Can someone please explain these flight prices to me? (United)

bairn7

Hi all

I have been looking at flight prices for United all morning. Was looking at EDI-EWR then SFO-EDI for specific dates in July. The outward direct leg was £325 all morning but around 30 mins ago jumped to £377.

I thought the cheapest seats for that flight had gone but I noticed that ALL direct flights to EWR for that week with United had now gone up to £377. In addition, all direct flights from Glasgow to EWR for that week had also gone up to £377 from c £325 this morning.

Is it a time of the day thing? Is this common? So confused!

Westin

You could well be driving the demand by doing multiple searches and taking through to the booking process. The system might see that as "demand" and increase the fare.

Or, it could just be that people are booking and the slightly lower fare bucket has filled up and the next available is the £377 one.

blindman

bairn7 wrote: »

Hi all

I have been looking at flight prices for United all morning. Was looking at EDI-EWR then SFO-EDI for specific dates in July. The outward direct leg was £325 all morning but around 30 mins ago jumped to £377.

I thought the cheapest seats for that flight had gone but I noticed that ALL direct flights to EWR for that week with United had now gone up to £377. In addition, all direct flights from Glasgow to EWR for that week had also gone up to £377 from c £325 this morning.

Is it a time of the day thing? Is this common? So confused!

Flight seat pricing can vary greatly during a few hours never mind a day.
They are set by a computer algorithm that looks at how many have been sold and reprices the remaining seats accordingly.
This means they can go up-and down quite quickly.

The £325 seats may all have been sold so the next price up is £377.

Your repeated searches on the same computer can cause an increase too (IMHO).

If that's a good price for you then buy.

Then do not look again :eek:

BTW is that for a return as it seems a good price.

bairn7

Thanks

That's just the first leg price (I'm doing multicity). Was getting a return for £602 which was acceptable (pending the other half confirming). She didn't confirm in time!

It's just weird that every single day of that week the minimum price has gone up, not just for that day.