, check the price for 1. If this is lower, than for 14, keep increasing the number untill the price increases and book as many seats at the lower price as you can.
Then repeat the process, untill you have all seats you require.

Last time we did this, for 10, we managed 9 at the lower price, only having to pay more for our 10th passenger. If we had asked for 10, we ALL would have paid the 10th passenger price.

If its for Spain, sometimes its worth pricing as single journeys. They often charge the same in Euros as they do in £s. ie a £9.99 flight becomes 9.99 euro, a saving of nearly 33%. Time consuming though, but often the savings are MASSIVE

Takecareofthepennies

Zenmaster -

Here's a piece of information I posted a little while ago on another thread. There was a discussion over whether Ryanair's prices really fluctuated, or only ever went up.

One of my friends works in IT at Ryanair, so I asked him that question specifically. His answer was:

Ryanair have a certain number of seats in each fare bracket. Once these are gone, the price goes up to the next higher level. It will not normally go down.

He says that it would take special circumstances for Ryanair to offer lower prices again once they have gone up. One example he cited was last year's Despatches programme on TV, where Ryanair got a lot of bad publicity. To counter that, they offered lots of 1 p tickets, even for flights that were already selling at higher fares. This is not their normal practice though.

They do not operate a yield management system (that tries to forecast the eventual load factor on any particular flight and constantly adjusts prices accordingly) but simply up prices the more seats they sell. The price you see for any given flight will not normally be lower again later with Ryanair.

There you go.

However, budgetflyer is right about possibly not booking all tickets in one go. This ties in with my experiences.

mystic_trev

I agree with the above. Of a 50 or so flights i've taken with Ryanair, I've only ever noticed the price drop once after booking, and that wasn't by much!

ynot2005

i agree also that ryanair dont seem to drop prices, but after several examples of losing money to easyjet cos i booked at the wrong time,they im sure they use a different system to ryanair

the waiting game will lose you money with ryanair

laurmurph

i just booked 3 tickets to Venice when, a day later, i got an email saying they'd dropped prices by more than 75%. I was gutted! I'd paid 99p each for those tickets and i could have had them for 9p if i'd only waited.... i feel such a fool....:D

budgetflyer

Laurmurph, are you sure youve not booked business class ? 99p seems an awfull lot for a ryanair flight. Ive noticed the 9p are usually economy.You dont get the "pamper package" in economy

CIS

You dont get the "pamper package" in economy

Is that the one with the optional upgrade of a seat ?

budgetflyer

Lots of people have been asking this, so here goes-

What is the "Pamper Package"?

Answer-The option to purchase (do it online- its cheaper) an empty clear plastic bag.
Holders of said bag, can then simply by (when in seat, not during take off and landing please!) raise hand and wave bag saying "excuse me, can I buy perfume,make up, a his n hers designer watch and half a dozen scratch cards please?"
Cabin crew will immediately drop everything and serve you these items, as there is lots of profit and commission in them.
This is a sneaky way to get your "BOGOF £4 Vodka sachettes" ahead of the crowd, as often they can give you them along with your "bargain gifts"

finallydebtfree!!

Wth reference most of the posts above: I booked 5 tickets to milan on tues eve, each flight 19p each way, check today and they are 1p each even though when I purchased them they were in the sale (which should have ended 01/03) :mad: I know it doesnt sound alot but combined with taxes that works out at £10 cheaper per ticket!

Beate

I booked two return tickets to Milan just now over Easter and they were £30 cheaper altogether than this morning! Well chuffed!
But the July flights to Germany which I haven't booked yet have gone up since I last looked. Bummer, but I can't book quite yet.