Only 4 seats left! Really?

swingaloo

In October I booked a holiday with Thomsons.

Im not complaining as such because I think that once you find a price you are happy with, get it booked and if the price changes then tough.

But- Im just a bit niggled. Only 2 airlines fly direct and as this was a priority for us we snapped up a holiday which said 'Only 4 seats left'.

Since then I have looked occasionally at the website to check if the price had changed. 4 weeks after we booked it was still advertised as 'only 4 seats left' a couple of weeks later it changed to 'only 6 seats left' and yesterday it was back to only '4 seats left'.
Now each time I have checked it has still been the same fight number and time so clearly there cannot possibly have been 'only 4 seats left' when we booked.

Bit of an underhand tactic to get people to book without hesitating?

richardw

Yes, something should be done about this twaddle.

They may argue that it's only 4 seats left at that price blah blah, but they don't always say that.

InsideInsurance

Often its "only 4 seats left at this price". Airlines websites are not always 100% realtime in all aspects too.

Of cause as time goes on and sales go well or bad they can adjust the number of seats in each pricing bucket

katejo

I think it is just their irritating tactic to pressure you into booking. Sometimes they do mean 4 seats available at that price and then it will go up but not always.

swingaloo

These have been the same price since we booked in October. Im happy with the price so not really got a complaint, however thinking there were genuinely only 4 seats left did make me leap in quickly.

stejobeth

We booked our holiday with Thomsons last month and wanted a late checkout room. It was showing as 1 left priced £85 :eek: so we booked it. Even the travel agent was shocked at how much they wanted. Since booking I have checked and there are now only 2 late checkouts at £60. It is naughty the way they do things like that to make you panic book.

InsideInsurance

BA's Avios seats tend to appear to be accurate in that it only sometimes has the X Seats Left and when I've bought the number has gone down.

At times the number does subsequently come back up - and I have seen seats show as not available and subsequently become available - but that could be people cancelling or them deciding to open up more seats to Avios because the flight is selling poorly for some reason

Blue264

This one is simple really. Any air fare website, whether it be an agent, airline, etc, will never be 100% accurate because there are so many ways of booking a seat.

Just imagine there's a BA flight from London to New York with 400 seats. At any given time, there can be hundreds of agents and members of the public all around the World looking to book seats on that flight. There are also agencies making group flight bookings and holding seats whilst they quote the fares to the client.

So imagine that you have just booked your seat for £600, and it's taken you 10mins to complete the transaction. In that space of time, an agency may have decided to check the fares on another flight and has released the 20+seats back for general sale. This would mean that lower price seats may, possibly suddenly be available again.

So, there's an infinite number of people all looking at booking the same 400 seats at any given time.

Hobsons_Choice

I've noticed that some of the hotel bookers (Hotel.com, Booking.com. etc) use this as well - "only one room left". This room is usually still available for weeks.

swingaloo

Blue264 wrote: »

This one is simple really. Any air fare website, whether it be an agent, airline, etc, will never be 100% accurate because there are so many ways of booking a seat.

Just imagine there's a BA flight from London to New York with 400 seats. At any given time, there can be hundreds of agents and members of the public all around the World looking to book seats on that flight. There are also agencies making group flight bookings and holding seats whilst they quote the fares to the client.

So imagine that you have just booked your seat for £600, and it's taken you 10mins to complete the transaction. In that space of time, an agency may have decided to check the fares on another flight and has released the 20+seats back for general sale. This would mean that lower price seats may, possibly suddenly be available again.

So, there's an infinite number of people all looking at booking the same 400 seats at any given time.

I understand the point you are making however the number of seats have only varied by 2 in 5 months which really blows the theory out of the water.

redmalc

A similar issue with First Choice but this a An all Inclusive holiday,i wanted to book Jamaica for our 30th wedding anniversary,went on line last week and got the price at 4950 for the holiday.
Last sunday went on line to book only to find it had gone up £150, rang First Choice only to be told it may be a Cookie Chaser and that was the price.
Returned to the site last Wednesday and booked it at the original price,but today it as increased by £500