Dynamic pricing

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KrazyKid

1238 posts

Uber Geek

#1732913 8-Mar-2017 10:54

What about baggage limits for those US fares.

Had a couple of yank friends stay and they had 3 pieces of Luggage each.

I suspect they are also paying of extra bags as part of the cost difference....

itxtme

2102 posts

Uber Geek

#1732938 8-Mar-2017 11:19

KrazyKid:

What about baggage limits for those US fares.

Had a couple of yank friends stay and they had 3 pieces of Luggage each.

I suspect they are also paying of extra bags as part of the cost difference....

Both 23kg, single bag

1eStar

1604 posts

Uber Geek

#1733502 9-Mar-2017 09:16

sbiddle:
As somebody who books 50+ Air NZ flights a year I have never seen a single piece of evidence that they operate any form of dynamic pricing in the way you're suggesting. If you have documented proof of this I'd be incredibly keen to see this.

Only anecdotal evidence, perhaps disillusioned; I was searching though cheap fares with my father, we need to check arrangements with a third party, when we came back to finally book, the price had shot up dramatically. I suggested we check again not logged in/another browser instance, and lo and behold, special cheap fares are available once again.

If what you are suggesting is true, then I can only surmise it was a pure coincidence, that the cheap fares were released from another parties timed out booking enquiry when we attempted with the alternate browser/not logged in.

Airlines seem to know every trick in the book for extracting money, I'm surprised to learn AirNZ doesn't use tracking based dynamic pricing.

Kyanar

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#1733536 9-Mar-2017 10:14

1eStar:
Airlines seem to know every trick in the book for extracting money, I'm surprised to learn AirNZ doesn't use tracking based dynamic pricing.

Like sbiddle said, it's actually really hard to do. The backend system for booking flights (GDS - most airlines use SABRE, Galileo or Amadeus, Air NZ uses a custom one I think) is a relic from the dark ages, even if they do now have pretty frontends. The way the airline sees the fancy itinerary you print out is a white text on black screen console with LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS (read the fare rules on a UA ticket sometime. They don't even try to friendly those up - they spit them straight out of the GDS).

Tracking you and modifying pricing based on whether it's seen you before would be a herculean effort to build into systems that make Casio scientific calculators look modern.

Kyanar

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#1733542 9-Mar-2017 10:32

itxtme:

Totally agree, not dynamic pricing but I do find it incredible there can be such a discrepancy for the exact same product. Apart from the literal change in fare code, what is the difference between the two? Looks like a couple extra bucks in airpoint dollars and a few status points, but nowhere even near considering hiking prices like that. And totally agree nothing stopping you from switching websites, thats what I was doing when I noticed it by accident. In fact I freaked out prices had sky-rocketed for the dates I needed for internal flights. We are talking about a 163% mark-up for what is essentially the same thing. This is something I had never been aware happened to such a massive degree!

That's not the exact same product. You're comparing Fare Basis V to Fare Basis X. They are not the same thing (when you got to the confirmation screen for the Fare Basis X, you likely were holding the last of the X series fares, meaning when you opened the US site, it selected the next lowest fare basis - V). Comparing two of the same Fare Basis (Q):

As you can see, about even, once you factor in currency conversion. You'll also notice that unlike in your example, mine had the same Airpoints and Status Points awarded for both flights.

itxtme

2102 posts

Uber Geek

#1733748 9-Mar-2017 15:09

Kyanar:

As you can see, about even, once you factor in currency conversion. You'll also notice that unlike in your example, mine had the same Airpoints and Status Points awarded for both flights.

Hi Kyanar I cannot see your image something has gone wrong when you uploaded it. I think you are wrong on your assumption. I accept the fares are different types, my point is they are ripping off people based in the US, because they didnt change the region to NZ for a domestic NZ flight.

I just did the same search again, and this time made sure I did the US search first to appease the assumption the flight has sold out at that price. Same result...

Kyanar

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#1733816 9-Mar-2017 16:19

itxtme:

Hi Kyanar I cannot see your image something has gone wrong when you uploaded it. I think you are wrong on your assumption. I accept the fares are different types, my point is they are ripping off people based in the US, because they didnt change the region to NZ for a domestic NZ flight.

I'm not "assuming" anything, and I'm not wrong. I'm telling you exactly what happens. Once again:

Tradepub

Free professional, reference and technical white papers (affiliate link).

itxtme

2102 posts

Uber Geek

#1733831 9-Mar-2017 16:43

Kyanar:

itxtme:

Hi Kyanar I cannot see your image something has gone wrong when you uploaded it. I think you are wrong on your assumption. I accept the fares are different types, my point is they are ripping off people based in the US, because they didnt change the region to NZ for a domestic NZ flight.

I'm not "assuming" anything, and I'm not wrong. I'm telling you exactly what happens. Once again:

Suggest you use the geekzone image uploader as the image has failed to show again.

bazzer

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#1733832 9-Mar-2017 16:44

Can't see that last picture either, but the question seems to be why does it appear that certain fare codes are not available in the US? E.g. on the NZ site you can buy X (cheaper) but on the US site you can only buy V?

Is that a tactic by Air NZ and if so, is it really a problem? Should a NZ airline make cheaper fares available to NZers (or those using the NZ site) or is that unfair? I'm OK with it personally.

sbiddle

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#1733851 9-Mar-2017 17:07

1eStar:
Airlines seem to know every trick in the book for extracting money, I'm surprised to learn AirNZ doesn't use tracking based dynamic pricing.

Such a system would be very difficult to implement based purely on the way airline booking engines work. They're incredibly old legacy systems that lack smarts and and as they need to be open (many different booking engines globally need to connect to these GDS systems) it would be very hard to do.

Fares can vary (and even drop) regularly. The whole basis of an airline is multiple booking classes with fixed availability of each seat. If you use Premium Economy on a Dreamliner as a classic example you have an allocation of A,E,O and U class for those 21 seats. A minimum of 2 will be allocated for A class and will not necessarily go on sale for every flight. A class is used as a promo fare class and also for upgrades into Premium Economy for Airpoints customers. A magic number of seats in each class will be allocated on each flight, and the prices for those are fixed - here's an example for flights to Japan

ALAPSVJP* 1500
OLSVJP 1600
ELSVJP 1750
ULFXJP 2050

There will probably be 2 A class, probably 8 or so of O and E class and the remaning 3 seats as U. These prices are known as long term prices and are publically accessible in any GDS system or booking engine, along with the number of seats the airline wishes to make available.

One all those O class are gone at $1600 the price goes up, and goes up further once E is sold. What people don't understand is that once A,O and E are sold it is possible for those booking classes to become available again. A travel agent hold on a fare might expire, somebody may cancel a ticket, or Air NZ may simply decide to reallocate seats in a cheaper class at the last minute if they know historical data shows they won't sell (for example) the last remaining U class seats. Reasons for this can be varied, including the pricing and remaining seats in economy and business.

A website such as Amazon has no published prices and can do whatever they want with pricing. Doing the same thing with an airline would immediately result in outrage because it would be incredibly clear what was going on.

sbiddle

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#1733853 9-Mar-2017 17:16

bazzer:

Can't see that last picture either, but the question seems to be why does it appear that certain fare codes are not available in the US? E.g. on the NZ site you can buy X (cheaper) but on the US site you can only buy V?

Is that a tactic by Air NZ and if so, is it really a problem? Should a NZ airline make cheaper fares available to NZers (or those using the NZ site) or is that unfair? I'm OK with it personally.

On domestic flights Air NZ sell booking classes P, K, X, G, S, L, T, W, V, Q, H, M, B, and Y. The fare basis attached to this booking class determines whether it's a seat only, seat+bag, flexi time or flexi plus fare. Only booking classes V, Q, H, M, B, and Y are available for sale outside NZ, with part of this reason being they're the only fare classes that can be ticketed with a Air NZ international fare on a single PNR. I think theories such as the purpose being to rip off foreigners are verging on conspriacy theories - becuase somebody can simply buy a single ticket on the .co.nz website if they want, and the vast majority of itineraries booked outside NZ would include a combination of international+domestic flights.

Kyanar

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#1733897 9-Mar-2017 18:28

itxtme:

Suggest you use the geekzone image uploader as the image has failed to show again.

That's great but the image uploader clearly doesn't work, given the source of the image is already uploaded via said uploader (https://cdn.geekzone.co.nz/imagessubs/08f910577c6a221dd9f747e3131b67f4.jpg)

Nevertheless:

www.airnewzealand.com
NZ0421, Saturday 11th March 11:00AM (AKL -> WLG)
seat+bag (Q): USD $165.00
APD 10, SP 19

www.airnewzealand.co.nz
NZ0421, Saturday 11th March 11:00AM (AKL -> WLG)
seat+bag (Q): NZD $234.00
APD 10, SP 19

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