Aer Lingus "sale"

martin1

Fot the past number of weeks I have been keeping an eye on the price of a flight from Dublin to Palma Majorca. I held off booking because it was a very very pricey 766 euro return.

Imagine my happiness when I see that AL are having a summer sale with "up to" 50% off and Palma is included in the sale, I rush to my pc and a few clicks later I see the price is now 765.40 euro !!!!!! a saving of 60 cent, but what galled me was that AL are saying in bold red that I am saving 34 euro .....a barefaced lie :mad:

Rip off Ireland and shame on our national airline for this false advertising

ollaetta

Their "sales" are always dodgy. Booked flights to the States a few years ago on the day such a sale ended. Wasn't going for months but felt I shouldn't miss out on the saving. Only thing I felt a few weeks later was anger when the same flights were eighty quid cheaper with no sale on.

nitromaster

Maybe the flights went up 35 euro in the space between the last time you checked, and the beginning of the sale, due to someone buying seats?

BandyMandy

Websites put cookies on your computer that let them know you've been there
(which is how they remember your name). Travel sites, however, have used them
to avoid showing you the same price every time you visit. Delete your cookies
and they'll treat you like a new customer.

endofrainbow

BandyMandy wrote: »

Websites put cookies on your computer that let them know you've been there
(which is how they remember your name). Travel sites, however, have used them
to avoid showing you the same price every time you visit. Delete your cookies
and they'll treat you like a new customer.

I really believe this to be urban legend. If you think about it, why would the sites show a higher fare - surely the object is to get bums on seats?

Realistically, showing interest in a route does not equate to a sale.

fm

BandyMandy wrote: »

Websites put cookies on your computer that let them know you've been there
(which is how they remember your name). Travel sites, however, have used them
to avoid showing you the same price every time you visit. Delete your cookies
and they'll treat you like a new customer.

i have often tried this with ryanair and aer lingus and the prices never change

fm

martin1 wrote: »

Fot the past number of weeks I have been keeping an eye on the price of a flight from Dublin to Palma Majorca. I held off booking because it was a very very pricey 766 euro return.

Imagine my happiness when I see that AL are having a summer sale with "up to" 50% off and Palma is included in the sale, I rush to my pc and a few clicks later I see the price is now 765.40 euro !!!!!! a saving of 60 cent, but what galled me was that AL are saying in bold red that I am saving 34 euro .....a barefaced lie :mad:

Rip off Ireland and shame on our national airline for this false advertising

They just put the price up by €34 during the previous week leading up to their "sale",trying to make you feel better .I wouldn't call it a scam,but there should be strict laws in place when using the term "sale"

Eponymous

Booked flights as part of the sale on Monday.

I'd been monitoring prices for flights in July for about two weeks prior to this on both EI and FR with little or no fluctuation until the EI seat sale came up. The only change came with the sale prices which dropped the EI fares just a little, but enough to swing the decision from flying with FR to flying with EI as the total cost with baggage, assigned seating etc made them the cheaper option.

Not once did I clear cookies, browsing history or otherwise. Price checking was done on my laptop, tablet and work PC.

Prices go up and down depending on demand. For example, let's say today I price a flight to Manchester and it's €50. I don't book it then. Shortly after, a stag party books a dozen seats for the dates I was looking to travel. The system thinks there's increased demand, based on my having priced those flights and someone booking a number of seats, so basic economics of supply and demand means they can try push the price up. When I next go look, I don't know that there's been a bit of a run on bookings for that flight and when the price has gone up might think it's due to cookies.

If I wait a couple of days, if nobody else has made bookings on that flight, then it's highly likely the price will come down again, perhaps not by as much. Of course, if bookings are made, then the airline rightly thinks they can continue to raise the price as there continues to be demand.

Remember also that the airline's business is about filling as many seats as it can for as much as possible. The algorithms applied to the system just to make it work as described above are very complex. For the system to also factor in your browsing history would make it near impossible for the system to work at all.

The cookie theory always reminds me of the ad for NoNonsense Insurance, the bloke in the coffee shop saying "different voice, different quote".

FWIW, I don't know of anybody who has cleared their browser history and cookies and magically found the prices have dropped. I know of plenty of people who waited another day or two and the prices came back down.

However, I do agree that Aer Lingus are a bit too clever in saying up to50% OFF!!!! when the discount only applies to the fare, which as it is makes up only a tiny proportion of the final price of a flight and is rarely the 50% they advertise.

falan

For most of last year i was a regular flier to the Uk. (every 3-4 weeks).

My options were DuB-Leeds with Ryanair or Dub to Manchester with Aer Lingus.


The Ryanair flight was 30-50 euro return max and the aer lingus flight was anything from 80-150 euro return. I'd always keep an eye on the flights using skyscanner and book 10 days to 2 weeks in advance.

Leeds is further from Dublin than Manchester would be..


Aer Lingus is a rip-off.

endofrainbow

falan wrote: »

Leeds is further from Dublin than Manchester would be..

Not really comparing like with like. Distance flown is not what determines costings - it's not that simple.

grimm2005

endofrainbow wrote: »

Not really comparing like with like. Distance flown is not what determines costings - it's not that simple.

True, I think airport landing fees are a big one. I would imagine Manchester has higher traffic then Leeds meaning it probably has higher airport fees. Hence why Ryanair flies to a lot of smaller airports on the outskirts of cities rather then the main ones, the fees to land must be a fraction of the main airport.

Having said that, even when they fly to the same airport, I find Ryanair are cheaper 90% of the time, provided you don't need any extras like check in baggage etc.

BKWDR

I don't think its a case of Rip Off Ireland or just because it's a national airline that it has to provide X Y or Z.

Maybe the flights had gone up since or had been selling while you were waiting on the fence? Isn't it just all supply and demand and not really the fault of AL?

I booked flights last week and when i got home i had an email from AL saying there was sale on, when i checked they were 50+e cheaper, it's sickening but sure just all you can do is forget about it.

There is plenty of choice when it comes to airline, no single company owes you anything. Despite what you may say about clearing cookies, it is a known fact that it's the only way they can store information about how long and where you have been on their site and what you looked at. If you don't think the large travel companies factor this into their marketing / sales strategy at some point i'd say you are mistaken (not arguing that what people are sayign about deleting cookies etc), simply googling the matter would throw up instances and tests.

Nelly 21

martin1 wrote: »

Fot the past number of weeks I have been keeping an eye on the price of a flight from Dublin to Palma Majorca. I held off booking because it was a very very pricey 766 euro return.

Imagine my happiness when I see that AL are having a summer sale with "up to" 50% off and Palma is included in the sale, I rush to my pc and a few clicks later I see the price is now 765.40 euro !!!!!! a saving of 60 cent, but what galled me was that AL are saying in bold red that I am saving 34 euro .....a barefaced lie :mad:

Rip off Ireland and shame on our national airline for this false advertising

I completely agree with the sillyness of aerlingus sales. I monitor prices of flights religiously when I am booking a holiday and one year I saw a flight to NY price at 530. Of course I thought that was still too much (us airlines were coming in at 400). A week after the sale the flights went down to 430.

Might I also add that recently I booked flights with virgin airlines that worked out 300 cheaper that aerlingus.