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Airline pricing drives me insane and is what happens when you take price discrimination/revenue optimization to the (often idiotic) extreme. It's very much pos

Airline pricing drives me insane and is what happens when you take price discrimination/revenue optimization to the (often idiotic) extreme. It's very much possible for a one way flight to cost more than a round trip flight that includes the one way flight. For instance, a one way ticket on Delta flight #92 going from JFK to TXL at 8:39pm on May 15, 2019 costs $2,902 [0]. But if you add on a return flight (which includes the original DL 92 flight), the price drops to $957 [1]. [0]: https://www.google.com/flights#flt=/m/02_286./m/0156q.2019-05-15.JFKTXL0DL92;c:USD;e:1;a:-WW,-DY,-D8,-DI;sd:1;t:b;tt:o;sp:2.USD.290170 https://www.google.com/flights#flt=/m/02_286./m/0156q.2019-0... [1]: https://www.google.com/flights#flt=/m/02_286./m/0156q.2019-05-15.JFKTXL0DL92*/m/0156q./m/02_286.2019-05-22.TXLJFK0DL93;c:USD;e:1;a:-WW,-DY,-D8,-DI*-WW,-DY,-D8,-DI;sd:1;t:b;sp:2.USD.168973*2.USD.95673 https://www.google.com/flights#flt=/m/02_286./m/0156q.2019-0...

html5web 8y ago
Are you searching for specific airlines? Here's another option: https://www.google.com/flights#flt=/m/02_286./m/0156q.2019-05-15.JFKMAN0MT2853~MANTXL1U21895;c:USD;e:1;a:-WW,-DY,-D8,-DI;sd:1;t:b;tt:o;sp:2.USD.36742 https://www.google.com/flights#flt=/m/02_286./m/0156q.2019-0...
- kevindong 8y ago
  Yes. I picked that particular flight to illustrate my point. The budget airlines don't play games like the legacy airlines (or rather at least to not as heavy of a degree), which is refreshing.
deleted 8y ago
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marcyb5st 8y ago
This happens in the opposite way as well! In March a friend of mine is getting married in Panama. The Round-trip from Zurich to Panama was absurdly expensive. For around the same price, I will go to Italy by train, fly from Verona to Spain, hike for 2 weeks along the Camino de Santiago, fly to Panama from Madrid, and back in Zurich.
SilasX 8y ago
Argh. I'm late to the discussion, but I thought I'd share my intuition between why hidden-city fares make sense (it took a lot of reading to figure this out): Basically, the airline industry is competitive, but individual direct routes function like quasi-monopolies, and they have to make all their profits on the quasi-monopoly price charged to people who want the fastest route between two cities, say A and B. But if Airline 1 has a quasi-monopoly on the direct A-C route, then Airline 2 can only compete by offering a cheaper, indirect route. Because 2 has a quasi-monopoly on the A-B and B-C routes, it wants to charge "legit" A-B and B-C travelers the full direct-route premium. But if those people don't fill up the plane, and 2 wants to compete with the quasi-monopoly 1 (on A-C), then 2 ends up charging less for a combined A-B and B-C, because it has to undercut A-C's price. But that requires it to vigorously sort such travelers from the legit one-hop travelers. With that said, cheaper-for-round-trip still doesn't make sense.

html5web 8y ago

Are you searching for specific airlines? Here's another option: https://www.google.com/flights#flt=/m/02_286./m/0156q.2019-05-15.JFKMAN0MT2853~MANTXL1U21895;c:USD;e:1;a:-WW,-DY,-D8,-DI;sd:1;t:b;tt:o;sp:2.USD.36742 https://www.google.com/flights#flt=/m/02_286./m/0156q.2019-0...

kevindong 8y ago
Yes. I picked that particular flight to illustrate my point. The budget airlines don't play games like the legacy airlines (or rather at least to not as heavy of a degree), which is refreshing.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

marcyb5st 8y ago

This happens in the opposite way as well! In March a friend of mine is getting married in Panama. The Round-trip from Zurich to Panama was absurdly expensive. For around the same price, I will go to Italy by train, fly from Verona to Spain, hike for 2 weeks along the Camino de Santiago, fly to Panama from Madrid, and back in Zurich.

SilasX 8y ago

Argh. I'm late to the discussion, but I thought I'd share my intuition between why hidden-city fares make sense (it took a lot of reading to figure this out): Basically, the airline industry is competitive, but individual direct routes function like quasi-monopolies, and they have to make all their profits on the quasi-monopoly price charged to people who want the fastest route between two cities, say A and B. But if Airline 1 has a quasi-monopoly on the direct A-C route, then Airline 2 can only compete by offering a cheaper, indirect route. Because 2 has a quasi-monopoly on the A-B and B-C routes, it wants to charge "legit" A-B and B-C travelers the full direct-route premium. But if those people don't fill up the plane, and 2 wants to compete with the quasi-monopoly 1 (on A-C), then 2 ends up charging less for a combined A-B and B-C, because it has to undercut A-C's price. But that requires it to vigorously sort such travelers from the legit one-hop travelers. With that said, cheaper-for-round-trip still doesn't make sense.