AerLingus Sale?

captainshamroc

Was looking at flights for the last month or so to Venice for a particular date in June. Haven't felt any rush as they haven't changed in price much(€300 to 285 to 309) so I can afford to wait for a sale. So there is a sale on now and the flight is 15% off except its the same price after the discount as it has been for the last month. Is this normal. Do they jack up the price before a sale? I know there are many different aspects of pricing a flight but this does look a bit suspicious.

At this point I'm just going to book but was wondering was this normal Aer Lingus practice.

endofrainbow

sometimes the discounts are applied to the admin charges not the actual fares and vice versa

homer911

It seems that price flights change almost daily, so the "discount" is a bit misleading

I was looking for flights to Faro recently and was about to book Aer Lingus when I decided to check Ryanair and found their flight was both cheaper and at a better time (and they didnt have a sale on!)

Oryx

Ive read almost identical threads in the past so it does seem to be a trend with aerlingus.

L1011

Flight prices rise each time a ticket or a few tickets are bought. Hence a price can be far dearer a week later with a sale on than it was with no sale on.

Prices can also be dropped back down if demand lags down for a route in the hope of influencing demand. Nothing goes out of date faster than an empty aircraft seat and if you end up selling the latter seats at break-even you at least have cashflow and the chance of onboard sales from them, for instance.

The science behind pricing is called yield management and its complicated to the level that there are lengthy, wordy scientific papers on it with zero agreement of their being a "standard" way to do it.

Also, fares from the UK (I know not the case this time out) have such a high % of taxes that a sale on fare price alone barely makes a dent.

delahuntv

Oryx wrote: »

Ive read almost identical threads in the past so it does seem to be a trend with aerlingus.

Very few people understand airline pricing. It it all fully automated. An indigenous Irish company, Datalex, is one of the world leaders in airline seat fulfillment.

Everytime a seat sells, parameters change. Prices can go up and down depending on seats sold, number of days before the flight, historic load factors on route, number of business class seats sold etc.

My guess is not a lot of seats on your flight sold in the last 3 weeks and then once the sale started, seats started to sell. Even one or 2 extra sold seats can change pricing and as it is fully automatic, the changes can happen anytime.

So yes, you get a lot of people saying prices go up when a sale is announced, but with an average 130 seats on an aircraft, you can see a lot price changes over time. It may even be offered cheaper closer to the day of flight, and likewise, it may be more expensive.