Airline pricing is nuts

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Joined
Apr 5, 2011
Messages
6,475
Location
Baltimore. MD
OK, so at the last minute my consulting client decided I should go down to South Carolina for a conference next week. I started looking up airfares (on Southwest) last night, but I didn't get final approval until this afternoon. When I booked the tickets just now, it turns out that the fare I ended up paying is about $200 cheaper than the fare I was quoted last night. Not that I'm complaining, but this is a little nuts. Also, when I tried to book a rental car, all of the agencies at the airport were sold out. I finally found something at an off-airport location, but they won't pick me up or drop me off because I guess that would be competing with their branch at the airport. Thus, I'm on the hook for 2 taxicab or Uber rides between the airport and the rental car location, but it's only 2 miles away, so it shouldn't be too much.

By the way, I did check out Amtrak, but aside from the fact that the absence of the Silver Meteor makes an overnight trip impossible, the coach fare on the Palmetto was about $50 more than the airline fare. Almost $300, coach, Baltimore to Charleston, wow! (I know that if I booked earlier, the far would have been a lot less.) I'll bet that Palmetto is packed in like sardines.
 
OK, so at the last minute my consulting client decided I should go down to South Carolina for a conference next week. I started looking up airfares (on Southwest) last night, but I didn't get final approval until this afternoon. When I booked the tickets just now, it turns out that the fare I ended up paying is about $200 cheaper than the fare I was quoted last night. Not that I'm complaining, but this is a little nuts. Also, when I tried to book a rental car, all of the agencies at the airport were sold out. I finally found something at an off-airport location, but they won't pick me up or drop me off because I guess that would be competing with their branch at the airport. Thus, I'm on the hook for 2 taxicab or Uber rides between the airport and the rental car location, but it's only 2 miles away, so it shouldn't be too much.

By the way, I did check out Amtrak, but aside from the fact that the absence of the Silver Meteor makes an overnight trip impossible, the coach fare on the Palmetto was about $50 more than the airline fare. Almost $300, coach, Baltimore to Charleston, wow! (I know that if I booked earlier, the far would have been a lot less.) I'll bet that Palmetto is packed in like sardines.
🤯 WOW, who woulda thought so many people would want to go to South Carolina on the Train??!!!
 
MARC rider, you are spot on about airline pricing! I will never forget a personal example: I had booked a RT San Jose-Chicago-San Jose and then needed to add a RT btwn Chicago and Stevens Point, WI, in btwn the legs from San Jose to Chi and back to San Jose. This was back when you could still go to a brick and mortar ticket office and talk to an agent. So she keyed in the changes I wanted and just gasped! She said (and I’ve never forgotten it) “I will never never never never never understand airline prices. I just put in the extra flights you wanted and the price went down!”
 
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