When you are seated with strangers on a flight, chances are that all of you would have paid different prices, even though you are all seated together on the same flight.
Make sure you’re the one who paid the least!
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Travel agencies sometimes offer cheaper flight tickets as they obtain them at massive discounts by buying in bulk to then sell.
However, an undercover study revealed that some travel agencies impose mark-ups onto flights at different levels, depending on how savvy each customer is.
When customers asked to book a flight, they were immediately asked if they had shopped around, those who established themselves as much travel-savvy customers were quoted much lower prices.
Which means: While travel agencies might be able to offer you seemingly affordable tickets, always check directly on airlines’ websites so you have a price point for comparison.
Here’s the thing. Last minute travel deals are never offered and advertised unless the airline is sure that they will not be able to fill in those seats anyway.
Hence airlines push down the prices of these seats to attract leisure travellers who otherwise wouldn’t have any intention of travelling.
As a traveller who secures a good last minute deal, you might feel good about it.
The truth however is that you and your travelling cimpanions just bought tickets that the airline had no way of selling anyway, and that you initially had no intention to buy, either.
What airlines are actually hoping for when running this promotion is to sell some of their seats at a cheaper price (e.g. $500) to leisure travellers who would not be willing to pay more.
They can then sell the remaining tickets to business travellers, who are less price-sensitive and tend to book much later, at a more expensive price (e.g. $1,000).
This way, they get to maximise the profits from business travellers without losing leisure travellers as customers.
And since leisure travellers usually travel in pairs while business travellers are more likely to travel alone, the two-to-go deal is a great strategy to segment the target group.
You might have gotten a good deal, but the truth is however, that the airline is indirectly making use of you to charge other customers more and also earning a reasonable profit from you at the same time.
When you’re travelling in a group, conventional money-saving wisdom says contacting an airline directly when bulk-booking flights might score you a corporate rate, giving you huge savings on flights.
But it doesn’t always work that way.
Airline sometimes limit the number of seats per flight or per transaction, that they’ll sell at the lowest rate, which means purchasing flight tickets in bulk might, instead, make you out on a good deal.
If you’re booking tickets in bulk, always check whether you’ll be saving more money buying a single transaction, or in several separates ones.
Have you ever spotted a flight ticket from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur for $2? Or to Bangkok for $48? We have.
Add checked baggage that are an expensive nightmare, in-flight meals and the booking and administrative fees that are often way more exorbitant than the big carriers, and you’ll find yourself paying a lot more than $2.
But hey, it says, after all that the flight only costs $2! You’ve scored a deal… right? Did you really, though?
Also take into account the fact that budget airlines have practically immediate turnarounds, which means they’re prone to delays or even cancellations.
Missed your pick-up taxi? Missed out on a day’s worth of vacaton activities? Those are costs to be factored in, too.
It’s no secret that some airlines sell more tickets than actual seats to maximise their profit, banking on customers that do a no-show.
But when flights are really overbooked and have insufficient seats, they can bump some travellers up to business class to make them feel special and extra pampered, or even offer incentives and perks for travellers willing to get on a later flight instead.
Both the upgrading of seats and the counteroffer of perks would create happy customers, despite the fact that airlines only got into the predicament due to their profit maximising strategies to earn more money from you!
Text: Timothy Ho/SingSaver