I expect many HN readers have come across an article in their “area of expertise” and wanted to confidently shout to the world “OMG THIS IS SO WRONG!” This is

I expect many HN readers have come across an article in their “area of expertise” and wanted to confidently shout to the world “OMG THIS IS SO WRONG!” This is my moment. I can’t read the actual paper, so possibly it’s just badly reported here, but the summary article has deeply wrong statements. > “airlines also don't incorporate the prices of their competitors in their automated price-setting” So wrong. Spend some time on Flyertalk’s “Premium Fare Deals” forum[1]. One of the most common things you’ll find is that as soon as one airline or alliance starts discounting a route, others will often follow. Maybe OneWorld (British Airways, American etc.) have a sale on transcontinental flights from the West Coast to London. You can bet that Star Alliance (United and Lufthansa etc.) are gonna follow suit, and there’s a good chance SkyTeam (Delta and KLM etc.) will soon too. Happens all the time, and if this study didn’t find it, it’s a bad study making flawed conclusions. Happens in shorter domestic routes too. Southwest just did a huge basically 50% off sale, and you can see tons of other carriers lowering their prices to match on routes where they compete. > “But for now, the hunt for an undiscovered trick to find lower fares is largely futile. “ The only true part of that sentence is “undiscovered”. Airline pricing is incredibly, incredibly variable. I once flew business class from Europe to the West Coast for $280, on a ticket that’s typically $3,000. (This was likely an “error fare”, the result of someone accidentally leaving out a zero, but it happened and I flew it). That’s the top of my “good deals on flights” trophy case, but whether you’re paying cash or using miles, there are so, so many different ways to save money on tickets. I once thought I’d done everything possible to find a great deal, and tried out one of those ticketing services that promises to save you money for a fee. They moved the ticketing location from the US to Canada, and due to the vagaries of currencies and airline pricing, managed to save me another 12% on the (already quite discounted) flight. I expect this study’s conclusion is so deeply flawed because they looked at too limited of a data set. Perhaps they’re correct and, for example, the price of an economy class flight between LAX and JFK on a Thursday evening doesn’t change much. But in aggregate, the cost of getting from point a to point b on an airplane, especially over transcontinental distances is incredibly variable, and deal hunting can be incredibly rewarding. [1] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premium-fare-deals-740/ https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premium-fare-deals-740/