Booking Flights - prices changes depending on number of pax?

[Dan_1981]

Currently looking at booking some flights with a cheapo airline - either Wizz Air or Easy Jet.

If i Put one person in as a requirement the prices are much cheaper than if I put in 12 people.

Is this

a) They have limited number of seats at a set price and if you go over this they charge you the higher price

b) They are trying it on because they know I want to book a group of people and If i booked 12 single tickets it woudl be much cheaper.

c) Something I don't understand about airline seat pricing.

Ta

[MadMullah]

Its c)

its a bit of a hard one to explain.

in economy there's pricing differences. so u have 100 seats the airline will price 20 at x price 20 at y price and so on.

travel agents will then be allocated certain ones - so expedia might be allowed to book at the top 3 price bands but not the bottom three or vice versa

so when your looking for 12 people it'll find say 3 seats at price x 6 at price y and the rest at price z which will be at the expensive band hence the distortion of price.

its just to entice people to book early and book cheaper. in theory the last minute ppl will have to pay the most as the systems will automatically allocate the cheapest ones.

[Dan_1981]

But for these flights i'm booking direct with the airline - no 3rd party - (easyjet or wizzair)

If I book 6 at one price then go to book another 6 will the price have changed?

[rcspeirs]

The algorthyms used by airlines to price seats are one of their most closely guarded secrets.

But - in general - yes, once a certain number of seats have been sold at price A, then the next batch of seats will be at price B (being a higher price).

[MadMullah]

Dan_1981 said:

But for these flights i'm booking direct with the airline - no 3rd party - (easyjet or wizzair)

If I book 6 at one price then go to book another 6 will the price have changed?

easyjet put on a flight out of accrington (i wish!) to ibiza

they will want to get as many people as possible booking early in effect to assure itself that it passes the minimum number of people required to make a profit.

so say they deem that number to be 30 - once those 30 assured passengers are on board the rest is profit hence they put the prices up

its a way of enticing people to book early "save" a few quid too.

it might be that there may only be say 4 available at the cheapest rate and the remaining have to move up to the next price bracket

[vetteheadracer]

100 seats on the plane
1st 10 seats sell at £1 each
2nd 10 seats sell at £10 each
3rd 10 seats sell at £40 each

etc. up to the last 10 where you are booking really really late and the plane is very full you probalby pay £400 per seat.

It's called supply and demand.
This example is : Supply is fixed i.e. there are only 100 seats. Demand is variable.

If you try to buy 1 seat obviously you will only fall into 1 band. If you try to buy more than 10 seats you will obviously fall into a higher band hence the increased cost per seat.

[Kudos]

Flybe do something just as annoying. Book a return flight and it will be £x. Book the same flights, but as two seperate flights it will be a fair bit higher. Nothing to do with credit card charges etc as these are charged seperately as well.

I also note they changed their credit card "fee" from £10 to £1, then added on a £9 additional charge! Presumably to avoid any flack regarding excessive card fees?

I process credit cards via my business and get charged approx 1.3%, not the fortune airlines charge!

[MadMullah]

to be fair to flybe alot of airlines have more expensive single tickets than return

thinkin about it i dont think there is any airline that would supply two cheaper singles than one expensive return