Well, anyone who's been following air fares lately knows it's
been tough to get any deal. First the airlines added a fuel surcharge
in January that raised fares as much as $40 on a round trip. Then,
for the last month or two, different airlines have been trying to
create an industry-wide fare hike. Now, this deserves some explaining.
See, the airlines are forbidden by law from talking to each
other about money. So whenever one wants to raise its prices, it
tries out the new fares on, say, a Friday afternoon. Then, it sits
back and waits. If all the other airlines raise their prices over the
weekend, the new fares stick. But if even one airline holds out, the
increase falls apart.
What that means is for the last several weeks, prices have
been going up on Fridays, and then falling back down on Mondays. That
is until last week. That's when the only hold out, Northwest, finally
raised its fares too.
Confused by all this up and down? I am. So, I called Terry
Trippler, the resident expert at onetravel.com to find out what effect all these fare increases
and decreases are having.
This whole conversation about fare increases begs another
question. To learn how are fares determined in the first place, I
went to Joe Brancatelli, a frequent flyer expert and columnist for biztravel.com. I asked Joe if all
these pricing hijinks can be anyway to run a business.
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