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Comment by geverett | Hacker News Reader

Tbh this makes perfect sense. As someone who worked in airline revenue management for 11 years, it always seemed a little odd that the sales tactics people use everywhere else - group discounts, BOGO, etc - weren't being used by airlines (yes, group bookings could often get discounts, but usually for much larger groups).

What's remarkable here is that airlines waited this long to do it. Sad news for me as a usually solo traveler who prizes flexibility, but I understand airlines wanting to prioritize groups and more locked-in fares.

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There are lots of things airlines could offer, that they don't. They are all obsessed with "loyalty", why not sell travelers multi-packs (6 flights over the next 12 months) or subscription-like plans? Why a 24-hour cancellation period even for flights booked months ahead... they could certainly extend that to allow for "low-risk" booking or even charging a small fee for the right to cancel up to, say, 3 months in advance. Auctioning off unsold seats. Selling itineraries with multi-day layovers in a 3rd city (basically adding a second destination to a vacation). Lots more with a bit of creativity.

United these days has AFAIK pretty generous cancellation though it's in credit rather than outright refund.

Yes, most domestic US airlines have eliminated change fees. But as you point out, it's not possible to get your money back and it's not easy to make changes if you don't have an alternative trip in mind. Cancellability is valuable (see hotel bookings), and yet, people over-value the option - sometimes out of laziness, or they forgot, or they go with the original plan. I have difficulty believing airlines would lose very much if they offered full refundability up to about 3 or 4 months in advance, but they would probably get more bookings, most of which would likely not get cancelled.

A lot depends on your travel habits. Credit on my usual airline (United) is pretty much a no-brainer within the year--I'll use it barring circumstances where losing some airline dollars are the least of my problems. Less so than it used to be but still.

For hotels, I still tend to pay the premium. I don't expect to cancel but, especially for an extended city stay, it can be a fair amount of money and the premium usually isn't that huge.

I've seen most of these in Asia. There's a lot of experiments going on.

Agreed. I participated in a points-based package that used to be offered by AirAsia. It was about $300 for 30 points. Flights between cities/countries were 1 to 3 points each, I probably got 3x my money's worth and still had about 4 or 5 points left over.

Airlines do sell multi-packs with flexible rebooking. At least United and Delta did pre-covid, I haven’t had a use since then though.

With even moderate airline status rebooking/cancellations work more or less as described. I can’t recall the last time I haven’t been credited for a flight I ended up not taking, even I did a full on no-show.

Without status airlines sell refundable tickets with similar flexible rules, but I assume there is some adverse selection included in how they need to price those fares.

Yes most airlines have eliminated change fees, and rebooking isn't too difficult for business travelers. But that's not a refund, and people booking 6 to 12 months out tend to be families going on vacation or to a specific event. So if something changes, there isn't always something else to book, or at least not on that specific airline. Further, what you call "moderate" status - the lowest level - has been raised to require an enormous amount of spending on any one of the major airlines. And don't get me started with "you only need to spend 100k on their credit card..."

Alaska offers a subscription plan.

Realistically most frequent travelers go for business and they don’t care about cost that much so subscription packs wouldn’t be valuable. That’s why loyalty programs instead offer non monetary perks or those that accrue to the individual (points).

I dont really buy into the businesses don't care about cost - maybe for top execs - but companies are obsessed with expense reports and accounting for every penny, reducing per diems, limiting hotel cost ceilings, booking through a specific travel agency, etc. And of course most companies are working overtime in every other department to slash costs, why would travel be spared? Being able to buy flights in bulk and save money seems like it would be highly appealing to finance managers.

Of course, there are exceptions. Governments seem to be some of the worst violators, they really do not care about costs and in many cases they egregiously throw money around for 5 star luxury hotels, first class flights, etc.

> As someone who worked in airline revenue management, it always seemed odd that the sales tactics people use everywhere else weren't being used by airlines

Remember the really old days when air miles were awarded solely by distance flown rather than by dollars paid? This made no business sense. It meant that someone who flew the cheapest tickets could rack up as many points as a last-minute first class business traveller who spent massively more ticket.

With the airlines I’m familiar with, it seems that pricing anomaly has been corrected. Air miles are much more correlated with the price of the ticket these days. Eg., you don’t even get air miles on the cheapest tickets on one airline I know.

But I still wonder why the airline industry created an air miles formula so disconnected from the value of the passenger in the early days.

Because of the difference between:

"Congratulations! You flew 100,000 miles with us!"

"Congratulations! You spent $100,000 with us!"

The first mileage program was introduced only a couple years after deregulation, so it probably made a lot more sense at the time as a rough proxy for revenue, and revenue management at the airlines wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as it is today.

In the early days you didn't have the internet where people would share every tiny anomaly, allowing thousands of people to exploit them. Even then, you had a few people realize they could do mileage runs, but it was considered additional revenue and the perks of doing so weren't valued nearly as highly as they are today.

Alaska still uses miles flown. It’s pretty annoying since I’m doing some short hop flights with them that cost a lot and I get basically nothing for it.

I actually prefer the miles per $ model since it seems more fair for everyone. Obviously it’s less exploitable but that’s exactly the sort of thing everyone is complaining about.

I usually expect to see BOGOs, group discounts, etc advertised. If airlines showed the seat price along with a group discount I don't think people would have a problem with the price difference.

When I'm in the store and I see 3 for 2 or whatever, I can think, yeah, ok, I'll be using three of 'em soon enough, fine I'll get 3.

But when I travel, it's not like I'm gonna call up my buddy and ask him if he'll join me on a flight so I can get a better ticket price. And if I'm going on vacation with my family, I'm not going to buy individual tickets, like why would I do that?

If these things aren't advertised or even made visible in any way other than the user happening to discover them, they're not sales tactics, they're just scumbag business tactics to prevent pricing transparency.

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