VH apparently random price increases

Hi Guys

Im looking at going to Toronto for 6 days next spring. Checking the VH website last weekend it was quoting a price of about 575 each. I decided to try and book it today and the price has rocketed up to 780 adding more than 400 to the total cost of the booking.

How is that possible? What could have possibly caused that massive price jump and does anyone think it will come back down again?

Thanks

[Neil]

Is it something silly like no Y seats left so it is automatically putting you in PE? I have had this happen to me before and it isn't that clear on the booking page?

[Darren Wheeler]

When in Spring? Could be our old enemy of Supply and Demand.

I was looking at going on April 10th. I phoned VH last night and was told that there the plane was full (despite the Air Canada website showing the opposite). They said i would have to fly to Montreal, then connect to Toronto. I guess that explains the price increase

Don't know if this is correct or not, but I had a friend working at one of the big airlines who said that the amount of times there is a hit on a certain flight is checked and if there is a lot of interest shown then the price is upped accordingly ! Wouldn't surprise me.

quote:Originally posted by SNOMO
Don't know if this is correct or not, but I had a friend working at one of the big airlines who said that the amount of times there is a hit on a certain flight is checked and if there is a lot of interest shown then the price is upped accordingly ! Wouldn't surprise me.


I think what happens is something like this, in lay terms - all the flight pricing sits in a database supporting the Web site, booking engine at VS, travel agents etc. - when there are a lot of queries the database gets a bit busy, if there are concurrent queries looking for the lowest prices, sometimes the next fare bucket up gets shown instead, even if those original queries on the lowest fares don't result in a booking.

Now there's a whole industry trying to ensure this doesn't happen, but not every database is optimized to work perfectly.

So, I don't think that the prices are raised because of volume of searches, it can sometimes be the way systems are able to respond. It pays to try at different times and of course days depending on sales!

[Darren Wheeler]

Slinky. I think you are right there. The seat gets pulled from the bucket and held for a period. If not booked after that period, it returns to that bucket. It is possible to do this yourself by checking the fare price though multiple checks.

Last time I tried to book through VH they wanted to charge me more than 2000 more than the identical hotels and flights than booking myself. I haven't gone back to try them since as there seems no logic to their pricing!

[Decker]

Last time I tried to book with VH they wanted several thousand pounds less for the identical hotels and flights than booking myself. Horses for courses and all that

Thanks for the response guys. Im looking at going with BA now. Its a shame because the deal VH had was about 500 cheaper than the equivalent with BA and I cant really justify the additional cost. Looks like i will end up in a not so nice hotel instead.

[mitchja]

You could always try phoning VH and asking them to price match.

Everything has got to be identical (flights/hotels etc) for them to price match, but sometimes it does work.

Regards