Some travelers wonder how the prices of cheap airplane tickets and cheap vacation packages are impacted when ticket prices are rising at the same time as airlines are running airfare sales.
Intuitively it seems hard to understand how airline prices can be increasing and falling at the same time. A typical domestic flight has between 15 to 20 different airline ticket price points. Even though an across the board price hike of $5 each way seems relatively small, often such increases slow down bookings.
When airlines increase their base ticket prices airline sales sometime follow to lift bookings. The reason airlines can increase base ticket prices and sometimes offer sales at the same time is because sale prices are almost always offered only during days or time periods that are least popular with travelers and can be purchased for only a limited period of time.
Discounted tickets are always limited and frequently are only good for travel on Tuesday and Wednesday flights as well as sometimes on Saturdays. Since most fliers want to spend as much time on vacation, Friday departures and Sunday returns tend to be the most popular and thus expensive travel days.
The cheaper fall season, according to airline calendars, begins on August 20th or 21st, depending on the airline. Legacy large airlines (such as American, Delta, United, and US Airways) drop their peak travel season surcharges, that typically run between 10 to 20 percent, once summer ends, making fall travel more affordable. www.cheapfares.com