Hi bargain professionals, has anyone come across a good way of selling no-refundable domestic flight tickets?
I know it's a bit risky for the buyer flying under a different name and not welcomed by the flight operator. But can be still worth it if price is right.
Some non-refundable fares allow name changes, but the fees can be exorbitant.
The fees are normally more than the flight cost. I'm actually not sure how they get away with it with the ACCC.
The high price of transferring tickets is a method of dissuading people from buying cheap tickets during sales, and scalping them later on to other buyers.
So it's actually beneficial to the public and ensures more people have access to more sales.
But if scalpers bought them all then that would mean a supply of slightly cheaper tickets all the time, rather than just at times when the airline wants to put them on sale.
@Ryanek: But they would sell them for less than the airline is selling them for at the time - otherwise no one would buy them. They'd basically be taking an overhead to even out the price fluctuations of tickets.
@macrocephalic: Supply and demand mate, if one person has all the tickets for a flight that's in demand why would they sell it for less?
@Ryanek: Markets are a little more complicated than just supply and demand. For starters, airline seats and tickets are not 1:1 Airlines already oversell flights. If people start buying up bulk tickets then airlines will start overselling more - leaving the scalper with a potential bulk of unsold tickets.
@macrocephalic: Crikey this is so simple, you must be trolling so yeah I'm done.
I'll leave with this article though.
“This is a common and long-standing practice across the industry, which ensures there is no incentive for people to buy up sale fares with the intent of selling them on at a higher price closer to the date of travel,”
@macrocephalic: travel agents actually buy tickets in advance. They get offered deals all the time by airlines, when the airlines know they have way too much inventory.
Often they have to package the cheap air, with accommodation or car hire or whatever & the airlines give them a minimum sell price.
I know this cos I helped a travel agency group with their marketing about 5 years back.
I wouldn't call travel agents scalpers. Without agents, there wouldn't be deals like above.
Airlines aren't set up to handle anything but airfares only & they don't want to dump seats.
A $1000 return airfare with $400 free accommodation, is much better form airlines view, than selling same airfare for $600.
Also, once I had a ticket to USA, that I couldn't use due to change in work commitments (got a contract at last minute paying very well)
So I put it on ebay & gumtree.
Got lots of idiots replying on gumtree offering me $200-$400 for a $1500 ticket (it was for Xmas) so put opening bid on ebay of $1200 & sold it for what I paid (when I booked it, it was much cheaper, than when I sold it).
I had to pay $100 to do a name change & I think ebay charged by about $150, but netted $1250, so didn't lose that much.
For domestic tickets, like a Sydney/Brisbane, probably not worth the hassle unless ticket is for busy period like Xmas-NY, but for a ticket Sydney to Perth it might be worth it.
@Kiwibigspender: Exactly. What they are doing is providing liquidity. They are buying tickets from the airline at reduced prices when the airline needs them sold, and selling them to customers at prices which are often below what the airline would charge for tickets at the time that the customer wants to buy them. For this they take a fee. Sure, it would be cheaper for the customer if they just bought the ticket themselves when it was cheap, but that's not always possible.
Slightly further to this thread….
Is there a website for ppl selling unwanted tickets?
Nope