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Yesterday, the site Seeking Alpha posted this tip for getting the best price for airfares:

What’s the absolute best time to purchase a ticket directly from the airlines? Turns out it’s Wednesday from midnight to 1a.m. in the time zone of the airline’s “home base.”[…] Why? That’s when the computer systems of most airlines get rid of the reserved but unbooked lower fare reservations.

Several blogs — at least 36 of them as of this writing — picked up on this tip. The problem is it’s completely wrong. It’s pure, unadulterated bunk, a long-running myth of the airline industry.

I consulted with the good folks at FareCompare.com, who reaffirmed my view. The Wednesday midnight rule is a myth. Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com sets the record straight:

- Held reservations don’t all expire Wednesdays.

“Held inventory is released every day at midnight so Wednesday is nothing special. Agencies who use Sabre, Worldspan, Galileo and/or Amadeus [the major GDS’s — the global computer networks used for booking tickets] can hold DOMESTIC inventory (sold status SS) without ticketing up to 24 hours during the day, and the carriers at their choosing come in the evening at Midnight and release un-ticketed inventory. The hold for international inventory is normally longer than 24 hours but is at the discretion of the airlines. Some airline websites have a hold feature, but it acts the same way as an agency: the inventory is lost at midnight if not ticketed, and the itinerary is repriced at the current inventory for that flight at time of purchase. For the most part all airline sites use the same policy.”

- Most fares that are put on hold aren’t that cheap to begin with.

“It’s not the low fare inventory that opens up at midnight. Low fare inventory is almost always ticketed immediately. Un-ticketed inventory is normally high priced business inventory held by a corporate agency for business travelers who are on the fence about going, or by government workers who have a special ‘hold until travel’ feature for negotiated routes.”

- Midnight isn’t necessarily the best time for new fares, anyway.

“New fares (lower or higher) are distributed at 10:00am, 12:30pm, and 8pm EST and loaded about 2-6 hours later in the GDS and airline sites. Seat inventory is controlled by automated revenue management systems, which continuously monitor current sales and consult historical models to decide on whether to release the lowest price seat inventory. The 8pm domestic ATPCO [Airline Tariff Publishing Company – the clearinghouse (owned by the airlines) for raw air fare/rule distribution] fare feed (5pm weekends) is loaded into the GDS and airline sites between 12:15am and 1:30am, which has the changed fares. But there is no correlation to getting a good deal, just because some inventory might be freed up at midnight. It is just as likely to free up at 2pm when the yield management system decides sales are soft in a particular inventory price bucket for a particular flight.”

- SHOCKER: Some agencies will try to get a better price than the fare they sold you. You just may not find out.

“Large volume non-online agencies do have a practice of ticketing later at night and trying to re-price all un-ticketed items to see if any fares or inventory have changed on a particular flight (sometimes they pocket the difference, sometimes the customer gets the benefit).”

- This is not news.

“There is nothing special about this process. It has been this way for years.”

There you have it. Myth busted. It’s Wednesday night as I type, and though midnight is approaching, I’m not banking on any airfare deals tonight. Neither should you.

Big thanks to Rick Seaney for the insights.

UPDATE: SmarterTravel.com took on the same question today, and they suggest that Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (especially Tuesday) are more likely to have lower fares. I don’t buy it. The explanation is purely anecdotal; I’ll go with the boys at FareCompare who track airfares obsessively, who say the low fares can come on any day.

Related:
- Flexible-date search alternatives for international destinations
- Where to find cheap last-minute or emergency tickets

Update:
The usairways.com discount below expired at the end of 2006. So the list of promotional codes for American Airlines and other carriers, linked below, is down. However, there IS a 5% discount codes for US Airways Vacations, as well as a discount for American Airlines, in the 2008 edition of the Entertainment book, which may be a worthwhile investment.

The original post lives on below for posterity.

——————————————————-
If flying US Airways, and booking on usairways.com, try entering the promotional code RR506FS to receive a 10% discount on purchased first class tickets, or promotional code RR506CU for 5% off economy class tickets. On the flight booking page, enter these codes in the “e-certificate” box located below the “return date” field.

Travel by November 15. Up to 4 passengers can receive the discount on the same itinerary. No codeshares. It doesn’t appear to have any advance purchase or geographic restrictions — you can seemingly use it for any destination on US Airways. I also don’t see any reason why the codes can’t be used again and again, so have at it.

Main offer page here; full terms/conditions, and (important!) blackout dates here.

A mileage sale of sorts: Cash in only 50,000 of your American Airlines miles, instead of 75,000, for a flight from the U.S. to Fiji. Travel is on Air Pacific, Fiji’s national airline. (I flew them several years ago between Fiji and Tonga, and the service was just fine.) It’s no $51 roundtrip fare to Fiji, as was available on Travelocity last year, and it’s economy class travel, but it’s a good deal. All travel needs to be completed by December 14, 2006.

To get the lower mileage rate, call American at 1-800-882-8880 and request the Air Pacific reduced mileage award to Fiji.

(via MilesLink; image)
tags: travel | American Airlines | frequent flyer miles | Fiji

Last week, British Airways, American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and United Airlines were named as subjects of an investigation into price-fixing, accused of artificially inflating ticket prices across the Atlantic by moving up fuel surcharges in tandem. The fact that fuel costs have risen is no surprise — the accusation rests on the means by which the airlines came to share common pricing, not the reasons behind the increase per se.

Adding some spice to the story, Virgin was the whistleblower, according to Reuters, trying to bring down BA. (All the while participating in the collusion. Nice work.)

But now, they’ve all also been named in a lawsuit that hopes to gain class-action status. The plaintiffs, building on the existing investigation, accuse the airlines of bilking the public. (My question: These four airlines all fly to London-Heathrow. Why isn’t Continental, who flies to Gatwick, included? Their prices aren’t any lower.)

It looks bad for British Airways, and they’re throwing some of their executives overboard. But common pricing doesn’t always necessarily mean illegal behavior. Airlines load thousands of fares (and surcharges) into the global computer networks every day. Seeing changes, whether up or down, other airlines respond. It might be collusion if secret meetings took place, during which airline executives conspired to raise the price of tickets. (This is what Virgin suggests happened — a BA executive allegedly contacted Virgin about the fuel charges.)

Perhaps in response to these accusations and the negative publicity, there are actually some deals on BA and Virgin from the US to the UK. Virgin’s economy class sale is worth checking out, and British Airways has an interesting luxury package offer for those interested in flying business class.

The business class deal — ~$6000 for TWO roundtrip business class tickets and a three night stay in top London accomodations (the Sanderson, the Berkeley, Claridge’s, or the Savoy) — is good value for business class tickets, and it’s a shot across the bow of all-biz class carriers Maxjet and Eos. (BA offer via Fodor’s)

(image)

I realize I’m late to the game here, but I just found out about this minutes ago: If you book a flight on all-business class Eos Airlines by midnight tonight, you get another ticket for free. Payment must be made with American Express, and you earn 4x Membership Rewards points. ANY fare level is eligible, but you have to CALL Eos **tonight**. It’s a Father’s Day promo, and you need to request it. Sorry for the short notice. (Edit: FARE GONE.)

Eos not your speed? Prefer the less swanky but still comfy Maxjet all-business class flights instead? We got a deal for you, too…

New York JFK or Washington Dulles to London Stansted:
$1199/£699*roundtrip, including all taxes and fees

Book between: June 12,2006 and July 14,2006
Travel between: September 15, 2006 and November 10, 2006

Book on maxjet.com and use Promo Code: FALL06

Hey, it’s not the $499 roundtrip business class fare from early May, and it’s too bad the $1199 fare isn’t good for summer, but it’s still a great fare for business class.

tags: travel | air travel | business class | Eos Airlines | Maxjet

Washington to London for $499 roundtrip in business class??! It’s true. If you can leave Washington-Dulles on May 6, and return from London-Stansted May 7, 8, or 10, all-business class Maxjet will take you. Apparently valid on these dates only. I just checked, and seats ARE available. Go to the Maxjet homepage, and be sure to enter the promotional code “MADMAX” before clicking “next.” But hurry, these fares are likely to sell out faster than you can say “Independence Air.”

via FT

A few small Friday afternoon items (RJ-sized, perhaps?):

- Spirit Airlines $8 each way (pretax) fire sale fare sale ends tonight. Dates and availablity are obviously limited, but it’s darn cheap. The booby prize, if the $8 fare is sold out, is a $44 fare. (via smartertravel.com)

- A DeLand, Florida teacher was suspended for offering his students extra credit for collecting AirTran coupons from Wendy’s beverage cups. (32 cups equaled a free ticket under the promotion.) On the plus side, very few Wendy’s cups were littering America’s streets, and one school’s kids got a valuable less in frequent flyer miles… (via Today in the Sky)

- What better way to spend $37,200 than on a SINGLE NIGHT at Cannes’ Hotel Martinez penthouse suite, the most expensive hotel room in the world?

(image)
tags: travel

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) revisits the issue of fare errors, most recently discussed here a few weeks ago.

While the article asks the important question — when are such fares honored, and when are they canceled? — it still offers no conclusive answers. As I’ve argued before: in the world of travel, you sometimes just don’t know, simply by looking at the price, if a rate is an error or a promotion.

The airlines (American and Delta are singled out) reportedly are trying to build escape clauses into their contracts of carriage and fare rules, in case of an “unreasonable” fare, but even then, what really is an unreasonable fare when Ryanair sells tickets for just the tax?

Once a purchase is confirmed, with ticket numbers, confirmation numbers, and a charge to your credit card, you should be pretty safe. My advice: Book first, always pay with a credit card (for the purchase protection benefits), and wait to ask questions later.

tags: travel | air travel | fare errors

Wednesday’s $39 Alitalia business class fare from Toronto to Cyprus caused quite a buzz, but only a lucky few were able to grab it. Fewer still will see the ticket honored.

Instead of $39, the fare should have been $3900. Oops.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription) that 509 tickets will be honored, most purchased through Orbitz. Judging from the discussions here, many more people tried and failed to get the tickets. Only those customers who received confirmation of the purchase from both Orbitz and Alitalia will get to fly at that price. (Whether or not they’ll earn miles, that’s another story…)

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Travelocity and Air Pacific honored $50 tickets to Fiji, USAirways honored $2+tax cross country fares, and United honored its $20 fares from San Francisco to Paris. But not every booking agency or provider is as customer-friendly. The hotels, in particular, seem to renege on these offers more often than the airlines. Sure, some of these rates should never have been posted, but with Ryanair and Easyjet regularly selling seats for zero base fare plus taxes, or Spirit’s recent advertised $9 fares to the Caribbean, why shouldn’t the public assume some of these prices are legit?

Unfortunately, you just never know if the deal will be honored or not, but the corporate response will usually be swift. My advice is to book quickly, and ask questions later. Don’t call and ask for seat assignments or request a nonsmoking room, for example, until the dust has settled. Finally, don’t book non-refundable parts of the trip until you know the offer is being honored.

The hardest part is often finding out about the deal before it’s taken offline.

Enter the internet: Two websites in particular share a mission to alert travelers to these ludicrously low deals. Fare Alert sends e-mail alerts when someone reports a crazy-low fare sale to them. The tradeoff of an e-mail list is that the airlines themselves subscribe, so the mailing list tips off the providers that there is an error in their system. If you receive a FareAlert, act fast.

Free Traveling offers much of the same thing, without the e-mail list, but with added attention to best-rate guarantees. So, for example, if TripRewards.com (the umbrella site for Cendant hotels) has hotel rooms at $75, and Travelocity has the same room for less, then you can book on TripRewards and invoke the best rate guarantee, making your room FREE. This is Free Traveling’s strength, but it’s often for limited dates and obscure locations. But hey, you might get lucky.

tags: travel | air travel | free travel | Alitalia Cyprus

Alitalia is offering a ludicrously low fare for North American travelers looking for a Mediterranean getaway.

If you’re not located in Toronto, you may want to hold off on buying your ticket TO Toronto, to wait and see if the longhaul tickets are honored, and wait to book a hotel. But jump on this.

Travel looks to be valid on any day/time where seats are available between now and the end of the year. […] If this fare does not show up immediately, you may need to expland your search results to include business class flights as well.

Fare is available on Orbitz, and potentially other booking engines as well. Click HERE to run a multi-site search on Kayak.com, or click HERE to search on Orbitz, which offers its Low Fare Guarantee.

Use the airport codes YYZ for Toronto and LCA for Larnaca, Cyprus. And HURRY.

Cyprus is a fascinating destination, with ancient ruins from several cultures, beaches, and great food. I visited in 1995, and it was fantastic. Big thumbs up.

Go.

UPDATE at 4:15pm CDT: Fare looks to be gone. Things move quickly…

Via FareAlert.
tags: travel | air travel

Air France joins its American counterparts in lowering summer business class fares to Europe. (Link may require you to scroll down to “65% off business class” link.) The prices are approximately 80-100% higher than the corresponding economy class fare, which is not as much of a discount as usual, but still a substantial discount to the usual business class fare.

Worth looking into nonetheless, especially if you can be assured of a new flat bed seat.

tags: travel | air travel | Air France | business class

Flying from New York to London? MaxJet is selling their all-business class flights for less than competitors’ coach fares: $750 *including* all taxes. As I’ve posted before, it’s not a state of the art business class experience, it’s flying to Stansted instead of Heathrow or Gatwick, and you’re not earning miles toward status or those tickets to Tahiti. But it’s still a really good deal.

Departure or return has to be on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, though. Book by March 27, fly by December 31. Use Promo Code JFK06. Details here.

Via Airfarewatchdog.