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Why is anyone forced to reverse engineer the pricing scheme? Simply decide if the ticket is worth the money to you. You typically have other airlines to compare

Why is anyone forced to reverse engineer the pricing scheme? Simply decide if the ticket is worth the money to you. You typically have other airlines to compare to, other fares on the same airline for different itineraries, and other modes of transit entirely. Just because some people won’t buy anything that isn’t on a coupon doesn’t mean coupons are bad.

alaxhn 1y ago
> Why is anyone forced to reverse engineer the pricing scheme? Because you can save money by getting a cheaper flight by understanding how pricing works and adapting your purchasing strategy. Many consumer are willing to spend time and effort getting a better deal.
- twoodfin 1y ago
  Again, not seeing the “forcing” in that choice of time and effort.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    The thing you're being forced to do is to choose between paying the higher price without screwing around and screwing around in order to pay the lower price, because the option to pay the lower price without screwing around was taken away. This can be true even if the lower price is nominally a discount. Before everybody would pay $100. Now you can pay $80 by screwing around but have to pay $150 otherwise, and the screwing around is $40 worth of inconvenience. $40 is less than the $70 difference between $80 and $150, but $80 plus a $40 inconvenience is a higher cost than the original $100 uniform price, and obviously so is $150.
threeseed 1y ago
Because lack of transparency in pricing affects competition. Which is bad for consumers and the broader economy.
wapeoifjaweofji 1y ago
Many basic financial assumptions regarding the free market are premised on the fact that you can figure out the lowest price a vendor is willing to charge for a good and compare that with how much you're willing to pay for it. Obfuscating this is bad for consumers.
- account42 1y ago
  The whole point of the free market is that you don't have to figure out what it actually costs to provide a good/service in order to determine a fair price because if a price isn't fair then someone else an provide the same good/service for cheaper and win all the customers. In practice of course there is no such thing as a free market but a buyer being able to figure the lowest price a vendor will accept was never part of it.

alaxhn 1y ago

> Why is anyone forced to reverse engineer the pricing scheme? Because you can save money by getting a cheaper flight by understanding how pricing works and adapting your purchasing strategy. Many consumer are willing to spend time and effort getting a better deal.

twoodfin 1y ago
Again, not seeing the “forcing” in that choice of time and effort.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  The thing you're being forced to do is to choose between paying the higher price without screwing around and screwing around in order to pay the lower price, because the option to pay the lower price without screwing around was taken away. This can be true even if the lower price is nominally a discount. Before everybody would pay $100. Now you can pay $80 by screwing around but have to pay $150 otherwise, and the screwing around is $40 worth of inconvenience. $40 is less than the $70 difference between $80 and $150, but $80 plus a $40 inconvenience is a higher cost than the original $100 uniform price, and obviously so is $150.

threeseed 1y ago

Because lack of transparency in pricing affects competition. Which is bad for consumers and the broader economy.

wapeoifjaweofji 1y ago

Many basic financial assumptions regarding the free market are premised on the fact that you can figure out the lowest price a vendor is willing to charge for a good and compare that with how much you're willing to pay for it. Obfuscating this is bad for consumers.

account42 1y ago
The whole point of the free market is that you don't have to figure out what it actually costs to provide a good/service in order to determine a fair price because if a price isn't fair then someone else an provide the same good/service for cheaper and win all the customers. In practice of course there is no such thing as a free market but a buyer being able to figure the lowest price a vendor will accept was never part of it.