Strange pricing

[bryanjones]

Airline pricing/revenue management is a dark art - its priced just right in this case for some to buy it if they otherwise wouldnt. You can argue with the wife whether paying that much for business is worth it - but she will surely agree that paying that much for first is worth it.

Yield management algorithms are fun to code.

 

[codash1099]

Airline pricing/revenue management is a dark art - its priced just right in this case for some to buy it if they otherwise wouldnt. You can argue with the wife whether paying that much for business is worth it - but she will surely agree that paying that much for first is worth it.

Yield management algorithms are fun to code.

Dark art indeed, and not logical. Surely it would be better to open up more upgrade possibilities to F and at least gain the points value rather than try and flog off the F seats at a lower price.

 

[bryanjones]

Dark art indeed, and not logical. Surely it would be better to open up more upgrade possibilities to F and at least gain the points value rather than try and flog off the F seats at a lower price.

Perhaps. Awards need to be seen to be achievable (e.g. I am just on an upgraded business ticket now) but it is not in qantas interest to have points over real money.

That said, I'm still waiting for when the QFF scheme is moved to a more tax "friendly" location - then QFF will value points much more highly to maximise profit, e.g. all the credit card companies/etc would be paying into a country where effective tax rate was lower. That would increase the value of the points to all and perhaps see a more points+pay style reward scheme enhanced.

 

[andreas]

On a slightly different topic (but related), has anyone else experienced seemingly nonsensical pricing when booking through a codeshare partner on the same flight? It happened to me last year - coincidentally my flight was also on March 18 - when I was looking for SYD-DFW in J. Qantas was its usual high price in both J and F but AA had the same flight in F (ie QF7/8 on the Qantas A380) for far less than Qantas J, let alone Qantas F. I thought at the time it might have been a mistake, as that fare disappeared quite quickly (I did get in and booked it straight away though, so that was all good).

 

[coyote25]

On a slightly different topic (but related), has anyone else experienced seemingly nonsensical pricing when booking through a codeshare partner on the same flight? It happened to me last year - coincidentally my flight was also on March 18 - when I was looking for SYD-DFW in J. Qantas was its usual high price in both J and F but AA had the same flight in F (ie QF7/8 on the Qantas A380) for far less than Qantas J, let alone Qantas F. I thought at the time it might have been a mistake, as that fare disappeared quite quickly (I did get in and booked it straight away though, so that was all good).

I'm never actually booked QF metal on a codeshare how does that impact SCs and points warn? I believe it's a bit less right which is why sometimes cheaper ie low cost overheads??

 

[opusman]

I'm never actually booked QF metal on a codeshare how does that impact SCs and points warn? I believe it's a bit less right which is why sometimes cheaper ie low cost overheads??

If it's really a codeshare (i.e. a QFxx_x flight number) then the earn will be the same, and usually so will the price.

 

[andreas]

If it's really a codeshare (i.e. a QFxx_x flight number) then the earn will be the same, and usually so will the price.

This one was an AA codeshare with QF, so it had an AA flight number.
Status credit earn was the same as QF for SYD-DFW-SYD (600 SC) but less for some other US domestic flights I booked on the same booking, these earned SC at 50% of the QF rate

 

[Austff]

Subscribed

 

[RichardMEL]

Dark art indeed, and not logical. Surely it would be better to open up more upgrade possibilities to F and at least gain the points value rather than try and flog off the F seats at a lower price.

I don't see why they would do this.

Your goal, as revenue/yield management, is to extract as much as possible from your product. Selling a F fare, even at a lower price, is absolutely going to trump(not donald) any value of points liability.

Also I think you mean award seats rather than upgrade, as upgrades are not processed until close in to departure (from 7 days prior) and at this point revenue management can clearly management can clearly control this within that timeframe, remembering the goal is to keep at least a seat or 2 for last minute fares, which can go to upgraders (or staff travel for the cynical ) at the gate.

Anyway why would QF bother to open up award seats in F over any initial allocation. By having an F sale fare in the first place they are clearly trying to entice revenue bookings from those that will say "yup, around $10k I can do" - all they need is 1 or 2 a flight and that's brilliant for them. If they don't get any takers they can always allocate award (or upgrade prior to departure) inventory.

my 2 cents.

 

[RichardMEL]

On a slightly different topic (but related), has anyone else experienced seemingly nonsensical pricing when booking through a codeshare partner on the same flight? It happened to me last year - coincidentally my flight was also on March 18 - when I was looking for SYD-DFW in J. Qantas was its usual high price in both J and F but AA had the same flight in F (ie QF7/8 on the Qantas A380) for far less than Qantas J, let alone Qantas F. I thought at the time it might have been a mistake, as that fare disappeared quite quickly (I did get in and booked it straight away though, so that was all good).

It can happen.

Remember a codeshare is airline A (eg: AA) buying a block of seats on airline B (eg: QF) to sell as their own and they can determine their own pricing. They pay QF whatever amount for their block... now say AA has a sale and includes such flights, then it could well be you see a lower price and that's great. Of course buying as the codeshare could have FF and SC implications, but that's a different issue.. Just on price alone it's up to an airline offering codeshare seats to sell them however they like.

This is how you can get, for example, cheap AY (Finnair) Business Class routiings to europe from Australia with AY codes on say QF or CX metal to asia. the carrier providing the metal flight doesn't care if they get the revenue for the codeshare seat sold by AY and that carrier gets traffic to its own long haul services which it wants.