Hey guys,
I wast just wondering anyone know if airlines do 'last minute deals'?
Show up with your bags at the ready, and jump on whatever is available?
Would be a fun way of travelling! Although from experience it seems that airlines are
increasing the cost of flights just prior to take-off..
Right before the flight tickets seem to come back down in price.
I purchased a SYD-MELB ticket just under 2 hours before the flight and all up the cost was about $75, that was with Qantas
I only seen airlines ever do this in the movies and Simpsons lol
I believe that the costs increase prior to take0off due to a pricing system that they have that increases the seat prices as they fill up?
This was in the old days and really it was more US based rather than here in Oz.
When I lived there you could fly with "standby" fares, and there used to be tips of when it was likely to get a good standby fare. Also in those days return fares were the go, so often getting a standby was great if you weren't fussed about when you returned. Like you could get a cheap ticket there, but paid a lot to get a return. Now its only the airline staff who use standby, but they get flights pretty cheap.
As the others have said, they have pretty good flight load management software and they know well in advance most times if a flight is going to be full, so the old standby fare has already been sold.
If you check out Virgin, Jetstar websites you will see different prices for flights on the same day, sometimes Jetstar is cheaper than virgin or the other way round. If you want to save money you can often fly with one and come back with the other (you can also include Tiger)
There used to be a place where you could be an on-board courier, but this has since been stopped in 2006:
http://www.jupiterair.com.au/obc.htm
i'm wondering if anyone can help me out, i want to book SYD-MEL return from dec14-dec15. jetstar is giving me $79 return, and i'm wondering, is that a good price, or should i wait till the date gets closer for something cheaper? thanks! i've never flown domestic before, for the record :)
That's pretty good price for REturn already (if to/from Tullamarine), pretty average if to Avalon but still ok.
Don't think you will be able to do better than $79 return, particularly at that time of year.
That's peak time so that's a really decent price.
Generally I thought it was very expensive getting a flight at the last minute compared to say, booking ahead of time.