VA prices??

[alibeau]

Hi guys!

I am monitoring UC prices for Feb 2009. We can't book anything yet as we are in the process of moving house and need to see how we get on cash flow wise. Also I made the decision that I wanted to talk to our daughter's school when she starts in Sept before booking anything.....

Anyhoo, the prices seem to be up and down like, erm, an up and down thing

For the dates we think we want the price has been the same give or take £30 but the dates around 'our dates' the prices are changing all the time, upwards and downwards?? I can understand the prices creeping up as seats are sold as there are only 12 seats in UC from Manchester but why would they go up and back down again??? and is this a 'normal' thing with Virgin??

Just baffled really.

Ali

 

[darthtatty]

Virgin keep doing deals, a lot of people book in May so they do a lot of offers then (for holidays theyve just decided to do a 10% discount this weekend)
we booked a few weeks ago so it is a bit grrrrrr as if we'd waited we could of saved a bit more.
the best thing you can do is just go for it! if its a price youre happy paying then book. if it goes up/down who cares youve got what youve wanted

 

[traceycooper]

just looked a the 10% discount - the fuel supplement for 2 adults & 1 teen - over £500!!!!!!! - not a chance of booking with that!!

 

[Easygoingeezer]

There are 3 types of paid Upper tickets.

J: Fully flexible and very pricey ( includeslimo )

D:flexible with a fee but not as flexible as J ( inc Limo )

Z: Use it or loose it, no limo but very good prices compared to the above and also on a par with the top prices in PE.

The prices will go up and down for various reasons, one being you are searching for the lowest available fare, it will bring up what is available
at the time of your search a J, D or Z you are given 10 mins or so to decide if you want it, therefore someone doing the same search a second or two later won't see the price you see as available.

Sometimes flight revenue management teams will re-code seat classes so where there were originally four J seats free they might think if they make two of them Z fares instead that they will sell quicker rather than risk empty suites. If on the other hand it looks like there is high demand they might do it the other way around and make them Js.

Basically if you see a "Z" on the availability buy it.

 

[Hilary]

If on the other hand it looks like there is high demand they might do it the other way around and make them Js.

How do they gauage demand? Is it purely on seats sold during a set period of time? I have often wondered whether there is any kind of search tally kept (a bit like ebay viewing numbers) and whether this affects pricing - i.e. if I search the same seats enough times will it trigger a price increase? Hope not LOL!

 

[alibeau]

Hmmmm, hope you are wrong Hilary as I am checking the prices pretty much daily although I am not even in a position to book yet

Thanks for all your replies, very informative Roll on September when we can actually make a decision about getting this holiday booked

Thanks again,

Ali

 

[CustardTart]

How do they gauage demand? Is it purely on seats sold during a set period of time? I have often wondered whether there is any kind of search tally kept (a bit like ebay viewing numbers) and whether this affects pricing - i.e. if I search the same seats enough times will it trigger a price increase? Hope not LOL!

I have also wondered that when I've been monitoring flights in the past...

 

[RachaelC]

I don't know how they would keep a tally of searches as there's so many different places that you can buy the flights from. Also, the pricing is a manual process so I would think it's very unlikely that they look at the number of times a fare/route is looked at.

It's much more likely that they look at rate of sale and compare it to expectations in lots of different ways - same point in time last year, what competitors are charging for the same class and route, what capacity there is on that route in the marketplace (have new airlines started on the route/stopped the route - both likely to affect demand) etc. I think it's quite a complicated procedure!

 

[CustardTart]

It's probably just paranoia on my part!