Air Canada Sale

Air Canada just put up notices of a sale and the rates are lower than the current EZ Air rates to Vancouver, at least for our cruise dates and departure city.

If you are booked on Air Canada on EZ Air flex, you might want to check the sale prices. It might be worth dropping the EZ Air and booking direct. NOTE--the sale prices are good, but not as low as what we got thru EZ Air a couple months ago.

We're going on the Pacific to Iceland/Norway in a few weeks and when booking our EZAir flights several months ago we tried and tried to book Air Canada. Even though they were among the EZAir choices, it would never go through. Got an error message every time. We called several times and Princess was not able to book them either. We finally booked Icelandair and United.

At first I thought our problems were because it was a move-over replacement cruise so we couldn't do it on our own, but we were able to book other flights without a problem. Did you have any trouble?

The Air Canada return connection through Toronto was very convenient and we were really disappointed. We looked into booking it without EZAir but it was much more expensive so we didn't go that route.

AC's pricing seems to vary widely. I'm doing the advance planning for one of our upcoming trips, this time out of LA/San Pedro. I checked the AC "sale" pricing for our trip dates, then checked the EZAir pricing. While booking direct with Air Canada offered us the direct flights, EZAir was about HALF the price of AC. Down side is that the best connection was with American and involved one stop.

I know it's a cynical generality, but Air Canada is rarely the cheapest option, and is usually more expensive by far.

We initially booked Air Canada thru EZ Air because it had the cheapest direct flight. Twice, I was able to reduce the price thru EA Air and keep the same flights. The prices have since gone up considerably.

I suspect I got the sale announcement because we have a booking with them...but the sale price is still $25 more each way than we paid with EZ Air.

I've never flown with them before; trusting it is essentially like any other airline.

We initially booked Air Canada thru EZ Air because it had the cheapest direct flight. Twice' date=' I was able to reduce the price thru EA Air and keep the same flights. The prices have since gone up considerably.

I suspect I got the sale announcement because we have a booking with them...but the sale price is still $25 more each way than we paid with EZ Air.

 

I've never flown with them before; trusting it is essentially like any other airline.[/quote']

 

I remember reading something a while back that AC, as well as some other airlines evaluate the number of times someone looks at a flight into the price of the flight - so if everyone is looking it may be inflating the prices.

 

One other note, if your desired flight is on Air Canada Express - formerly Jazz, it may not be included. Also looks like flights for the sale are in the fall and winter.

I remember reading something a while back that AC, as well as some other airlines evaluate the number of times someone looks at a flight into the price of the flight - so if everyone is looking it may be inflating the prices.

 

One other note, if your desired flight is on Air Canada Express - formerly Jazz, it may not be included. Also looks like flights for the sale are in the fall and winter.

I also used to think this was correct and would clear my cookies each time I looked at flights.....The experts on this board set the record straight...no they do not know or care how many times you look.

I remember reading something a while back that AC, as well as some other airlines evaluate the number of times someone looks at a flight into the price of the flight - so if everyone is looking it may be inflating the prices..

If everyone is BUYING, the prices will go up, as inventory in the cheaper buckets gets sold out. Not so for just looking and researching. Yield management is based on actual sales activity cross-tabulated with time, not on potential interest.

Ashland has it spot on.

If everyone is BUYING, the prices will go up, as inventory in the cheaper buckets gets sold out. Not so for just looking and researching. Yield management is based on actual sales activity cross-tabulated with time, not on potential interest.

 

Ashland has it spot on.

One of the experts I was referring to ;)

I remember reading something a while back that AC, as well as some other airlines evaluate the number of times someone looks at a flight into the price of the flight - so if everyone is looking it may be inflating the prices.

So imagine that airline A has a flight that's not selling so well because other people are booking airline B's similarly-timed flight. Now, if airlines really did this, what would airline A do if it wanted more people to book its flight? It would be so easy to set up an automated search that keeps pinging airline B's flight, so that the airline B keeps putting up its price even though airline A's automated search never converts the searches into bookings.

Why would the airline B leave itself wide open to being dinged like this? It would be madness. Just like the other urban myth about (say) airline C putting up the price of its own flight when you search for it a lot. There's no better way of airline C pushing you into booking airline A's flight or airline B's flight instead. Why on earth would it do that?

Again, you just have to ask yourself why an airline would do this? For most people, price is a very important consideration.

 

So imagine that airline A has a flight that's not selling so well because other people are booking airline B's similarly-timed flight. Now, if airlines really did this, what would airline A do if it wanted more people to book its flight? It would be so easy to set up an automated search that keeps pinging airline B's flight, so that the airline B keeps putting up its price even though airline A's automated search never converts the searches into bookings.

 

Why would the airline B leave itself wide open to being dinged like this? It would be madness. Just like the other urban myth about (say) airline C putting up the price of its own flight when you search for it a lot. There's no better way of airline C pushing you into booking airline A's flight or airline B's flight instead. Why on earth would it do that?

Expert # 2 I was referring to ;)

One of the experts I was referring to ;)

Expert # 2 I was referring to ;)

It is good to have knowledgeable folks on this forum. (y)