Shopping for Air Travel with One or Both?

[sengsational]

Do you put in all or both travelers when you book air?

I usually put in one traveler when I'm just looking around, doing the initial shopping. It just makes it simpler ... the cost is always one person.

But I've noticed airlines playing games. Sometimes it's negligible, but yesterday, I found one booking for $2K. When I was ready to buy, I switched it to 2 travelers, and it went to $6K! What?!?

This was JetBlue pulling this shenanigans, by the way. I tried to outsmart them by buying concurrently in two different browsers, but that bombed on the transaction that came in a second later. I was "that close" to just going to a slightly less convenient flight, but thought "fine, I'll buy your one competitively priced ticket" because I had 24 hours to cancel.

Several hours later, still, the ticket I got for $2K was priced at $4K, but today, the ticket was back to $2K, and I bought it.

So if I would have been shopping with both travelers, the $6K price tag would have been so far down in the search results that I never would have seen it, and I would have ended-up on a one-stop flight for almost $2K vs the non-stop flight I got. Shopping with one traveler, I saw the competitive ticket, but had to buy the tickets on two separate days and two separate reservations. What a pain!

 

[engineernerd]

Wonder if your experience was the result of dynamic pricing. If you had shopped for two from the start, would it have shown you $4k for the pair of tickets, based on your prior shopping behavior? No way to tell for sure now, I guess.

Shopping for flights has been a royal PITA for a long time.

 

[RetiredHappy]

Some of the airlines would say only 1 left at the low price. If you put 2, both get the higher price. Usually it is to create a sense of urgency to buy the ticket.

 

[FIYes]

This is an example of why shopping for air travel is so hard. It takes time and persistence to get a reasonable deal.

 

[flyingaway]

sometimes they only have one ticket for the cheap price. If you put two, they will sell both for the higher price. This happens often. But it is easier to just put one ticket in Google Travel.

 

[audreyh1]

I’ve occasionally experienced getting a price on one ticket, and switching to two the second ticket is higher, but not by very much. I still get the first ticket at the lower initial price.

I use 1 ticket to do the initial price comparisons.

 

[Koolau]

We've always just shopped for two.

 

[Lorenzo]

Showing a higher price for two travelers together is the opposite of the airline trick I read about, where the airline prices a single ticket higher on the hunch it is a business traveler whose company is willing to pay the higher price.

 

[Sunset]

Do you put in all or both travelers when you book air?

I usually put in one traveler when I'm just looking around, doing the initial shopping. It just makes it simpler ... the cost is always one person.

But I've noticed airlines playing games. Sometimes it's negligible, but yesterday, I found one booking for $2K. When I was ready to buy, I switched it to 2 travelers, and it went to $6K! What?!?

This was JetBlue pulling this shenanigans, by the way. I tried to outsmart them by buying concurrently in two different browsers, but that bombed on the transaction that came in a second later. I was "that close" to just going to a slightly less convenient flight, but thought "fine, I'll buy your one competitively priced ticket" because I had 24 hours to cancel.

Several hours later, still, the ticket I got for $2K was priced at $4K, but today, the ticket was back to $2K, and I bought it.

So if I would have been shopping with both travelers, the $6K price tag would have been so far down in the search results that I never would have seen it, and I would have ended-up on a one-stop flight for almost $2K vs the non-stop flight I got. Shopping with one traveler, I saw the competitive ticket, but had to buy the tickets on two separate days and two separate reservations. What a pain!

And now you won't sit together

 

[braumeister]

This is an example of why shopping for air travel is so hard. It takes time and persistence to get a reasonable deal.

So true. It's real gamesmanship these days.

 

[brett]

I do both. It can really vary. By number of people, by date, or direct vs 3rd party booking site.

Usually I start by shopping for one fare. I also work the calendar. Retirement has made our dates very flexible. We take advantage of that when booking travel. Including our ability and willingness to score attractive last minute travel offers.

 

[sengsational]

And now you won't sit together

We were already in a no-talk situation ... in business class, we'd both need to stand-up to see each other

 

[sengsational]

So true. It's real gamesmanship these days.

And getting a hotel room was similarly annoying, but lower stakes. I wanted to get a list of free cancellation airport hotels. You'd think it would be easy, but the sites I tried all give the teaser no-refund prices, even if you search for "free cancellation". Sure, "free cancellation" is a feature you can buy, but I really don't care about the no-refund prices if I'm not buying a no-refund room. Maybe I should have tried to get AI to help. Kayak's built-in AI didn't help. So a 10 minute job took a half an hour. I'm retired, what else do I have to do?

 

[NW-Bound]

Last year, I booked domestic first-class for 6 of us, ourselves, daughter, son, and their spouses. When an airplane had only 16 first-class seats, our group suddenly created a demand where there had not been. Darn! Due to my children work conflict, we ended up traveling in groups of 2 and 4 on different flights, both outbound and inbound, and that helped lowering the price.

When the travel time approached, I checked and found out that a return flight has left-over seats opened up at a lower price, I was able to change so that all 6 of us came back on the same flight, and even got some credit due to the original flight being more expensive. Sometimes you win, but most time you lose.

 

[Drake3287]

The problem with listing only 1 passenger is that if you find an airfare you like you need to start the booking process all over again for 2 people and then run the risk of not getting that lower airfare. They literally come and go at anytime.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was looking for SFO to Vienna flights and everything was $1,300 or so. I literally checked United a second time and the price had all of a sudden dropped to $775. which I jumped on. An hour later I checked again to see if it had changed and sure enough it was back up well over $1k.

 

[Koolau]

And now you won't sit together

DW and I almost never sit together on a plane anymore. We usually sit opposite each other in aisle seats. Sometimes, we're even separated by a row or two as well. Separated by an aisle for 9 hours is not a major issue to us. We choose aisle seats for comfort and ability to get to the bathroom.

 

[sengsational]

.

Separated by an aisle for 9 hours is not a major issue to us

I installed "Briar" on both of our phones so we can sent messages to each other, without wifi or cell connection.

 

[Koolau]

.
I installed "Briar" on both of our phones so we can sent messages to each other, without wifi or cell connection.

We hold hands once in a while. Until someone comes up or down the aisle.

 

[brett]

DW and I almost never sit together on a plane anymore. We usually sit opposite each other in aisle seats. Sometimes, we're even separated by a row or two as well. Separated by an aisle for 9 hours is not a major issue to us. We choose aisle seats for comfort and ability to get to the bathroom.

Neither do we! I want an aisle. Claustrophobic. DW always wants a window.

More often than not when we we are in different rows.

We have been married for 51 plus years. It is hardly a big deal not to sit beside each other for five hours...or ten hours for that matter.

 

[bonvoyage]

sometimes they only have one ticket for the cheap price. If you put two, they will sell both for the higher price. This happens often. But it is easier to just put one ticket in Google Travel.

This is absolutely correct. There are multiple fare classes and it's possible that only one seat remains in the lower fare class. If you have a subscription to ExpertFlyer, you can see how many seats are available in each fare class before buying

 

[audreyh1]

Did some recent airfare pricing and I didn’t see more than doubling when I went from 1 to 2.

 

[mystang52]

I always searched for one ticket, but several years ago realized that when it came time to book 2 tickets, the price per ticket went up. So now wife sits next to me, and we simultaneously book one seat each on our individual laptops at that lower price.

 

[pacergal]

It depends. Sometimes when starting to investigate a trip, I will use one for an estimated price.
If I want to look again for two, I will clear the history in computer. Don't know if that helps or not.
When I plan a big trip including kids/grands, I always put the total travelers in to make sure we can be on the same flight.