Best time to book SIA tickets online - Experiment
#1
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Joined: Feb 2010
Location: Amongst Melbourne's tall gum trees
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Best time to book SIA tickets online - Experiment
I posted this in the Update Forum, in Syedney's thread, but I thought it might actually be good to repost here for general info.
I have just booked our flights back from Melbourne to Paris, flying out on July 1 and coming back August 5. $8,800 for 2 adults and 2 children (3 and 5). I thought that was not too excessive - for that time of year at least. TBH, it's hard to find anything much cheaper after June 15 and before September, at least not with one of the more reputable airlines. If I remember right we paid about the same in 2008 flying at the end of July to London with 1 child and 1 infant
Crazy thing is that out of the $8,800, $1,700 is fuel surcharge
This is with Singapore Airlines. We chose SIA because we like it and so I was prepared to pay a little extra if necessary rather than book with China Eastern or Air Asia. Turns out they were cheaper than Emirates, Malaysian, Air New Zealand, Qatar and Etihad anyway!
Just so that you know though, it looks like the best time to book a flight online with SIA is to book on a Tuesday night at 8pm Melbourne time.
Read on if you're interested in the experiment I conducted
I have been looking at flights for a few weeks now and SIA was the cheapest I could find when I did my search. I always tick the "Search by price +/- 3 days" button when I do the search as I can then see what difference a day makes. It turns out that many of the times I looked, flying on the 30th of June (Thursday) made the flights cheaper by about $600 overall than flying on the 1st of July or the 2nd. Then I noticed that the price also changed if I selected a flight that had a short connection in SG (under 3 hours is more expensive) or a long connection (6 hours and over is cheaper)
When we were finally ready to book on Monday night, I went online after 11pm and all flights, even the Thursday/Wednesday/Sunday ones, were at the higher price! I decided to wait for the morning as this scenario has happened to us before and we figured that when it's daytime in Europe, prices go up. Don't ask me why
Yesterday morning, I looked again at about 10. Thursday (30 June) flights were still up, and I could only get Wednesday or Sunday at the lower price... Then at 11am, Thursday was down again (only on the long connection) but not Friday!
And then, wait for it...
at 8 pm last night, I looked and FRIDAY, SHORT CONNECTION was at the $8,800 price instead of $9,450 Needless to say that I booked the flights there and then since I have better things to do all day and night than check SIA's website every hour! And I bagged myself a saving of about $600, which will pay for our plane/train tickets to the south of France
The lesson from this story is, check online bookings many times over many days as prices seem to fluctuate depending on the time of day/night. I can't say whether this works for other airlines, but it definitely works for SIA!
I have just booked our flights back from Melbourne to Paris, flying out on July 1 and coming back August 5. $8,800 for 2 adults and 2 children (3 and 5). I thought that was not too excessive - for that time of year at least. TBH, it's hard to find anything much cheaper after June 15 and before September, at least not with one of the more reputable airlines. If I remember right we paid about the same in 2008 flying at the end of July to London with 1 child and 1 infant
Crazy thing is that out of the $8,800, $1,700 is fuel surcharge
This is with Singapore Airlines. We chose SIA because we like it and so I was prepared to pay a little extra if necessary rather than book with China Eastern or Air Asia. Turns out they were cheaper than Emirates, Malaysian, Air New Zealand, Qatar and Etihad anyway!
Just so that you know though, it looks like the best time to book a flight online with SIA is to book on a Tuesday night at 8pm Melbourne time.
Read on if you're interested in the experiment I conducted
I have been looking at flights for a few weeks now and SIA was the cheapest I could find when I did my search. I always tick the "Search by price +/- 3 days" button when I do the search as I can then see what difference a day makes. It turns out that many of the times I looked, flying on the 30th of June (Thursday) made the flights cheaper by about $600 overall than flying on the 1st of July or the 2nd. Then I noticed that the price also changed if I selected a flight that had a short connection in SG (under 3 hours is more expensive) or a long connection (6 hours and over is cheaper)
When we were finally ready to book on Monday night, I went online after 11pm and all flights, even the Thursday/Wednesday/Sunday ones, were at the higher price! I decided to wait for the morning as this scenario has happened to us before and we figured that when it's daytime in Europe, prices go up. Don't ask me why
Yesterday morning, I looked again at about 10. Thursday (30 June) flights were still up, and I could only get Wednesday or Sunday at the lower price... Then at 11am, Thursday was down again (only on the long connection) but not Friday!
And then, wait for it...
at 8 pm last night, I looked and FRIDAY, SHORT CONNECTION was at the $8,800 price instead of $9,450 Needless to say that I booked the flights there and then since I have better things to do all day and night than check SIA's website every hour! And I bagged myself a saving of about $600, which will pay for our plane/train tickets to the south of France
The lesson from this story is, check online bookings many times over many days as prices seem to fluctuate depending on the time of day/night. I can't say whether this works for other airlines, but it definitely works for SIA!
#2
Re: Best time to book SIA tickets online - Experiment
I think you're reading too much into the time of day thing elice!
The airline's revenue managers will be continually tinkering with the fares and seats in each fare bucket. When you're looking for 4 seats on a multi leg itin it's even more likely you'll see what looks like strangeness.
Let's say you want to book in to a fare class called 'M' - the site will only you offer a fare where you can get 4 seats in M over all 4 legs of your journey. At one particular time, there may have only been 3 seats left in M on just one of those sectors - so the fare will get bumped up to, say 'B' on every sector - B costs more.
Later on, the airline has freed up more seats in M on that busy sector, or someone who was booked in M has moved to another day and that seat has gone back into the inventory...now you can get your 4 seats in M on every leg and your fare is cheaper.
Maybe!
The airline's revenue managers will be continually tinkering with the fares and seats in each fare bucket. When you're looking for 4 seats on a multi leg itin it's even more likely you'll see what looks like strangeness.
Let's say you want to book in to a fare class called 'M' - the site will only you offer a fare where you can get 4 seats in M over all 4 legs of your journey. At one particular time, there may have only been 3 seats left in M on just one of those sectors - so the fare will get bumped up to, say 'B' on every sector - B costs more.
Later on, the airline has freed up more seats in M on that busy sector, or someone who was booked in M has moved to another day and that seat has gone back into the inventory...now you can get your 4 seats in M on every leg and your fare is cheaper.
Maybe!
#4
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Joined: Feb 2010
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Re: Best time to book SIA tickets online - Experiment
I think you're reading too much into the time of day thing elice!
The airline's revenue managers will be continually tinkering with the fares and seats in each fare bucket. When you're looking for 4 seats on a multi leg itin it's even more likely you'll see what looks like strangeness.
Let's say you want to book in to a fare class called 'M' - the site will only you offer a fare where you can get 4 seats in M over all 4 legs of your journey. At one particular time, there may have only been 3 seats left in M on just one of those sectors - so the fare will get bumped up to, say 'B' on every sector - B costs more.
Later on, the airline has freed up more seats in M on that busy sector, or someone who was booked in M has moved to another day and that seat has gone back into the inventory...now you can get your 4 seats in M on every leg and your fare is cheaper.
Maybe!
The airline's revenue managers will be continually tinkering with the fares and seats in each fare bucket. When you're looking for 4 seats on a multi leg itin it's even more likely you'll see what looks like strangeness.
Let's say you want to book in to a fare class called 'M' - the site will only you offer a fare where you can get 4 seats in M over all 4 legs of your journey. At one particular time, there may have only been 3 seats left in M on just one of those sectors - so the fare will get bumped up to, say 'B' on every sector - B costs more.
Later on, the airline has freed up more seats in M on that busy sector, or someone who was booked in M has moved to another day and that seat has gone back into the inventory...now you can get your 4 seats in M on every leg and your fare is cheaper.
Maybe!
However, this is not the first time this has happened. When we booked tickets for my MIL to come over a couple of years ago, we noticed a similar pattern.
Also, it does seem dependent to the time of day to a certain extent as it always seem to be cheaper in the evening. Believe me, I have spent many hours checking and the pattern is definitely there. That could very well be due to the fact that they release seats around the same time every day, which would tie in with your theory.
It would be interesting to get info from an insider to find out how it works.
#5
Re: Best time to book SIA tickets online - Experiment
A friend of mine worked in SQ res in London until recently - I'll ask him soon.
It could be they run a batch job at a certain time of day to update inventory, but I would've thought that could work in your favour or against you.
It could be they run a batch job at a certain time of day to update inventory, but I would've thought that could work in your favour or against you.
#6
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Joined: Jan 2008
Location: Northamptonshire
Posts: 273
Re: Best time to book SIA tickets online - Experiment
We have found it being similar when booking tickets back to Florida from the UK Elice. We will definitely continue playing around with SIA's website when booking our tickets to Oz.
#7
Re: Best time to book SIA tickets online - Experiment
Spoke to a lady at the Flight Centre today.
She explained how seats are snapped up during the course of the day but then re-appear tomorrow morning.
I suppose it makes sense but new to me.
Bezza
She explained how seats are snapped up during the course of the day but then re-appear tomorrow morning.
I suppose it makes sense but new to me.
Bezza