Qantas fare pricing

[ancwil]

Hi all
I'm new here and this question has probably been asked before - if anyone knows please direct me to it. Thanks!

Anyway, I have a question about Qantas fare pricing. I am planning a trip to UK in Aug/Sept flying to Heathrow. I was looking at Qantas fares and came across something I hadn't seen before. The cost of a return fare depends on the outward fare. For example, if you travel after 15 Aug and before 5 Oct the outward fare is $1398 and the return fare is $1607. If you travel after 4 Oct the outward fare is $811 and the return fare for the same return date as before drops to $1019. This seems outright robbery to me. Anyone know why it works this way? Is it just Qantas coughry?

cheers
Andrew

 

[JB83]

I think this is a simple matter of peak season vs off-season, not a trick by Qantas. I think in the airline business, peak season is April - October, basically its all about summer vs winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

 

[mannej]

Supply and demand really.

 

[RooFlyer]

Edit: Just re-read the OP and its talking about return on the same date, and a different cost. Might have to think a bit more about that one.
__________________

If you go to the Qantas web site, particularly if there is a 'sale' on, and look at the prices, there is often an option to see the prices graphed for maybe a year ahead. You'll see that they jump up and down quite markedly depending on season. This variation is influenced by sales (obviously) but the seasonal variation is always there and you can see it in advance and plan accordingly.

Like this:

 

[ancwil]

Thanks for the replies so far. I was aware of the differences in prices because of the different fare seasons but this was something else. The thing that I found strange was if you leave the return date the same you can see the return prices change: if the outward fare drops - so does the return fare for the same return date.

cheers
Andrew.

 

[Cynicor]

Sometimes it's because certain fare have length of stay requirements, so you may be in breach of these and thus the fare cost changes, though only one date has changed.

 

[defurax]

I'm just guessing here, but you should look at the "fare bucket" for each leg. It is possible that if the cheapest outbound flight books in "S" you wouldn't be able to pick a return flight in "Q" and so the search engine would display fares in "N" for example.

 

[dajop]

Unlike domestic and trans Tasman, where return fares are simply the addition of two one way fares, international fares are priced on a return basis, not merely adding up what you see outbound with what is available inbound. As pointed out above the fare will depend on seasonality of outbound travel, and I my experience, essentially the outbound and return legs (if booked in the same fare class) should have the same base fare, but are different because of taxes. Note that the difference in you return leg is the same in both instances except perhaps for rounding errors ($208-209). this is probably because of the well known high taxes in the UK.

 

[Sprucegoose]

School holidays drives demand

 

[JohnK]

Welcome to AFF ancwil.

The mystical art of yield management where no 2 people pay the same price for a seat.

A similar thing was happening to me when I recently booked BNE-BKK return in September where the outound airfare was changing depending on whether the inbound was during school holidays or not and I think availability played a part as well as cheap airfares were not available on some flights.

I also think you are in essence paying for a return and they try to break this down for you into 2 one-ways. If you try to book a one-way for that outbound date it is not going to be the same as that displayed if you were booking a return.

 

[Mattg]

I believe there is currently a sale on return flights to LHR, but only for flights departing after 4 (or maybe it was 6) October. As others have pointed out the price is calculated as a return fare so both legs need to be during the sale period to get the discount.

 

[knasty]

Are you adamant in QF? Finnair still has their sale on. 3 weeks ago I booked return to London for ~$1800 leaving last week August return 1st week September. To/from Sin on QF then on to Europe AY via Hel. Otherwise I saw BA for $2200 on same days. I found BA15/16 to be way better than the BA of old.

 

[dajop]

Another way, if you want QF code (not necessarily QF plane though) all the way is to book a return flight to Asia (eg SiN) and a separate booking on the QF website from there to London (using QF code on Emirates planes). For the dates you are talking about the two fares are about $700 and $1000 AUD return, total about $1700, although it is more hops and mucking around. The Finnair options sounds the best.