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Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups
- Aurornis 1y agoI never would have understood this as a young, single person. Now that I have a family there are several times per year where we price out the cost of a solo ticket for one parent, the price of taking one or two kids, or the cost of all of us going for something. Having a quantity discount would absolutely tip the scales for us for certain trips. People will look at this as penalizing single travelers and want everyone to have the lowest fare, but that’s not the real alternative. A flat fare would bring solo prices down and group rates up so the blended average is the same.
- popalchemist 1y agoIf it were the same, there would be no motive to do it. One way or another, this increases profit for them.
- n8cpdx 1y agoTraveling solo is already brutal because hotels and Airbnbs are priced on the assumption of two travelers. Traveling solo essentially costs double automatically because of lodging, and it kind of sucks there’s a double whammy with airfare where, unlike lodging, the penalty doesn’t actually make any sense. I guess as a family be grateful that all hotel rooms come with a 50% (or more) discount per traveler?
- growlNark 1y agoHostels are wonderful for single traveling, though. And that's in spite of the fact that hostels also have bulk discounts.
- hellisothers 1y agoHow are 2 travelers priced in? If I rent a 4 passenger car are 4 people priced in?
- 1776smithadam 1y agoWould a van cost more to rent then a sedan?
- chrisweekly 1y agoyes (car rental prices are mostly a function of size)
- aaomidi 1y agoBut in reality, rarely. The pricing is mostly a function of luxury AND space. I’ve regularly seen larger cars with more capacity equal to medium sedans.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tshaddox 1y agoOnly when you're comparing the cheapest vehicles of each size, where the cost of the vehicle and maintenance is probably roughly in line with vehicle size. There are plenty of luxury and sports cars widely available for rent that will cost more than a minivan.
- dowager_dan99 1y agodifferent scenario; more appropriate would be the same car with zero or 1,2, or more passengers.
- AlotOfReading 1y agoSome countries (e.g. Japan) charge per person in non-Western hotels. Even then, you may get different prices for a solo traveler because the lower overall price means they need to increase the per person rate to make enough margin with their fixed costs.
- frank_nitti 1y agoThey do this in Mexico as well. Always just seems like an honor system thing unless they are checking people at the door to the hotel and/or room each time they enter, which only seems realistic in very small hotels who have no e.g. restaurant open to the public. Otherwise can’t one just rent the room as a solo guest, and just have someone come through later, as long as there isn’t an obvious group activity going on inside the room?
- carlosjobim 1y agoAre you going to bring your own sheets and breakfast as well?
- sgerenser 1y agoI don’t know about yours, but my spouse is OK with sharing sheets with me.
- carlosjobim 1y agoDepends on region. In many places a hotel room for two guests has two beds that are either separate or together. So make sure you book a king size bed, and also buy one of those fake moustache-and-glasses for your wife so nobody suspects anything at breakfast. Or she can wait in the room and you'll sneak some scrambled eggs and bacon from the buffet in your coat pockets for her.
- account42 1y agoOr they could just go eat real food instead of the bargain bin garbage served as free breakfast in most hotels.
- ghaff 1y agoI see people complaining a lot about single traveler (with their own room) surcharges on both group and self-guided trips. But, you're right, while per-person-double-occupancy rates make it explicit, it's pretty much the norm at most hotels whether stated as such or not.
- sidewndr46 1y agoI don't really find this relevant in the US because airline pricing is already the ultimate brutal form of pricing. Not only are they allowed to bill you whatever they want, they are never under any actual obligation to put you on the plane.
- hiAndrewQuinn 1y agoThis seems surprising to me. I was under the impression that airlines are pretty low profit margin industries, pulling in only around 3-4% in a decent year, and that of that the airline tickets themselves are the lowest margin items percentage wise, with other things like baggage fees being much more load bearing.
- AlotOfReading 1y agoDepending on which party you're talking about (airport, airline, etc), a no-bag economy ticket is often below cost, which is made up in volume and extras.
- sidewndr46 1y agoThis is correct, the single passenger 'economy' ticket is usually a loss leader. You can make the argument that airlines are companies that sell in flight beverages and also happen to fly a passenger airplane. The actual profit comes from an unusual sources, like deals with credit card issues for a "rewards" program that gives you frequent flyer miles
- dlisboa 1y agoYou are correct. As much as we like to bash airlines and their decisions, and liking low fares and quality service myself, it's objectively one of the worst businesses imaginable. Extremely high risk, low margin. Every year about a dozen airlines go bankrupt, get merged or bailed out. A small increase in the price of oil is a major risk for most of them. Most of the more profitable markets have high competition not only by other airlines but also other forms of transportation. Very few airlines are swimming in cash and even those are only a couple bad years away from bankrupcy.
- al_borland 1y agoCruises are especially bad for this. I’ve never gone, but I’ve looked at but after I had 3 independent people tell me to take one in the span of a few months. Most are priced assuming 2 people in the room and if you’re solo it seems like they expect you to buy 2 spots. I’ve seen a couple where they have a few solo cabins, but the amount of effort to surface this stuff turns me off to the whole thing. The only reason I’m still half looking is that it seems like the easiest way for a random person to set foot on Antarctica, which would be a cool thing to check off the bucket list.
- duped 1y agoEase is relative especially considering cost, but that's the kind of thing that having a good travel agent is good for (eg: finding someone with knowledge of where to stay in Chile and who to hire for a charter flight or boat trip). Economies of scale kinda kick in though so a cruise is probably the least expensive.
- ghaff 1y ago>if you’re solo it seems like they expect you to buy 2 spots Cruises are probably more complicated because they price things other than your cabin into the "experience." (Though I think the Queen Mary 2 a few years back was slightly less than 2x for just me.) But the random Marriott doesn't really care if there is one of you or two when it comes to pricing.
- MichaelZuo 1y agoWhy wouldn’t they care? I imagine 2 people use roughly twice the bedding, towels, toiletries, etc., on average.
- ghaff 1y agoWell, they mostly don't. They're often using the same bedding. Most toiletries are squirt containers these days. I don't think toilet paper is that expensive. And another towel or two to wash is probably not a big deal. And to the degree the hotel has a restaurant or bar they probably come out ahead. Your hotel may take a different approach but it's near universal (perhaps outside of resorts) that hotels charge the same for 1 or 2 guests.
- reliabilityguy 1y agoYou can make the same argument about food too: buying chicken at Costco is way cheaper per pound than in Whole Foods or Aldi. Are they also penalizing single people? No: buy more, pay less per unit.
- Mistletoe 1y agoYou can’t freeze a hotel room.
- tshaddox 1y agoThe hotel also cannot easily split and recombine rooms and beds on demand. They have to decide upfront how many single-person and two-person rooms to build, based on what they perceive the market desires.
- mrmanner 1y agohttps://www.icehotel.com/ https://www.icehotel.com/ :D
- reliabilityguy 1y agoHotel rooms can’t get spoiled. You can always stay in Motel 6 for $20/night.
- account42 1y agoIn my experience they often already come pre-frozen and room service will helpfully re-freeze them if you set a more reasonable temperature.
- authorfly 1y agoWhat packs do you buy where it is much more cheaper? Frozen > 5kg or so?
- patcon 1y ago(Saying all this with respect for those who value privacy more than me ) Hostels are for this market, no? Share physical infra (bathroom/heating/walls) with other humans (aka strangers) and you get the same family discount. You're not obligated to pay the premium unless you want your own bathroom and own personal space like families tend to want As in: families don't get a discount, they just amortise the cost of privacy that you also seem to specifically need/want. but many solo travellers don't care to pay for that.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- kaikai 1y agoThere’s a very big difference between sharing sleeping space with multiple complete strangers and sharing space with family.
- growlNark 1y agoHostels often offer private rooms, to varying degree of privacy. But i've certainly stayed at hostels that offer very comfortable single private rooms with private bathrooms for a third the cost of a local hotel room. Expensive for a hostel, but great value for the privacy. But if you're traveling with your family, just get hotel rooms. Hostels only came up in the first place in response to a gripe about solo travel.
- chgs 1y agoThe point is you are paying for one bed, one living area, one bathroom, whether you are a single traveller or as a couple. I’m in a hotel room at the moment with a bed and a sofa, can host 4 people or me, it’s the same size. At breakfast I usually sit on a table which can seat 4, but certainly one that can seat 2. I use almost all the resources a couple do, and spend less at the bar in the evening, so I’d expect to pay the same or even more.
- n8cpdx 1y agoI’ve done hostel and like that option when there is a private room. I often/always travel with electronics and things that I want to feel comfortable leaving behind, and I don’t like leaving my laptop and game consoles unattended in communal spaces.
- tshaddox 1y agoIt's probably also worth noting that the majority of these hotels and Airbnbs are also designed to accommodate two or more travelers. Thus the complaint isn't really "single-person rooms are priced that same as two-person rooms," but rather "single-person rooms don't exist, which means I have to pay for more space than I need." In this sense it's not really any different than any other product that you wish was sold in smaller quantities.
- ghaff 1y agoIt's probably a bit of a mixed bag. Beds are reasonable for two people (Usually a queen/king or a couple queens). But there may be only one sitting chair. Two people can manage but hotels split the difference a lot of the time.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y agoThe difference in costs between accommodating one person and two people is pretty minimal. Even things like breakfasts are prepared in bulk. Most single people own and sleep in double beds, so there's no sense in which a double bed is "designed to accomodate" two travellers. The issue is more that discounted single room rates would encourage unofficial double stays, which would lose significant income.
- tshaddox 1y agoI doubt the difference is minimal. Forget the size of beds, the point is that a hotel with 200 single-person rooms has twice the beds, twice the bathrooms, roughly twice the walls, etc. than a hotel with 100 two-person rooms.
- chgs 1y agoA hotel hosting 100 single people will be roughly the same size and operating costs as a hotel hosting 100 couples, even if the rooms had a 3’ bed rather than a 6’ bed And thus could be 3’ smaller
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- soperj 1y agoWhy wouldn't you just stay in a hostel? or rent a room on airbnb?
- garciasn 1y agoFor two reasons: 1. I don't want to stay in a hostel. See below for more on this; but, hostels, at least the ones I have researched, have bunk rooms and shared facilities. Hard pass for me. 2. I don't like sharing a bedroom and, especially, a bathroom in someone's home when they may be there. There's simply a different level of security (potentially false, I understand) in a hotel vs a rented room in a house.
- tshaddox 1y agoFamilies who travel together also share rooms and facilities, so if that's a hard pass for you then you wouldn't be happy with the "discount" of traveling as part of a family either.
- garciasn 1y agoI appreciate the pedantry; but, there’s a significant difference between several random someone(s) having travelers diarrhea in a shared bathroom and my family.
- jeremyjh 1y agoThe point is multiple people sharing facilities get discounts. It’s nothing more sinister than that. The hotel charges per room, and rooms include facilities. The costs for the hotel don’t depend on how many people are staying in that room.
- tshaddox 1y agoRight, but my point is that you're now no longer complaining about the concept of offering discounts for room-sharing. Now you're complaining that there's no one you would be comfortable sharing a room with.
- andix 1y ago> Traveling solo is already brutal because hotels and Airbnbs are priced on the assumption of two travelers The cost for the hotel and Airbnb doesn't really change a lot, if there is more than one person staying in the room. More or less another set of towels and a bit more soap. Even providing rooms with single beds only brings down the costs marginally.
- anigbrowl 1y agoLooks like the deal is to find someone else who wants to go the same way and then buy the tickets together. I'm pitching the movie to the Hallmark channel right now.
- the_third_wave 1y agoWhen travelling on your own just go to hostels instead of hotels and you-ll both pay much less (prices normally are per person, not per room) and you'll meet more people who are open to interacting with other solo travellers.
- mmustapic 1y ago> Traveling solo essentially costs double automatically because of lodging Travelling with somebody else brings costs down. Hotel rooms have the same surface for single and double occupancy (in fact they are usually the same rooms!). Even if you remove the surface of one single bed, the room stays almost the same. So, it’s much cheaper for 2.
- bdangubic 1y agoprovided you have someone to go with :)
- pwim 1y agoIn Japan, you pay by the person when it comes to hotels. Some will give you a slight discount for the second person. Others won’t.
- 33MHz-i486 1y agokids dont make any income. a weekend trip for 4 in the same timezone costs us $3k to 5k. a cross country trip is 10-20k. DINK > Solo >> anything else
- alexey-salmin 1y ago> I guess as a family be grateful that all hotel rooms come with a 50% (or more) discount per traveler? This is not always the case. A two-bedroom hotel suite on average costs more than two standard rooms. This happens because the vast majority of rooms are twin/double and cheap hotels often don't offer suites at all. At a given location two travellers would be chosing from e.g 100 options and at least some of these would be budget/discount offerings. In the same location a family of four would have to chose from 10 options and likely none of them are budget/discount. Now consider that you HAVE to travel during the school holidays so competition for these damn 10 options increases and the price for both hotels and tickets easily goes up 2-3x. There are some situations where a family of four would get a better price per person but most of the time it's the other way round.
- account42 1y agoThat doesn't make sense - the family in your example has 110 options whereas the single traveler only has 100.
- Aurornis 1y agoYou could look at it that way, but in practice I don’t actually divide travel costs by the number of people who go. It comes out of the family budget either way.
- account42 1y agoAirplane travel doesn't mean you actually need to pay for accommodations - visiting friends and family is also a thing.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Matheus28 1y agoSounds like you’re only fine with it because you personally benefit from it.
- atonse 1y agoOr it could just be a certain way of framing things? But for the benefit of this debate I'll state my bias. Almost all my travel is as a group. But in most other facets of life, we save by buying more, right? (buying wholesale, buying bulk, etc). So I've actually had the other feeling... if I'm buying 4 tickets at once, can I get a bit of a volume discount? And I'm not sure that's what the airlines are doing here (I don't ascribe any altruism, it's probably more that families were getting cold feet with increasing prices), but I like that I get some kind of cheaper rate when I'm buying 4x of something, just like in just about every other purchase in life.
- SecretDreams 1y agoEverything hinges on filling the airplane as often as they can. A blend of solo and group travel is probably easier to fill planes. Looking at prices alone is only part of the picture, imo. Group travelers are also more likely to pay for at least 1-2 bags, which brings in some extra $$.
- dlisboa 1y agoGroup travelers also buy assigned seats more often.
- DSMan195276 1y agoTo add on to this, the issue in the article is really more about one-way tickets than single passenger, if you buy a round-trip ticket for that flight the difference in price goes away. In fact, a single passenger round-trip ticket that includes the flight in the article is cheaper than buying the one-way ticket on its own (as in, both tickets _together_ are less than the one-way, it's cheaper to buy the round-trip and skip the return flight). Google suggests that one-way tickets get uniquely screwed because they're often used for business-related travel, but I don't really see anything definitive. You can also get screwed in the other direction where groups are more expensive - airlines will sometimes bump every ticket in a group to a higher fare level even if they still list one or two tickets at a cheaper price for smaller groups.
- darth_avocado 1y agoWe as a society already penalize people without families: 1. Higher taxes and fewer deductions 2. Higher workplace performance expectations 3. Higher costs in every aspect of life 4. Fewer options eat out, expensive solo tickets at events etc. This is just one more example in a long list of examples of how being by yourself is penalized in the society.
- nemomarx 1y agohow are there less options for people without families to eat out? I'm not following that part
- darth_avocado 1y agoYou can’t eat out alone everywhere
- chrisweekly 1y ago"Table for one" is nearly always accommodated. Bringing a family of 4 or 5 out, and you're much more likely to be denied, or to suffer a long wait.
- ghaff 1y agoAnd, in fact, if there's a bar where they serve food that makes it even easier.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ghaff 1y agoI mean, you almost always can? During COVID, there was a certain degree of reservations required--min 2 people. But it's pretty darned rare. And I say this as someone who has eaten out solo many hundreds of times. (And tend to eat at fairly decent restaurants.)
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- silisili 1y agoThat sounds a lot like a subsidy, which I'm generally not a big fan of. Sure you and I benefit from it, but it doesn't seem fair to a solo traveler. That said, I have to imagine the reasoning behind it having to do with assuming some large percentage of solo travelers are on work expense trips, so squeezing the company for a few more dimes. The article assumes as much - > It's just another way for airlines to continue “segmenting” their customers, charging business travelers paying with a corporate card more while offering a better deal to families on the exact same flight. A lot of companies I've worked for don't even do corporate cards, they just tell you to pay for it and submit for reimbursement. All of that rabble out of the way, it feels like it would be impossible to identify business vs leisure customers up front, so it sounds like solo leisure travelers are caught in the crossfire.
- blharr 1y ago> People will look at this as penalizing single travelers > A flat fare would bring solo prices down and group rates up so the blended average is the same So... it is penalizing solo travelers?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- BoorishBears 1y agoThis makes no sense. A solo traveler can decide to take a trip because they saw a good fare very trivially: you're not going on a trip with 2 days notice just because a fare "tipped the scale" when you need 10x the planning and logistics, and the airlines know that. They're not doing it to entice families to travel, they just know solo travel is associated with higher incomes and want to extract more money.
- carlosjobim 1y ago> blended average ...is of course great when you personally are on the side benefitting.
- criley2 1y agoBulk discounts don't "penalize" smaller purchases, they reward larger purchases. Companies offer bulk discounts on basically... everything. This is like pointing out that the Dollar Store penalizes people for buying small quantities and thus suggesting that Costco should raise prices to "make it fair".
- mike_d 1y agoNo, it is discrimination based on marital/family status. If they were willing to sell me 5 flight coupons for a discount, that would be acceptable. There is nothing I can do as an individual to take advantage of the discount.
- criley2 1y agoNonsense. The airline doesn't ask your marital/family status. They simply offer a bulk discount. By your logic, Costco is also "discriminating based on marital/family status" by selling bulk at discount. Costco doesn't sell "buy 1/5 a toilet paper package, come back and get the other 4 1/5 later". They sell the whole package up front, use it or lose it. That's how bulk discounts work. Heck, you could say that a gallon of milk discriminates against you because you have to pay way more to buy a pint of it, and you can't "come back later for the other pints at the same price". This is absurdism to the highest degree. You are welcome to book flights with friends, or even organize a flight-share program and go in on flights with strangers. Bulk doesn't discriminate. I know folks who go in together on Costco bulk because they can't use it all. Make the system work for you.
- miltonlost 1y ago> People will look at this as penalizing single travelers and want everyone to have the lowest fare, but that’s not the real alternative. A flat fare would bring solo prices down and group rates up so the blended average is the same. So it’s still penalizing being single. Single travelers are subsidizing group rates. They are being penalized for not buying multiple. You didn’t explain how it’s not a penalty to buy as one person
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lordfrito 1y agoApparently the article author hasn't heard about the concept of a "group discount"
- josephcsible 1y agoThe point is that the extent of the group discount is absurd. E.g., the ORD-LEX one, $214 for a single ticket, and then only $1 more for a second one.
- Aurornis 1y agoI’ve been pricing tickets for a family trip recently and I have not seen anything that extreme. That’s definitely a cherry picked example for the article, not the common scenario.
- jjcob 1y agoYeah, typically groups pay more per ticket than individuals. This is probably only on unpopular routes where they know they aren't going to fill the plane.
- paulgb 1y agoPart of what makes it seem shady here is that airline ticket prices are pretty opaque. If they advertised it as a group discount, it would be received differently.
- kenjackson 1y agoAirline pricing in general is pretty opaque. Not hospital pricing opaque, but still pretty opaque. It's one of the few things we regularly purchase where the price changes almost daily (both up and down). For example, bus and train tickets are pretty much the same price each day for the same route. For airlines, I'll often check the price on some future night to see if it is cheaper or not.
- 1y ago
- eduction 1y agoI would guess this is about middle seats. No one wants them but if you’re part of 2+ party you’re much more likely to take one. The alternative is two aisles side by side but those are tricky to get as the plane fills up.
- layble 1y agoThe business traveler who is less price sensitive and almost always books a solo itinerary.
- VBprogrammer 1y agoIt's a shame this is so far down the page (at least for me, at this moment) because I'm fairly certain you are exactly right.
- ttoinou 1y agoHN comments vote need more than 40 minutes to stabilize
- munificent 1y agoIt's also literally in the article itself: "It's just another way for airlines to continue 'segmenting' their customers, charging business travelers paying with a corporate card more while offering a better deal to families on the exact same flight."
- asdff 1y agoAll my solo flights over the last year were wedding related. That is probably a huge cash cow for the airline and hotel industry. The hotel is basically never full even with the hotel block so it is probably a very welcome cash infusion for them at an otherwise sleepy locale.
- kccqzy 1y ago> less price sensitive As a business traveler I actually want the price to be as high as possible while satisfying the company rules on airfare. The fare is fully reimbursed, so a higher fare means I get more points on my credit card. Now the company rules on airfare will probably reference something like the least-cost logical fare. So it is in a business traveler's interest for all airlines to raise prices simultaneously. Business travel is weird.
- paulgb 1y agoI think this is fair play, they can charge how they want (within reason) and it’s not too different than other bulk discounts. But someone should totally make a site for finding strangers to book the same flight with :)
- pinkmuffinere 1y agolol I love that concept! Replying here so that I’m reminded of the idea in case I get the time
- Arkhadia 1y ago[dead]
- paxys 1y agoAny amount of premium is worth not having a random stranger on your itinerary.
- guhidalg 1y agoDo they have to show up? What is the carrier policy on travelers that “miss their uber”?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lapetitejort 1y agoNo they don't, but they paid for a ticket, and any insurance amount is probably more than the discount of flying in a group.
- bobro 1y agoWhy?
- paxys 1y agoBecause they may change their plans. They could be a no-show (which will affect your return flight). They could call and change the flight without your knowledge. They could add extras to the trip and charge it to your card. People are flaky, and being on the same itinerary with the same PNR as someone else means your trip is in their hands.
- billyp-rva 1y agoCell phone lines only $30/line when you buy six. What, you don't have a family of six? Weird.
- mattgreenrocks 1y agoOr when you switch to an MVNO :)
- skirmish 1y agoThen it's one line, $10 / month.
- kristjansson 1y agoFor the privilege of using the hand-me-down data of carrier's network (i.e. getting deprioritized in any situation where the network is congested)
- sgerenser 1y agoUSMobile gets you Verizon’s network at the same priority as Verizon customers. $390/year for “unlimited” data (but really 100GB/mo at high speed).
- mattgreenrocks 1y agoYep, that’s who we use. It is half the cost of VZW’s cheapest plan with more data and better QCI. The latter aspect turns out mattering a lot more than I thought.
- chgs 1y agoWhy is American cell phone service so expensive?
- anonymars 1y ago
- omosubi 1y agoI don't have any data, but it wouldn't at all surprise me if single/business travelers are way more likely to cancel or change flights, and this is just pricing that into the ticket cost.
- freehorse 1y agoChanging/cancelling flights is not usually for free.
- derac 1y agoYes, it's already baked in. A cancellable ticket is more expensive.
- sidewndr46 1y agoI did it for free once, but I think the airline was just bad at math. I flew most of the legs of my flight. Then the last leg a hurricane showed up and they offered me an opportunity to rebook since it was likely to cancel the flight. When I rebooked, the airline gave me a credit for the round trip flight in total. I only had to book a one way ticket on the last leg, so I obviously was able to "afford" the flight without additional expenditure on my part.
- brigade 1y agoLess than 20% of legacy carrier tickets are basic economy, and even ULCCs don’t always charge a fee anymore. So by numbers, it is usually for free.
- freehorse 1y agoNot where I live at least, by any means.
- ghaff 1y agoI'm skeptical. Not sure why as a solo traveler I'd be more likely to cancel than a family vacation. If anything, more can go wrong in the case of the latter. Business traveler maybe. Not my money and business stuff happens. (Usually they want you to book non-refundable because it comes out ahead in the end.)
- muppetman 1y agoI love how the author thinks they've discovered something super secret, when they have in fact just learnt about "Group Discounts". Author will lose their mind when they buy 10+ of the same thing from AliExpress.
- tantalor 1y agoFrom the conclusion, they seem pretty confident that this is not "business as usual": > Whenever this pricing strategy began, this is a massive change in how airlines set prices – and one that will likely catch many travelers off guard. > Unlike shopping at retail stores or Costco, bulk discounts are unusual for airlines – at least not just for booking just two passengers instead of one. And these higher fares for one passenger are the opposite of what we typically see, where travelers booking for two passengers or more wind up getting charged more per person than a single passenger.
- jjcob 1y agoIt probably just depends on how full the flight is. If the plane is empty, there will be discounts for families, because they want to sell tickets, and families are price concious. Solo travellers usually are not. If the plane is on a popular route, you'll pay through the nose, and there sure as hell won't be any group discounts. You'll pay almost full price for a two year old, because they know they'll fill the plane no matter what.
- legitster 1y ago> Unlike shopping at retail stores or Costco, bulk discounts are unusual for airlines – at least not just for booking just two passengers instead of one. And these higher fares for one passenger are the opposite of what we typically see, where travelers booking for two passengers or more wind up getting charged more per person than a single passenger. This isn't strictly true. Airlines have long offered bulk pricing through travel agencies and booking partners.
- coldcode 1y agoThis was prevalent until the early 2000s, it is far less common today. Corporate discounts used to exist based on guaranteed minimum legs in some time period. This ended when airlines discovered only flying full planes made them more money, making bulk discounts more pain that they were worth.
- desireco42 1y agoI think they because so custom in their pricing that is becoming insane... I wish they are more predictable in how much things cost, it is almost like weather, how much will airfare cost.
- phyzix5761 1y agoIf you can predict consumer demand, trade policy, interest rates, and money printing schedules then you can predict prices. Problem is we can't predict any of those things.
- ttoinou 1y agoHuh if this becomes mainstream there's an opportunity to make a social media website to purchase in groups and make friends for the flights
- mc32 1y agoGood idea in principle. In practice this could invite unscrupulous actors, or people who flake out at higher rates than close family -not that families can’t flake out, but I’d imagine it’d be a lower incidence.
- al_borland 1y agoThere are already websites, like Going, for getting flight deals. As a solo traveler who doesn’t have to coordinate with anyone and can pack light, I can jump on the deals when they come up and save a lot more than what a regular price group rate probably is. Looking at my upcoming trip, I got it for 50% off the current pricing, for solo or a couple. Coordination with others also makes booking take longer and tends to fix dates and locations, which makes it hard to grab a deal when they come up.
- ttoinou 1y agoI "used" Scott Cheap Flights in 2018 for a few years and never found a good deal
- al_borland 1y agoYou have to invert the order of how most people plan travel. Typically people plan in this order: 1. Where to go 2. When to go 3. Check airfare Flip it on its head: 1. Keep an eye out for cheap flights from your home airport 2. Pick one of those destinations 3. Choose when to go Not exactly inverted, but the flight goes from last to first. I had Ireland in my head for my next trip, but then Italy showed up last week. That sounded pretty good, so I checked the dates and found a flight that fit in my schedule, and booked it. It’s not great for getting a flight around a conference, wedding, or some other event you are planning around. But when you know you want to take a vacation to somewhere and sometime this year, it can cut flight costs in half. A single flight ends up paying for the cost of the subscription 10x over, and then some. Also, it could be somewhere near where you want to go. I had tickets to Croatia about 5 years ago, but hand to cancel due to the pandemic. I didn’t know anything about Croatia when I booked, but I figured the worst case scenario was I catch a quick ferry or flight over to Italy once I’m there. Once you’re over there it’s cheap to go one country over. That flight to Croatia was $289, that cheaper than a flight to Nashville for me, which is only about an 8 hour drive. I did the same thing when I booked a flight to Sweden. I didn’t know if I’d like it there, so from there I booked a connection to Copenhagen for next to nothing. I spent a week in Copenhagen, but then ultimately did go back to Sweden for week, which I ended up loving. I’m glad I didn’t spend the whole trip in Copenhagen. Another deal I got that stood out was to Tokyo. I think I paid around $550 give or take. A coworker of mine has family there and goes on a regular basis, he was floored by that price. He always pays over $1k, and usually closer to $1,500. Ultimately it’s just an alert service for flights that are abnormally low. If you have a specific destination in mind, Google Flights is pretty good at showing when the cheapest time to travel is, giving a booking date of today. Of course it fluctuates over time, which is where the alerts come in. It’s saved me thousands. Though I probably would have only taken about 20% of the trips I have without it.
- geverett 1y agoTbh this makes perfect sense. As someone who worked in airline revenue management for 11 years, it always seemed a little odd that the sales tactics people use everywhere else - group discounts, BOGO, etc - weren't being used by airlines (yes, group bookings could often get discounts, but usually for much larger groups). What's remarkable here is that airlines waited this long to do it. Sad news for me as a usually solo traveler who prizes flexibility, but I understand airlines wanting to prioritize groups and more locked-in fares.
- mysterypie 1y ago> As someone who worked in airline revenue management, it always seemed odd that the sales tactics people use everywhere else weren't being used by airlines Remember the really old days when air miles were awarded solely by distance flown rather than by dollars paid? This made no business sense. It meant that someone who flew the cheapest tickets could rack up as many points as a last-minute first class business traveller who spent massively more ticket. With the airlines I’m familiar with, it seems that pricing anomaly has been corrected. Air miles are much more correlated with the price of the ticket these days. Eg., you don’t even get air miles on the cheapest tickets on one airline I know. But I still wonder why the airline industry created an air miles formula so disconnected from the value of the passenger in the early days.
- bronson 1y agoBecause of the difference between: "Congratulations! You flew 100,000 miles with us!" "Congratulations! You spent $100,000 with us!"
- nocoiner 1y agoThe first mileage program was introduced only a couple years after deregulation, so it probably made a lot more sense at the time as a rough proxy for revenue, and revenue management at the airlines wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as it is today.
- listenallyall 1y agoIn the early days you didn't have the internet where people would share every tiny anomaly, allowing thousands of people to exploit them. Even then, you had a few people realize they could do mileage runs, but it was considered additional revenue and the perks of doing so weren't valued nearly as highly as they are today.
- MrToadMan 1y agoSeems intuitive: the group passengers are likely to have to cough up another 5-10% more at the time of check-in, in order to sit together, so it all evens out.
- wallunit 1y ago"Penalizing solo travelers" is a hell of a spin on quantity discounts. If this isn't click bait what is?
- bredren 1y agoThis just in: Airlines penalize those not traveling for bereavement.
- DangitBobby 1y agoYou can call it penalizing solo travelers, you can call it inventivizing group travelers. If you look at them relative to each other, both are true.
- deanCommie 1y agoYup. It's funny how this stuff evolves. You used to see "surcharge for visa" but visa made that illegal. So now you see "discount for cash/debit", and everyone is happy!
- fallingknife 1y agoVisa isn't happy. But fuck them in particular.
- account42 1y agoUnfortunately you don't see that in the EU because the EU would rather have centrally controlled financial transactions than act in the interest of the citizens.
- fjasdfwa 1y agoCurious if any others are priced out of traveling? I haven't seen family in 3 years.
- skylerwiernik 1y agoI wonder if this could be abused by purchasing 2+ refundable tickets, and then canceling all but 1.
- Matheus28 1y agoFully refundable tickets are an entirely different fare (and much more expensive)
- ge96 1y agoit's crazy how if you just want a ticket now it could be say $700 but if you wait the same trip can take $150 different providers, I was the former just got something listed on Google Flights with SouthWest but yeah
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Molitor5901 1y agoAirlines are always doing a negative to consumers. Squeezing passengers, gouging, treating them like they're numbers on a spreadsheet - knowing their options are limited - seems modus operand by the airlines. We need a passenger bill of rights, not just for the airlines, but also how passengers are treated in airports, by security, and concrete cause of action for consumers when airlines misbehave.
- legitster 1y ago> In this case, the rationale for charging solo travelers more is fairly clear: It's just another way for airlines to continue “segmenting” their customers, charging business travelers paying with a corporate card more while offering a better deal to families on the exact same flight. I think the explanation is wrong and the author is jumping to conclusions. Airlines have long offered "bulk" discounts. Their goal is to fill as many seats on a flight as possible. What we are seeing here is their group pricing creep into their direct sales.
- lvl155 1y agoAirlines need to be regulated and treated like public utility which is exactly what they are.
- guhidalg 1y agoI think the governments only role is to guarantee the planes don’t fall out of the sky or crash into each other, and then the airlines can price compete.
- crazygringo 1y agoNo they aren't. Public utilities generally give you only one choice of provider, which is why they need to be regulated because of their monopoly status. When you fly, you usually have a choice between lots of airlines. So there's nothing "public utility" about it whatsoever. Airports, on the other hand, are considered public infrastructure. There are also sometimes routes that are only served by one airline, which are sometimes regulated accordingly. But that isn't the general case, nor should it be.
- diebeforei485 1y agoTaxi companies, moving companies, and rideshare are all considered utilities and there are generally multiple choices of provider. Being a monopoly is not a requirement to be a utility.
- crazygringo 1y agoNone of those are generally considered to be public utilities. Public utilities include things like electricity, power, gas, sometimes telecoms. Being a monopoly is an inherent part of it.
- lvl155 1y agoI don’t follow your logic.
- crazygringo 1y ago
- tiffanyh 1y agoIs volume-based discounts really that surprising?
- dbuxton 1y agoI find it weird that this is news and not: - That it's still way cheaper in most instances to book a return (especially where the "trip" straddles a weekend) rather than a one-way fare when travelling long haul - even if you just throw away the return flight. - That you can sometimes get access to totally different inventory by booking a package including accommodation, even if that accommodation is one night in a shared dormitory in a hostel (which you just don't go to). At least group discounts have a recognizable economic rationale. But in these examples you are getting a strict superset of the same SKU (OK, maybe the change rules might be a little tighter, but not in a way that's perceptible) for less money.
- akudha 1y agoIsn’t it a waste to book accommodation and not use it? If it is a popular place, maybe they’ll give it to walkins or something, but otherwise?
- mbrameld 1y agoIsn't it a waste to spend more for a flight when you could get the same flight for less if you also booked an accommodation you don't plan to use?
- akudha 1y agoI meant the accommodation going to waste (unused), which could be used by someone else. But yes, in terms of money, it sure is waste to pay more for the flight.
- xp84 1y agoDon’t forget they oversell flights anyway – it’s very likely someone else will use it even if you simply don’t show instead of canceling the ticket.
- mgraczyk 1y agoMy home is empty nearly 70% of the time. Surely that is more wasteful than not using a dorm bed once per year
- decimalenough 1y agoSingapore Airlines has been doing (used to do?) do this for ages: "GV2" was a Great Value fare for 2 people, "GV4" for 4. I also don't find this particularly outrageous. Lots of companies do volume discounts, and traveling as a family gets very expensive very fast. Finally, the fare bucket system used to price flights usually works the other way to penalize groups. If there's 3 seats left in the cheapest bucket, and you try to book for 4, you don't get 3 cheapest plus 1 more expensive, your entire group gets priced at the more expensive bucket.
- glitchc 1y agoI'm not sure if this is driven to incentivize having children, but the more general point of incentivizing children for the good of society is a valid one. A society that stops having kids (or importing them) will cease to be a society before too long.
- brm 1y agoOr, a society will just start having children again once the population gets small enough that having children becomes a more optimal decision or the supply of things that make having children optimal is increased...
- notepad0x90 1y agoit truly is unfortunate how society punishes you for being single. Insurance, tax, credit worthiness, even health care. i wonder how low birthrate societies like Japan or South Korea are like, is it worse to improve birthrates? or is it better because being single isn't an anomaly? More importantly, the number of single/solo people isn't even low in the US. If i had to ballpark it, at least a quarter of the population is like that. Lots of married people travel solo for business for example. Why aren't some airlines playing capitalism well by offering "business elite" flights where solo travelers get a loyalty discount and there are no children on the flight? Not for all destinations but at least popular ones like to vegas or NYC <-> LAX.
- phil21 1y agoAirlines already do that for business routes. Just in the other direction on pricing. Pre-Covid there were a couple airlines playing around with business class only flights from NY to LA. Solo business travelers are where the money is made. The rest of the seats tend to exist at cost or even below to fill up the plane. Airlines would be pretty foolish to try to lower margin on the least price sensitive class of traveler they service.
- proee 1y agoThis must be a new thing, because I've experienced the opposite. I needed to book 7 tickets, and the price was much higher than a single ticket. So I ended up adjusting the quantity and saw the price increase at around 4 tickets. So I ended up splitting the purchase into two transactions. However, after purchasing the first 4 tickets, the following price for single ticket was now slightly increased - so they were really playing some games or perhaps there was limited availability that was adjusting prices real-time.
- bluGill 1y agoThey are trying to charge as much as possible while filling the plane. If you take too many seats they need to up the price for the next person because someone needs to say too expensive and not fly on that plane
- Marazan 1y agoMany airlines operate on the following model. Imagine the plane has a hundred economy seats. The seats will be split into groups of 10, each group has it's own price. Group 1 seats cost 100 dollars Group 2 seats cost 110 dollars ... Group 10 seats are 350 dollars Your group order got the last seats in group N and the first seats in group N+1 This is where the myth of "booking late gets you the cheapest seats" comes from. If an early booking passenger cancels their Group 1 seat it becomes available to buy again and it is still a group 1 seat even if every other seat has been sold. So late cancellations can make cheap seats available again.
- anonymars 1y agoI had the same with just two tickets. We ended up booking them separately because it was cheaper. It was a modest difference but still.
- encoderer 1y agoIn other news, gas stations are selling individual cigarettes for $0.50 each
- stmw 1y agoHere is why I think these kinds of dynamic pricing practices are bad: it may be perfectly fair and legal, but it forces a non-negligible number of humanity to waste time and/or energy to figure out if it's happening, how to work around it if it is, and just generally waste human potential on something that should be a simple commodity.
- NegativeLatency 1y agoEspecially when your industry is so "critical" that it has repeatedly received bailouts from the government.
- WalterBright 1y agoAirfares were much more expensive when the government regulated them.
- singleshot_ 1y agoYou get what you pay for.
- WalterBright 1y agoNot with price controls.
- devilbunny 1y agoIn the US, government-regulated fares meant that fares were basically static on a given route. The only way to bring passengers to your airline was to serve places nobody else did, or to offer extras that slightly offset your profit in the hope that you'd get more, regular customers. Since air travel was substantially more expensive then than now, the amenities gravitated to what attracted the most frequent fliers: businessmen. So stewardesses (they certainly weren't called flight attendants then) had weight limits, age limits, and if-you're-married-you-must-quit deals, and as a glance at some 1970s uniforms will show you, they were basically hiring models who happened to have the right skill set (usually at least one would be a trained nurse, and they all had to be reasonably confident) to dress them in revealing outfits. Like Hooters for travel. If that's what you want, great. If you'd prefer other amenities... maybe not. It has never struck me as coincidental that smoking was banned on US aircraft before no-smoking policies became nigh-universal at restaurants, but in just about the right timeframe for airplanes to shift from a boys' club to a place that catered to families. If you want to pay more to get more, there are a lot of options, starting with coach plus (coach seats, business class legroom, priority boarding) and going through first class before branching out into niches like all-first-class flights (JSX is an airline in the US for which this is the business model; they fly smaller regional-size planes, and the reduced capacity legally allows them to skip the whole TSA and terminal experience and just let you on the plane if you show up and buy a ticket twenty minutes before departure) and then on into the various levels of chartered and truly private aviation. You do, definitely, get what you pay for, but sometimes you don't need a Michelin-starred meal experience. And when that's the case, you've got cheaper options that didn't exist before deregulation (except for Southwest, which avoided problems by not making interstate flights at all in the early days.
- ponector 1y agoI had a different experience with Ryanair. When you book solo, they show you price with a tooltip: "last 2 tickets for that price!" If you are going to book for 3 passengers they charge three of you with the next level, more expensive fare. But so far my favorite is they force you to buy seat if you travel with infant. You cannot select free random seat as their planes have rules to allow infants only on the seat near the window.
- FridayoLeary 1y agoI would just buy two seats and sort it out on the plane. It's not like they can separate you.
- WalterBright 1y agoCompanies give quantity discounts. Shocking!
- black6 1y agoAirlines should grow up and start charging by weight just like carriers do for every good except passengers (flat rate shipping boxes excluded.)
- account42 1y agoIf you also get seat sizes/pitches that match that price then I'm all for it.
- hackernewshomos 1y ago[flagged]
- mgraczyk 1y agoThis is good. Almost all price discrimination is good. Larger groups are more price sensitive. They should pay less because they have more buying power when they buy ahead.
- p1necone 1y agoI feel like people are suspending their reasoning in order to maximally shit on airlines in this thread (because yes, they do have a history of predatory pricing practices). The problem with this isn't the difference in prices - charging less for buying in bulk is a normal thing that's probably been done by merchants since the invention of money. The problem with this is the lack of communication. There's no advertisement of a bulk/family discount at any point during the pricing process, you just see a different price. That's the problem here, not the price difference itself.
- postalrat 1y agoAre these discounts compared to prices before the change or did they raise the price for individual travelers?
- SonOfLilit 1y agoAre grocery store discounts for six packs compared to prices before the change or did they raise the price of single items? Here they don't even advertise it as a discount, so there's no ethical problem with raising the individual traveler price by x and lowering the family price by y so that the total profit remains the same.
- MentatOnMelange 1y agoThere is absolutely an ethical problem with charging people different prices for the same exact product/service
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> There is absolutely an ethical problem with charging people different prices for the same exact product/service One, there isn’t. One party undercutting another for the same product is how competition generates consumer surplus. Two, it isn’t the same product. When I fly with my family, we check in together. We board together. I collect their docs on my phone and double check they have them on theirs. I turn down upgrades so I can sit with them. If there is a change, it takes one customer service agent maybe 10% longer to adjust everyone in bulk. I’m not incurring 4 or 5x the cost on the airline for 4 to 5x the revenue, this is why bulk discounting exists for everything. This isn’t an ethical problem. If it’s triggering an ethical system, that’s more damning for the system than for Delta. This is a communication and brand problem.
- obblekk 1y agothis might be a good thing if viewed from the opposite perspective: people with kids/elderly parents usually can't afford to pay as much per person as people traveling alone for fun/corporate travel.
- darkhorn 1y agoWhat is next? Charge iPhone users more than Android users? Charge users with email address on custom domain more than on free emails? Charge Jews more than Mexicans? You go to a bakery and he charges more because you wear a suit. You go to Europe, a guy in front of you buys a bread for €1, but same bread is €3 because you are tourist? Then you go to buy a toilet paper and same thing happens again because your ass is worth more?
- yarone 1y agoRemember Accompany.com and Mercata and other group-buying websites from the 90's dotcom boom? Time for those again?
- rabiescow 1y agoThe more people they can fill the flight with the more lucrative it is to fly that route, it makes perfect sense. Just like milk prices are more expensive the less you buy, per liter. Anyone being upset about this is just looking for reasons to be upset and maybe should go outside more and get a hobby.
- diebeforei485 1y agoWould this be allowed for international flights under IATA's fare rules?
- Klaus_ 1y ago[dead]
- bfrog 1y agoUS carriers are the absolute worst trying to squeeze every penny while the service has become worse. Flew through Japan on a Japanese carrier and the difference was insane. Japanese carrier was customer centric at every step.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- CrossdresserSWE 1y ago[flagged]
- javaliendo 1y ago[dead]
- 28304283409234 1y agoGood.
- account42 1y agoBusiness does volume discounts. News at 11.
- pksebben 1y agoThis reminds me of the story of Frank Lorenzo, union-busting airline exec who effectively fabricated the story of how airlines were all "struggling" as businesses to force government support of anti-union practices. It's a bit of a tangent, but the talk page on his wikipedia is one of the more fascinating fights between editors and paper doll accounts I've ever seen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Frank_Lorenzo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Frank_Lorenzo