Online booking: price shoots up overnight

Damn! The mysteries of online flight booking...

What was last night a £50 seat to Brussels using British Midland has
turned into a £240 seat this morning.
Why did I decide to "sleep on it and do a quick check round on prices
tomorrow morning"?
Bruce

> > Damn! The mysteries of online flight booking...
> >
> > What was last night a £50 seat to Brussels using British Midland has
> > turned into a £240 seat this morning.
> > Why did I decide to "sleep on it and do a quick check round on prices
> > tomorrow morning"?
> > Bruce
>
> When is the flight? Perhaps (probably) it'll go down again.

12 Feb LBA-BRU. I'm not expecting it to go back down, but I'll keep a
look out.

> BMI British Midland are not bad on last minute fares, even at the airport.
>

Hmmm...so you can just turn up/phone the airport on spec? Say they had
free seats 4 hours before take off, how much would they charge
LBA-BRU?
Then you've got the problem of arranging a return leg, I suppose...



> It can be good to sleep on them too, I did on Friday and the flight went
> down £110. :-) But now I've booked and they've messed up the flight times

I've never seen this on other airlines web booking. I thought it was a
case of book early, lower price for online booking.

Bruce

> Their system appears to be much like easyjet and I suspect it is
> EXCEPT they add/remove seats according to what they sold elsewhere.
>
> In this case sounds like they took a load away from the online system
> presumably because they have-expect extra regular fare bookings.
>
> David.


Thanks for that.
Incidentally the BMI online booking site is often slow and "flakey".
It does not inspire confidence in this online user.
BA and KLM web sites on the other hand seem to work well.

Bruce

> > Damn! The mysteries of online flight booking...
> >
> > What was last night a £50 seat to Brussels using British Midland has
> > turned into a £240 seat this morning.
> > Why did I decide to "sleep on it and do a quick check round on prices
> > tomorrow morning"?
> > Bruce
>
> When is the flight? Perhaps (probably) it'll go down again. BMI British
> Midland are not bad on last minute fares, even at the airport.
>
> It can be good to sleep on them too, I did on Friday and the flight went
> down £110. :-) But now I've booked and they've messed up the flight times
> :-( Ah well you get what you pay for. That'll teach me.

I agree, I have often got a 'walk on fair' at way below pulished fair with
BMI.
I would say though, wait a bit and check prices daily, or failing that, pack
your bags and turn up at the airport. A bit of a risk I know but with I
think at least 3 airlines flying from LHR, you are bound to find a cheap
seat.

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 11:48:44 -0000, "resenär"
<manager@REMOVETHIStravelextrasuk.com> wrote:

>"bruce phipps" <bruce_phipps@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>news:27351d26.0402040034.3b79bf5f@ com...
>> > Their system appears to be much like easyjet and I suspect it is
>> > EXCEPT they add/remove seats according to what they sold elsewhere.
>> >
>> > In this case sounds like they took a load away from the online system
>> > presumably because they have-expect extra regular fare bookings.
>> >
>> > David.
>>
>>
>> Thanks for that.
>> Incidentally the BMI online booking site is often slow and "flakey".
>> It does not inspire confidence in this online user.
>> BA and KLM web sites on the other hand seem to work well.
>>
>> Bruce
>
>In January, I had to go somewhere last minute and booked online with KLM at
>9:30pm for a flight the next morning. It all went as smootly as possible and
>the fare was extremely good. Impressive :-)
>


Talking of being impressed with KLM, their new true internet check-in
really does work. From t-30 hours you can go to their website,
retrieve your booking, choose your seat, print your boarding pass, and
go straight to the gate, at least for departures from AMS at the
moment, more to follow soon I believe. Even the gate agent was
impressed when her scanning of the bar code on the boarding pass
worked. Are any other European airlines doing this yet?
--==++AJC++==--

>
> Have you been looking at other sites other than BMI's own site? Opodo,
> Expedia and Airline Network for example?
>


As far as I can see most of the online travel sites simply link into
the airline database. Its quicker to go straight to the airline web
site.

Bruce

>
> Thanks for that.
> Incidentally the BMI online booking site is often slow and "flakey".
> It does not inspire confidence in this online user.
> BA and KLM web sites on the other hand seem to work well.
>

Personally I always find the BA site VERY slow, but generally better than
most.