Only 4 seats left! Really?

Blue264

swingaloo wrote: »

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.

It's not a theory. It's how the Travel industry operates since the advent of internet and E tickets, and unfortunately, there is no alternative way of giving more precise information to the perspective passengers.

Just think to yourself, if there's just one seat left on a flight, how many ways would you be able to book that seat?

Plus, dependent on the airline and aircraft being used, you will only see how many seats are available in any particular fare bracket when there are less than 9 left available at that fare. With some airlines, it's when they have less than 5 or 4 seats available at that particular fare.

Hobsons_Choice wrote: »

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.

This may be that they have an allocation of rooms at a particular hotel, or the hotel genuinely only has one room left available, thought I find that very hard to believe unless it's on the Premier Inn or Travelodge websites.

The vast majority of hotels will close out their availability when they have less than 10% of theri rooms left available. They will allow themselves up to 24hrs to work out exactly how many rooms they have left by checking email, internet and central res sales.Then they may find they have a small percentage left for direct sale via their central res team or a preferred sales company, often the likes of booking.com, etc... In the worst case scenario, they may find that they have overbooked.

C_Mababejive

Its just kidology used by all sorts of booking engines to get you to click that magical CLICK button. I'll bet if i looked on the likes of hotels.com for a dump like southport in Winter, they would be saying only one room left when in reality the whole "resort" is unbooked.

Blue264

Resort?!!! :rotfl:
I took my OH there last summer to see the sea.

bigadaj

Why is this different to any other sort of purchase?

You look at a car, and others ate interested, look round a house and ther are others looking to make offers etc etc

all you can do is do extensive research and then book when you like the price, someone almost always will have paid less but many more people wil have paid more.

C_Mababejive

Blue264 wrote: »

Resort?!!! :rotfl:
I took my OH there last summer to see the sea.

Sorry,,i did of course mean "Desert".

dzug1

Hobsons_Choice wrote: »

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.

Well it's possible that they only have one room left from their allocation


Having sold it they go back to the hotel saying 'can we have another one?' - if yes fine, if not they can't sell any more


If you wanted two rooms you might still get them - but not immediately The site would need to verify with the hotel first