Buying a ticket online: best day of week!

Dear all.

I have noticed that on some days Virgin offer different prices for flights, especially the PE (Lowest) category.

Now, as an online marketer (my trade) I understand that offering different individuals different prices in a rotation allows you to find the right price for item (i.e does $995 work better than $1095?). I've done this in the past for many of my clients.

I also have a friend whose husband used to work on the algorithms for pricing airline tickets so I know a little about how they fill up an aeroplane and the pricing (remember this is only a LITTLE so I just comprehend the process!).

What I want to know is:

[?] Do Virgin rotate prices on the site on some days and not others?

Or

[?] Have I just witnessed the computer pricing the seats as it sees fit for that time of demand?

If it's the former then I'd love to know which is the best day or week, even time of day, to buy an airline ticket on the Virgin website. If it's the latter then nevermind and it was worth asking

Lastly, let me tell you the scenario of the booking so you can understand the timeline. I'm flying back to the UK Dec 23rd coming back to the US on Jan 2nd. I'm pricing up, UC (as it's on offer) UC & PE Return and PE the whole way. Each day I look at the prices (sad, I know [:I]) and see if it's going down or up. Once I spot a trend I'll make my decision... doing this you can get great prices!

Any one with any experience of knowledge of the answers here I would be really interested to know what you have to say.

Thanks,

James

I could be wrong, but I was always told by a friend that checking the prices of airline tickets / routes every day will actually make them go up.

It does seem a feasable idea though. Lots of checking of prices would by common sense indicate a potentially high demand for particular route/flight/day combinations, meaning a higher price could be charged.

I would also assume that prices are based on demand / load levels for particular flights. The idea being that Virgin can ensure a high load factor accross all their flights by offering some cheaper than others, so those customers whos dates are flexible will go for the best deal.

I doubt that Virgin offer different prices on flights based purely on the day of the week. This wouldnt make much sense in my oppinion as you normally find that a search on expedia (especially for premium fares) results in many airlines offering similiar prices. As fares work using global ticketing systems, such as sabre, I doubt that airlines could remain competitive if prices changed so often.

I'm sure there are many many more factors than the ones I have used some common sense to speculate on here. Airline ticketing is a pretty complicated to the customer if they are trying to understand booking clases etc, so no doubt there is much more going on behind the scenes at all airlines when it comes to prices of tickets.

Steven

Thanks Steven.

I thought you'd all like to see why I came up with the question. Here is are the flight prices for the last week or so... You'll find one day has $100 cheaper ticket, hence the question.

PE (WHOLE FLIGHT)
August 23rd $1,058.77
August 24th $1,058.77
August 25th $1,057.10
August 26th $957.10 [:0]
August 27th $1,057.10
August 28th $1,057.10
August 29th $1,057.10
August 30th $1,057.10
August 31st $1,057.10

Steven, I haven't seen the prices go up because I'm checking regularly but that's an interesting comment. I am only on person in tens of thousand who probably use the VS site each day though.

Thanks again.

JC

Since the other fares look pretty much the same my guess would be that either:

a) There was a cancellation on a lower booking class.
b) VA release some additional tickets into a lower booking class.

Try using the smile67 Sabre tool http://flyaow.com/classavailability.htmto see if there is any variation in the classes available when you get the lower price.

Phil (Buffy)