#2 Air fares going up CRAZY?!?!?
This is so darn crazy it deserves its own separate post.
In my last post I mentioned that the Delta business class fares for the half dozen flights I had been tracking for our J&E tour next March had increased almost $2000 from $2700 to a bit over $4500 p/p. I don't know if this is a result of a temporary glitch in a mid-week update that will resolve by tomorrow, but you ain't seen nothing yet! I just checked and now the fares are $8000 p/p for the same destinations!!!
What is also curious and makes me think it must be a computer/database issue, is previously, the first leg of all Delta's return flights (there were many) went from Cairo to Paris (on Air France). Now there are only 4 return flights shown, none go to Paris- they go from Cairo to Rome where there is an almost 7 hr layover an on Alitalia! If it is a glitch and resolves tomorrow, I'll delete this post. It could be that Air France data is missing from the database. But still, $8000!?!?!?!
The screen captures below are of both the outbound and inbound journey (outbound is shown to Athens since Delta is not flying to Jordan yet), but the price shown on each page is for a r/t.
Comments
Alan - the airlines have algorithms to adjust prices based on search activity. If there are a lot of hits on a particular route, the price may go up.
Also, there could be some nefarious cookies being saved on your computer from these searches that are personalizing the prices for you. Giver it 24 hours, without any additional searches, clear your Delta cookies (or try a different browser) and see what results.
Yes, we realized years ago that if you keep looking, the prices go up. Suggest looking on a different email address for researching
This isn't a result of tracking or targeted pricing (my computer is configured to prevent that). In less than two weeks business class prices doubled and then nearly doubled again. Also, uncharacteristically the difference between changeable/non-refundable and fully refundable business class tickets is only $200, usually it is much, much more! I will admit I haven't run any other similar international routes.
But, something is going on. Most likely it is a glitch in Delta's data or pricing model which hasn't been fixed in nearly 18 hours. If I felt like waiting for hours to talk to an agent, I'd call.
I thought maybe Air France operations have or will be curtailed, maybe they have dropped Egypt or the Middle East (they stopped flying to Jordan last year), or something else. So, I just checked the Air France website- while there were fewer options, most of the same Delta + Air France flights routes I have been tracking were available and, while not at the lowest, at decent prices. I'm still looking at flying Turkish Airlines however. Maybe Delta will fix their website in the next day or two before I book (at the start of the 330 day booking window.
How do you do that?
There are a number of ways- first, until I'm ready to purchase tickets, I do not log into the airline website and I disable cookies, but there are other ways. The main one is to use a VPN or proxy server, use a Tor Browser, also have a router with dynamic IP, use your browser's Private Browsing mode. All do various things, have various levels of security and ease of use.
FYI, AF business class fares are still almost half of the current Delta fares
AlanS - I believe it’s a glitch in the system related to when various airlines in the network update their fares. In a day or two I believe it will return to expected behavior.