Aer Lingus & Ryanair Pricing Algorithms

zokko

Does anyone know how Aer Lingus & Ryanair pricing algorithms work?
I'd like to understand how they both price their fights and therefore when is the best time to book flights.

Thx.

ArmaniJeanss

My theory is that the best time to book is between 14 and 8 weeks before you are due to fly.

Anything earlier and you often overpay for a flight as it may be about to become part of one of their monthly sales.

Anything later and you start to see a relentless increase in price as the flight date approaches.

Tip.
If you are booking for 4 people check the price for one seat, the system may have <4 seats at the cheaper price, and if you ask for 4 seats it'll give you a more expensive price for all 4. This way you may be able to book 2 @ €20 and 2 @ €50 rather than 4 @ €50.

Converse of that tip.
If you are booking for 1 person also check for 4 or whatever the max is, this will give you an idea if many seats are available at the lower price.

Most importantly thing is flexibility on your part re when you are going.

zokko

Thanks for this.
I'm trying to hone in a bit tighter than this.
For example, is there a particular day/time that lowest prices become available?
How is this impacted by the volume of available seats, etc?

Pythia

Kinda o/t but I saw a job on the Ryanair site recently for a yield analyst which is the exact type of person who would work with this. Wouldn't mind it myself...

RATM

I remember reading an article about this 6-9 months ago. They reckoned for very popular routes with dozens of flights per day and a number of competing airlines that 18-25 days before was the sweet spot. I cant for the life of me remember their reasoning behind this but thats just what they had concluded.

Slice

I don't know how reliable this is but I was told by an ex-Ryanair employee that they use cookies to determine the price you're quoted for your flight and this is dependent on how many times you've visited their site. He said that he always deleted his cookies before booking Ryanair flights to ensure he never experiences getting a different price from Ryanair within a few minutes of visiting their site.

la la land

nah, it's not as hi tech as that ...
they do price it based on how many days prior you book. and if the flight is genuinely busy the price will go up.. but there is all kinds of jiggery pokery that goes on too.

for example, for rugby matches or school holidays, the price will be super high to begin with, and then if no one buys it they'll start bringing it down.

converseley they may be worried about a route, they may start flooding it with cheap inventory - probably happening all over the place right now..

in answer to your question, the best time, usually, to book is about a month beforehand (or before the month begins)...

Bluetonic

Slice wrote: »

I don't know how reliable this is but I was told by an ex-Ryanair employee that they use cookies to determine the price you're quoted for your flight and this is dependent on how many times you've visited their site. He said that he always deleted his cookies before booking Ryanair flights to ensure he never experiences getting a different price from Ryanair within a few minutes of visiting their site.

Urban legend.

Bluetonic

zokko wrote: »

...therefore when is the best time to book flights.

The best time to book flights is when you have enough money to pay for them.

You are never going to get it right 100% of the time as there are far too many variables involved, some which are obviously out of your control.

Surely the differences between booking early (as soon as the flights come on sale) and waiting for them to become part of a sale are so irrelevant it's a waste of time discussing.

In over 10 years of flying with Ryanair, approx a dozen times a year I know for a fact that I would not have saved a significant amount by knowing such algorithms.

la la land wrote: »

in answer to your question, the best time, usually, to book is about a month beforehand (or before the month begins)...

After ten years of making bookings I would beg to differ. Booking straight away when they come on sale on average will save you the most.

HarryD

Often wondered about this too.
I believe it's called yield management as someone mentioned above.
I think airlines keep their algorithm a closely guarded secret as it's part of their business model.
The pricing algorithm is strange on some non-budget carriers.
eg: Malev often quote considerably higher for a single fare than a return.
So it's cheaper to book a return and not take the return leg
(but if you don't take the outbound leg the return leg is forfeited automatically)
If an airline has a monopoly on a route in my experience prices are generally higher (seems obvious I guess).
Also on non-budget airlines since it's often possible to 'reserve' a seat for 48hrs without paying, you can sometimes find some seats coming available at a cheaper rate.

la la land

just some lemmings doing whatever MOL tells them to do , i bet..

la la land

Bluetonic wrote: »

After ten years of making bookings I would beg to differ. Booking straight away when they come on sale on average will save you the most.

i disagree.. i just had a look at a flight to malaga with aer lingsu flying out next october (as far out as i could book- they have no schedule in past end oct).. cheapest fare is 79.99.. there is no way this is the lowest fare that this flight will go for..

Friday 16 October 2009
EUR Departing Arriving Flight
79.99 Dublin 07:40 Fri 16 Oct Malaga 11:35 Fri 16 Oct EI584
79.99 Dublin 18:20 Fri 16 Oct Malaga 22:20 Fri 16 Oct EI588

HarryD

la la land wrote: »

just some lemmings doing whatever MOL tells them to do , i bet..

Yep, I often wonder what it will take for them to become competitive.
3x flights going to Dublin from Budapest almost every weekday around the same time.
Ryanair, Aer Lingus & Malev.
Malev still don't compete, keeping their prices high, and putting their staff up in Dublin every night. Hence their flight is full of empty seats.
Then they operate several booking offices throughout the city. I work beside one, which has 6 girls sitting doing nothing day-in day-out.
And they are making a huge loss, at risk of going under - I wonder why.
I look forward to the day that capitalism comes to Hungary.

Bluetonic

la la land wrote: »

i disagree.. i just had a look at a flight to malaga with aer lingsu flying out next october (as far out as i could book- they have no schedule in past end oct).. cheapest fare is 79.99.. there is no way this is the lowest fare that this flight will go for..

Friday 16 October 2009
EUR Departing Arriving Flight
79.99 Dublin 07:40 Fri 16 Oct Malaga 11:35 Fri 16 Oct EI584
79.99 Dublin 18:20 Fri 16 Oct Malaga 22:20 Fri 16 Oct EI588

I think you need to look up the meaning of the word average.

Bluetonic wrote: »

After ten years of making bookings I would beg to differ. Booking straight away when they come on sale on average will save you the most.

Base

Booking straight away when they come on sale will almost never save you the most money, booking straight away when that time period is first put on offer might.

RATM

One trick I do know about getting cheap flights is to fly on Tuesdays. Sundays, Mondays and Fridays are the preserve of business travelers. Thursdays, Fridays,Saturdays and Sundays are the preserve of city-breakers. Tuesday is least in demand followed by Wednesday, ergo cheaper flights.

For this rule to apply the route must have a 7-day service, otherwise discard.

Bluetonic

Base wrote: »

Booking straight away when they come on sale will almost never save you the most money, booking straight away when that time period is first put on offer might.

I have 10 years of booking experience that would say otherwise, but then this isn't a competition so it's irrelevant as I know I am saving money on average by booking when they go on sale.

There is a lot more to it though than just a straight booking, if your flights are to a sporting occasion it's unlikely the price will ever go down from it's starting price.

aidz

I have found booking approx. 6 weeks before departure to be the best price.
For major sporting occasions though where the price was always high, if the demand wasnt as expected, i found prices drop dramatically approx. 10-14 days before departure.

Base

I have 10 years of booking experience that would say otherwise, but then this isn't a competition so it's irrelevant as I know I am saving money on average by booking when they go on sale.

We might have just have to agree to disagree over your ten years of experience then unless you only fly to major sporting events or something. Airlines always focus on a particular time period/window for which their current offers apply (which I notice is becoming more and more immediate as the recession kicks in) - the first time the date you wish to fly falls within this window will, on average, be cheaper than the price it was first loaded into the booking engine at. It makes sense, people who book so early tend to have definite plans and are therefore less price sensitive.

To see it in action (and not having to wait a year to prove it!) just look at when the current offers expire. Both Ryanair and Aer Lingus current offer period ends on March 31st (Ryanair are stating March 12th on their webpage but I think that’s more to do with not bothering to stipule that the days in and around St. Patrick’s Day is a blackout period and that the last week of March is included again). I’m confident if you compare the price between travelling on March 31st and April 1st with either you’ll tend to see the difference, or compare Wed. March 25th with Wed April 1st, same difference.