製訂機票價錢的過來者談怎樣找便宜機票 The Best Way to Find a Cheap Airplane Ticket, According to Two Guys Who Set Fares http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-24/the-best-way-to-find-a-cheap-airplane-ticket-according-to-two-guys-who-set-fares?campaign_id=yhoo Travelers often bemoan the gambling in airline ticket-shopping: Do I buy now or wait to see if the fare decreases? One reason for that casino feel is the computerized alchemy of what’s known as revenue management, the airlines’ 24/7 effort to improve their financial performance by meticulously allocating the number of seats at various price levels and overbooking flights. It’s an algorithm-based field of math and computer science that is, literally, akin to rocket science. A typical day’s operation for the average global airline involves roughly 100 million fares to be analyzed and managed, says Bill Brunger, chief executive of PODS Research, a revenue management consultancy and a former vice president of Continental Airlines (UAL). He and Scott Nason, a former vice president of revenue management at American Airlines, discussed the dark arts of airfare pricing on Tuesday at a conference hosted by Airlines for America, the U.S. carriers’ trade group in Washington. (Nason also runs a revenue-management consulting firm, SDN TT&H Consulting, in Dallas.) Advance-purchase rules help segment airline seat prices into different market categories, with a single flight often having 20 or more fares. That model—with purchase deadlines of one to 90 days—helps revenue managers deal with seat inventory that usually comes onto their books a year before the departure date. Fares that are booked 21 days early, for example, generally cost less than fares bought a week or less before travel. Airlines also overbook most flights. The amount of no-show passengers has been remarkably stable over the years, so carriers can predict which routes and days correspond to a high number of absentee fliers. It’s also financially lucrative—overbooking accounts for 2 percent to 4 percent of the industry’s entire revenue, Brunger said. STORY: United's $5 Tickets: To Honor or to Cancel, That's the Question And if you think buying vacation flights nearly a year in advance will help you get the best ticket price, it won’t. “They don’t know too much” a year out, says Brunger. “When revenue management people are nervous they usually pick a default level that’s conservative.” As the shopping season for Thanksgiving and Christmas travel approaches, here are a few ideas from the two airfare experts: 1. Book early-ish. Hardly an exact metric, Brunger concedes, but it means not waiting too long, hoping that an airline will have too many empty seats on the flight you want three to four weeks before departure and get desperate to sell them. (That’s exceedingly rare, and means something went wrong for the revenue manager.) The closer you get to the advance-purchase deadlines, the more clarity airlines usually have on their pricing forecasts. When it works as planned, revenue management means an airline has sold exactly the number of seats at each fare level that it had intended—closer to departure, the seats that are left cost far more. (熱門時期的票,要早一點買,雖然不建議是一年前就買,因為那時的票價通常是自動掛上去的保守的高票價,但也不要拖到很近的時候還不下手, 便宜的座位數被搶走後,票價就不可能便宜了) STORY: This Travel-Booking Website Loves It When You Call 2. Book at a price satisfactory to you. If you can live with the cost and it seems decent, take the plunge. “If the fare feels like a fairly good fare, I would buy,” Nason said. (如果一個票價覺得還可以,就該下手,別老想要碰運氣去等著最最底價!) 3. Stop looking. You don’t need to keep shopping a flight you’ve purchased, see the price drop, and feel like a dope. (And airlines are much less likely to refund you the savings than they used to be.) Sure, there’s an argument to be made that such a painful education may help you become a better airfare shopper, but few people are obsessive or patient enough to keep tabs on routes’ pricing at all times. Said Brunger: “Buyer’s remorse is a real thing.” (買完了票,就不要老再去看可能的最低價,然後自怨自艾,和自己過不去!)

我剛才上 www.skyscanner.com 試看一下明年七月台北到 LAX 或 SFO 的來回票,竟然看到有菲航 872 美金 (台幤26000)的票,很是驚奇,在明年正當暑假中的時間,這是極為不錯的跳樓價錢了吧! 如果已下定決心計劃那段時間去,實在不妨趕快把住這個票,等到明年靠近時,我想這種價錢會是很難看到了。 今年(2013)七月,碰到夏威夷航空開航,所以六月有出過同樣的價錢,所以有些搶到的人,高興地不亦樂乎,但是我相信大部份的人都是花了四,五萬買機票過去的。所以夏航開航的那種機會,可能明年不會有了。

各位大大您好: 小弟有個疑問想請教大家，先說明一下我們四個人明年的行程 明年2014七月我們想去美國蒙大拿的冰河國家公園，當地的機場是FCA 因為機票價格因素，所以我們想台美國際跟美國國內線分開訂 目前查明年七月的飛美國的票價大致上都是三萬多起跳(SFO/LAX/SEA) 而有旅行社說明年農曆過年後會有更多的機票釋出 我想請教的是如果要等票價可以壓在三萬以下的時間會是明年農曆之後嗎? 沒有自己買過機票，所以想說上來跟前輩們請教看看