Is There A Best Day & Time To Book Flights?

Is There A Best Day & Time To Book Flights?

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Is there a best day and time to book flights and to actually fly, or is that just fake news?

An Instagrammer’s curious claim on when to book flights

A reader sent me a link to an Instagram reel, and asked me if the information in it is true. Specifically, this is a reel from Megan Homme, who has nearly 140K followers, and who seems to post a lot of airline related tips. Looking over her profile, she frequently mentions how she works for an airline. Specifically, she has worked at United Airlines for over four years, largely in social media and communications (both of which she’s pretty good at, it seems!).

One of her reels is going viral, and has received over 34 million views as of the time of this post. That’s not surprising, because she quite authoritatively makes claims about when one should book travel based on what she was allegedly told by the airline.

In the Instagram reel, Homme says the following:

I work for an airline, and these are the cheapest days and times to fly. The cheapest day to book your ticket is Saturday and Sunday, but the cheapest day to actually fly on is Tuesday. And the cheapest time of day to physically book your ticket is between 6AM and 12PM. And I’m not making these up, these were presented to us like one of my first weeks of work.

If just some random person were making this claim, I’m sure it wouldn’t have gotten all that much attention. But what makes this so noteworthy is the authority with which it’s said, and that it’s claimed that this is what the airline tells employees.

I don’t claim to be right, so I’m curious to open this up to OMAAT readers, especially those who work in airline revenue management and pricing. My general assumption is that:

  • There are absolutely cheaper days of the week to fly, which is just a function of supply and demand; while it’s market dependent, generally flying on Tuesdays and Wednesdays will be cheaper than flying on Fridays and Sundays
  • Over the years we’ve seen endless claims along these lines, but I’ve yet to see any data actually supporting this
  • Airlines do frequently load schedule updates over the weekend (typically Saturday night into Sunday morning), but that’s generally not going to impact pricing, but rather just leads to flights being loaded and removed from the schedule
  • Some people also like to claim that airlines show lower fares if you search through incognito mode, but again, I haven’t seen data to support that
I’ve not seen data supporting a best time to book

My philosophy on getting the best deal on flights

I’m not trying to discredit the above, though let me share the approach I take to getting the best deal on flights.

Let me start by saying that airline pricing is really complicated, arguably way more complicated than it needs ti be. There are a variety of factors that determine how much you’ll pay for a flight — there are typically dozens of fare types filed between each city pair, and then there are specific inventory “buckets” that need to be available to actually get those fares.

If only getting the best deal on airfare were as simple as getting up at 6AM on a Saturday…

Here’s my general approach to trying to get the best deal on flights:

  • For holiday travel, I tend to think the further out you book the better, since those flights are going to be full no matter what, and pricing rarely drops as the departure date approaches
  • For non-peak travel, I tend to think that booking somewhere one to three months in advance is the sweet spot, depending on just how off-peak your travel days are
  • I use Google Flights to better analyze fares; when you select a particular flight, you can see how the pricing compares to what it typically is, and you can also track prices, so that you’ll receive an email if the airfare for that flight changes
  • Personally I think the real game changer is that major US airlines lave largely eliminated change fees (with some exclusions, of course); nowadays I just book flights when I find a fare I’m comfortable paying, and then I can always reprice it if the fare drops, and get a voucher toward future travel
Google Flights has a “Track prices” feature
Google Flights has a historical pricing display

I find this strategy suits me well…

Bottom line

Every so often you’ll see a viral story about the best time to book flights, though the tips are always different. One recent Instagram post is going viral over this, with the added twist that the person is an airline employee, and claims the airline shared this advice.

I’d be curious to hear what others think about this advice — personally I have my own strategy for trying to get the best deal on flights, but (sadly?) it doesn’t involve getting up at 3:47AM on the third Wednesday of the month.

Where do you stand on “best time to book” travel advice?

Conversations (30)
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  1. Cindy Guest

    Anytime I'm looking for Airfare I will check early in the morning every day for a solid week. Early being 6 am to 7 am window.

    Is one particular day always cheaper than others? When Booking Delta yes it is. Also booking 6 months or longer out from the trip gives you the lowest airfare I've ever seen also. I do not wait less than 6 months to book airfare.

    I also do not...

    Anytime I'm looking for Airfare I will check early in the morning every day for a solid week. Early being 6 am to 7 am window.

    Is one particular day always cheaper than others? When Booking Delta yes it is. Also booking 6 months or longer out from the trip gives you the lowest airfare I've ever seen also. I do not wait less than 6 months to book airfare.

    I also do not book through 3rd party companies. I search directly through the airlines websites.

    Hope this information helps someone else.

  2. Sherry Guest

    I use the Hopper app to tell me if fares will drop. It’s very helpful.

  3. Troy Guest

    Retired from arline, just checked flight using your theory and got cheaper flight flying weekend instead of tuesday

  4. Phil Young Guest

    My personal experience is that for domestics travels, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are probably the best time to search and book for your future travel, as this is when Southwest Airlines release their sales and other airlines will potentially look to match (Southwest Airlines always update their sales information starting Tuesday and ending by Thursday).

    Also my experience is that searching on Saturday and Sunday for future travel might end up with higher fares compared...

    My personal experience is that for domestics travels, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are probably the best time to search and book for your future travel, as this is when Southwest Airlines release their sales and other airlines will potentially look to match (Southwest Airlines always update their sales information starting Tuesday and ending by Thursday).

    Also my experience is that searching on Saturday and Sunday for future travel might end up with higher fares compared with searching on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And it makes sense to me since people might have more free time to do this type of search over the weekends when they are not working, so it is smart to increase the price over the weekends for potential more revenue.

  5. Darren C Diamond

    Two reasons for scepticism:

    #1-This phrase: "And I’m not making these up,"

    2-Using "like" like this: "these were presented to us like one of my first weeks of work."

    If you want an article with data and specifics, go to https://www.cheapair.com/blog/the-best-time-to-buy-flights/

  6. Alan Guest

    As someone who has worked in pricing at a legacy US carrier, this Tiktok/Reel is completely off-base. The author works for UA in a non-commercial role that is completely divorced from the company's pricing and revenue management functions. Any "information" she thinks she has is likely either the result of a game of telephone or some exasperated pricer telling her something to get her off their back.

    It is more likely that there will be...

    As someone who has worked in pricing at a legacy US carrier, this Tiktok/Reel is completely off-base. The author works for UA in a non-commercial role that is completely divorced from the company's pricing and revenue management functions. Any "information" she thinks she has is likely either the result of a game of telephone or some exasperated pricer telling her something to get her off their back.

    It is more likely that there will be attractive deals/mistake fares during the week as opposed to the weekend, since that is when pricing offices are fully staffed and pricers are both creating and reacting to other airlines’ fare changes (either by matching, imitating a fare war, or whatever). US airline pricing departments generally do very little during weekends so it is unlikely that you will find a new mistake/cheap fare then. Fridays are similar; airlines do not want to initiate a major pricing action then since it likely won’t resolve in time for the weekend. Beyond that, there is literally no difference between days of the week.

    It makes no sense that airlines would offer a more attractive fare in incognito mode than if you are logged in. In what situation does it make sense to increase the price for someone who is wavering on purchasing a ticket? A small discount is much more likely to drive sales. Beyond that, there are likely major privacy issues in some countries, and generally existing pricing techniques (which are based on very old systems) cannot support anything like this.

    Jonathan seems to have the RM perspective down but happy to provide general feedback regarding this from a pricing point of view.

    1. Eskimo Guest

      So airlines separate Pricing and RM, isn't that supposed to be the same thing?

    2. Jonathan Member

      @eskimo, within airline RM there’s two major functions: pricing and yield/inventory.

      Pricing team are the ones who are filing fares and determining what price each fare bucket sells at in a given market

      Then the yield analysts are ones managing the selling of those fare buckets for the markets they own

  7. Jimmy K Member

    On more than one occasion I've definitely been checking flights on an airline's website without incognito mode and seen the price jump up after going through the search process numerous times, only to immediately try again using incognito mode or another device not on the same network, to find the first, cheapest price again. It may not be the case that using incognito mode reveals lower prices per se, but it's my perception that by...

    On more than one occasion I've definitely been checking flights on an airline's website without incognito mode and seen the price jump up after going through the search process numerous times, only to immediately try again using incognito mode or another device not on the same network, to find the first, cheapest price again. It may not be the case that using incognito mode reveals lower prices per se, but it's my perception that by not using incognito mode and having cookies accepted does result in prices going up if you keep checking slight variations on the same journey. But I'm no expert!

  8. Jon Guest

    Thanks to Jonathan and Sean for these very insightful comments. Seems very logical and explains a lot of what I've experienced. Definitely the most useful information I've seen on this subject anywhere.

  9. Kevin Guest

    theflightdeal.com used to publish an annual report with the aggregate of their deals (avail at https://www.theflightdeal.com/2020/01/01/the-flight-deal-2019-deal-list/). Not perfect, but I calc'd the day of the week thing to see if it was just tons of deals on certain days of the week. The quantity of postings was slightly, but not notably skewed toward Tues/Wed deal postings. It wasn't enough for me to consider it an actionable trend to book on a specific day of the...

    theflightdeal.com used to publish an annual report with the aggregate of their deals (avail at https://www.theflightdeal.com/2020/01/01/the-flight-deal-2019-deal-list/). Not perfect, but I calc'd the day of the week thing to see if it was just tons of deals on certain days of the week. The quantity of postings was slightly, but not notably skewed toward Tues/Wed deal postings. It wasn't enough for me to consider it an actionable trend to book on a specific day of the week.

    Here's the 2019 data split for NYC.
    Sun 13.39%
    Mon 13.64%
    Tue 15.36%
    Wed 15.11%
    Thu 14.62%
    Fri 13.51%
    Sat 14.13%

  10. Donna Diamond

    I agree that flying on Tuesday and Wednesday are generally the cheapest for my flights to Europe. Most of the destinations I fly to are big tourist cities and therefore the best prices in season are booked at least seven months in advance for Business Class flights (they fill fast). I have noticed that the best time to book is early morning but haven’t noticed a trend for Saturday or Sunday booking being a better...

    I agree that flying on Tuesday and Wednesday are generally the cheapest for my flights to Europe. Most of the destinations I fly to are big tourist cities and therefore the best prices in season are booked at least seven months in advance for Business Class flights (they fill fast). I have noticed that the best time to book is early morning but haven’t noticed a trend for Saturday or Sunday booking being a better deal but I’ll check it out. But the claim that booking incognito yields better prices is false in my experience.

  11. Antipode Guest

    My gut feeling is that this could be completely true yet also completely useless at the same time. It might very well be factual in the aggregate (i.e. statistically), but the nuance is completely lost in how it is being stated as advice to the point of being virtually worthless. My guess is that the proportion of the variation in prices that is explained by day of week / time of booking is fairly small.

    ...

    My gut feeling is that this could be completely true yet also completely useless at the same time. It might very well be factual in the aggregate (i.e. statistically), but the nuance is completely lost in how it is being stated as advice to the point of being virtually worthless. My guess is that the proportion of the variation in prices that is explained by day of week / time of booking is fairly small.

    A simplified and exaggerated analogy might be if the price of a particular flight was a multiple of the number of times a coin lands heads, but in the morning, I flip a coin that lands heads 49% of the time 5 times, and in the afternoon, I flip a coin that lands heads 50% of the time 5 times. Then yes, booking in the morning will lead to a lower price on average, but only about 2% of the variation in price from flight to flight is due to the difference in booking in the morning vs. afternoon, and about 98% of the variability in price is completely random. The point being that without knowing what proportion of the variability in prices is due to the time of week and time of day as being suggested, it could very well be of little practical value while being factually true.

    An airline has enough data to be able to find small average price differences based on time of booking even when most of the price difference is due to other factors, but I'd doubt they'd want to make that public. Nowadays, there's enough public data out there that it might be possible to scrape and gather enough to be able to study it rigorously, although if you aren't careful, the websites will probably just ban you before you grab enough data over a long enough period of time.

  12. DCS Diamond

    Then there is the 'R' or 'random' factor that can toss all the dogma out the window.

    I am planning a trip to CUN in November 2022 for which I intended to purchase premium cabin tickets around September 2022. Then out of the blue I get a tremendous offer from UA:

    Earn up to 6 total miles through June 30.
    Activate this special offer by June 30, and you'll earn 6 total miles on...

    Then there is the 'R' or 'random' factor that can toss all the dogma out the window.

    I am planning a trip to CUN in November 2022 for which I intended to purchase premium cabin tickets around September 2022. Then out of the blue I get a tremendous offer from UA:

    Earn up to 6 total miles through June 30.
    Activate this special offer by June 30, and you'll earn 6 total miles on United purchases and 5 total miles on all other travel purchases, at gas stations and grocery stores for every $1 you spend on up to $1,500 in total combined purchases from April 1 through June 30, 2022 with your United℠ Explorer Credit Card

    I did not hesitate. I went to united.com, searched for flights for my travel dates, found RT first-class tickets under $1,500 and pulled the trigger.

    UA Explorer offering 6X for tickets beats the AMEX Plat's 5X, which is what I would likely have gone with had the UA offer not suddenly appeared.

    That's the 'R' factor that one must always keep an eye on or for...

  13. Creditcrunch Diamond

    Pre covid I think there is a lot of mileage in what people are articulating here and I have seen that when booking a few years ago. Post covid everything has changed ( well ex UK fares ) it feels like airlines are waiting to see who blinks first in relation to lowering prices, they are all dancing around the same £2.5k range for UK-US routes and reward availability is non existent. I wonder how...

    Pre covid I think there is a lot of mileage in what people are articulating here and I have seen that when booking a few years ago. Post covid everything has changed ( well ex UK fares ) it feels like airlines are waiting to see who blinks first in relation to lowering prices, they are all dancing around the same £2.5k range for UK-US routes and reward availability is non existent. I wonder how long it will take for revenue management to stabilise and normal service resumes.

  14. D3kingg Guest

    Google flights track where you are with phone gps. I looked at plane tickets from IAH to HNL while in LA. When I got back to Texas the flight was $200 less.

    I’m not ticket expert but if you use UPNs or whatever it’s called to spoof your location that’s how you can get a better deal.

    1. Antipode Guest

      And you are sure that it's location that determined the price difference instead of some other reason (inventory for lower fare buckets were opened up between the two times you checked, lower fares were loaded, etc.) how?

      Unless you can find a difference in fares for the exact same flights while looking at the exact same time from two different places (either one machine with a spoofed location or by coordinating with someone else at...

      And you are sure that it's location that determined the price difference instead of some other reason (inventory for lower fare buckets were opened up between the two times you checked, lower fares were loaded, etc.) how?

      Unless you can find a difference in fares for the exact same flights while looking at the exact same time from two different places (either one machine with a spoofed location or by coordinating with someone else at a different location), this anecdotal observation doesn't mean anything because there are dozens of reasons the price could have changed between when you were in LA and in Texas that have nothing to do with location.

    2. Eli Guest

      @Jonathan, I see you are an expert, can you explain me why airlines almost always in certain markets have the same prices? I sometimes see an airline going town in price an literally that day all other one's will copy

  15. Jonathan Member

    As someone who have worked in Revenue Management for a major US airline, I will say there is some truth to the early morning hours being cheapest theory.

    While for any given flight we have a modelled booking curve (how many seats are allocated at each fare bucket), that forecast does not change in real time as people book/cancel trips - they are simply taking up or releasing seats from the existing structure. This is...

    As someone who have worked in Revenue Management for a major US airline, I will say there is some truth to the early morning hours being cheapest theory.

    While for any given flight we have a modelled booking curve (how many seats are allocated at each fare bucket), that forecast does not change in real time as people book/cancel trips - they are simply taking up or releasing seats from the existing structure. This is because of the sheer volume of data we're working with - thousands of flights day, multiplied across a whole year - it's simply impossible to run that kind of forecast in real time.

    We have what's called "Data Collection Points" where the system will look at booking trends since the previous DCP and decide whether to yield up or down depending on how those bookings came in vs. expectations. These DCPs happen in intervals, and will become more frequent as we get closer to departure (think like 180...150...120...90...60...45...38...30...25...20...15 days etc.), and will happen almost daily in the days leading up to the flight.

    Now again, because of the volume of data we have to run, these kinds of re-forecasting generally happens overnight, sometime between 12-4am, which is why often times when you check flights first thing in the morning (when coinciding with a DCP), you may see lower fare buckets become available, and those get booked up as the day goes on (hence relatively more expensive fare are left later in the day).

    Obviously there are exceptions to this, as people could always cancel trips and release into the lower buckets throughout the day. On the flip side, there is also a scenario where the flight was underforecasted, and demands came in much faster than expectations. In that case, the system would then be yielding upwards, and you'll see fares suddenly go up not as a result of other people's bookings

    1. Andrew Diamond

      That's the best explanation I've seen on the topic. I'm sure there's variance between carriers, but definitely an interesting process.

      Any thoughts on whether they will move to a more real-time model as compute power and ML models improve?

    2. Jonathan Member

      Yes while there's definitely some variation amongst carriers, based on what I've seen, the same phenomenon happens at all of the major US airlines. This will be particularly evident at the Advance Purchase windows (3/7/14/21AP), which is also driven by another mechanism called "seat parking logic," which I won't get into the technicals of. Perhaps the best way to observe the fare buckets opening up is to look at an almost full flight within 3...

      Yes while there's definitely some variation amongst carriers, based on what I've seen, the same phenomenon happens at all of the major US airlines. This will be particularly evident at the Advance Purchase windows (3/7/14/21AP), which is also driven by another mechanism called "seat parking logic," which I won't get into the technicals of. Perhaps the best way to observe the fare buckets opening up is to look at an almost full flight within 3 days of departure - think Y5 to Y9, but only selling a handful of the higher fare buckets. If you look early the next morning, you may notice some of the lower buckets opening up. That will be evident of the RM system trying to hold those seats in anticipation of high yield booking, but as it gets close to departure the risk of spoilage increases significantly. Therefore to combat that, a small number of seats will trickle down the structure into lower fare buckets. This is a way to "hold seats back" as much as possible for high yield, without completely missing the booking curve and spoiling with unsold seats at departure.

      As to your question of whether we will see more real time forecasting...yes and no. You are right that computing power is more advanced nowadays and we will likely see more technological advances when it comes to RM. But keep in mind that with any forecasting vs. actuals, the law of averages is at play here. So in order to have a meaningful observation, you need to have sufficient amount of samples. Just because you've had zero booking in a day for a flight 2 months out doesn't mean you're necessarily over forecasting. So in many ways, over managing will actually lead to too much volatility and doesn't represent the actual demand

    3. Eskimo Guest

      My question is the truth behind "as people could always cancel trips and release into the lower buckets throughout the day."

      Does airline really lowers the bucket throughout the day?
      I have personally tried this on few major US airlines, and my conclusion was if the fare bucket jumped up because you bought that last seat. Even if you cancel, it wouldn't release it back to the lower bucket but just give the current bucket an extra seat. That is until when "DCP" runs.

    4. Jonathan Member

      @eskimo, you are absolutely correct. Think of fare structures as funnels - some are narrow and takes little water to get height, some are very wide and would take a lot of water.

      If one bought a low bucket fare, say like Q on American for example, when they cancel, it's not going to go back into Q. It will go back to whatever incremental seat would fall in that funnel. With that said,...

      @eskimo, you are absolutely correct. Think of fare structures as funnels - some are narrow and takes little water to get height, some are very wide and would take a lot of water.

      If one bought a low bucket fare, say like Q on American for example, when they cancel, it's not going to go back into Q. It will go back to whatever incremental seat would fall in that funnel. With that said, it's also not necessarily true it will only "just give the current bucket an extra seat." If an incremental open seat would mean a lower bucket needs to be opened to fill all the seats most profitably, lower buckets will then be at M1 or L1 or whatever it falls on.

      In short, the fare structures are pre-set depending on the forecast and days before departure - however many seats there are available will determine how the fare buckets (funnel) fills up

    5. Thiago Guest

      Hi Jonathan. Thanks for your very insightul comment. From what I have experienced using the GDS I've access, the number of seats allocated to each fare class seems to update almost instantly for some airlines (fare class "P" for AC for example), specially if the number of available seats in such class is on the lower end, however tha same is not true for lets say "O" with AA, where I've been able to book...

      Hi Jonathan. Thanks for your very insightul comment. From what I have experienced using the GDS I've access, the number of seats allocated to each fare class seems to update almost instantly for some airlines (fare class "P" for AC for example), specially if the number of available seats in such class is on the lower end, however tha same is not true for lets say "O" with AA, where I've been able to book 16 seats in 2 separated PNRs of 8 each while the initial display was showing only 9 seats, both cases for flights 6 months out. Do you have different DCP intervals for the number of seats available in each fare class and the fare clases available?

    6. RM101 Guest

      9 is the max a GDS can display for any given class in a city pair availability but they actual authorization can be much higher.

    7. Nick Guest

      Jonathan. When mentioning times, is that EST?

  16. Never In Doubt Guest

    Pre-COVID I’d use Google Flights to see what the low fare range would be and set an alert and try to catch one in the range.

    Post COVID, I buy the ticket and then set the alert, and get a credit if it drops.

  17. Sean M. Diamond

    This varies somewhat from market to market and other variables, but as a rule of thumb, in my 20+ years in the airline business I have seen the following trends.

    * Lowest yields for time of travel are seen from Monday afternoons through Wednesday mornings. This has been consistent across different markets (adjusted for weekend days).
    * However, immediate post-pandemic saw this change somewhat, with an increase in same-day return passengers in business markets...

    This varies somewhat from market to market and other variables, but as a rule of thumb, in my 20+ years in the airline business I have seen the following trends.

    * Lowest yields for time of travel are seen from Monday afternoons through Wednesday mornings. This has been consistent across different markets (adjusted for weekend days).
    * However, immediate post-pandemic saw this change somewhat, with an increase in same-day return passengers in business markets that supported those schedules - so yields strengthened on all weekdays but at morning/evening times at the expense of mid-day travel.
    * Lowest yields by time of booking are on Saturday mornings through Sunday afternoons local time at origin city. However, yields for bookings made on Sunday evenings are among the best - often for short notice travel early in the week.
    * Highest yields vary significantly by market. Longhaul markets tend to book higher yield late in the week (Thu/Fri), while shorthaul markets tend to be stronger later in the day with no significant variation across Mon-Thu. Again local time by origin city.
    * Strongest yields tend to be for Friday flights, regardless of route type!

    Of course, low yields are not perfect proxies for availability of cheap prices thanks to yield management techniques, but overall I don't think the instagram reel is too far off from reality.

    1. Richard Guest

      The best day to travel is any day Maura isn't working the lounge.

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Jonathan Member

As someone who have worked in Revenue Management for a major US airline, I will say there is some truth to the early morning hours being cheapest theory. While for any given flight we have a modelled booking curve (how many seats are allocated at each fare bucket), that forecast does not change in real time as people book/cancel trips - they are simply taking up or releasing seats from the existing structure. This is because of the sheer volume of data we're working with - thousands of flights day, multiplied across a whole year - it's simply impossible to run that kind of forecast in real time. We have what's called "Data Collection Points" where the system will look at booking trends since the previous DCP and decide whether to yield up or down depending on how those bookings came in vs. expectations. These DCPs happen in intervals, and will become more frequent as we get closer to departure (think like 180...150...120...90...60...45...38...30...25...20...15 days etc.), and will happen almost daily in the days leading up to the flight. Now again, because of the volume of data we have to run, these kinds of re-forecasting generally happens overnight, sometime between 12-4am, which is why often times when you check flights first thing in the morning (when coinciding with a DCP), you may see lower fare buckets become available, and those get booked up as the day goes on (hence relatively more expensive fare are left later in the day). Obviously there are exceptions to this, as people could always cancel trips and release into the lower buckets throughout the day. On the flip side, there is also a scenario where the flight was underforecasted, and demands came in much faster than expectations. In that case, the system would then be yielding upwards, and you'll see fares suddenly go up not as a result of other people's bookings

17
Jonathan Member

@eskimo, you are absolutely correct. Think of fare structures as funnels - some are narrow and takes little water to get height, some are very wide and would take a lot of water. If one bought a low bucket fare, say like Q on American for example, when they cancel, it's not going to go back into Q. It will go back to whatever incremental seat would fall in that funnel. With that said, it's also not necessarily true it will only "just give the current bucket an extra seat." If an incremental open seat would mean a lower bucket needs to be opened to fill all the seats most profitably, lower buckets will then be at M1 or L1 or whatever it falls on. In short, the fare structures are pre-set depending on the forecast and days before departure - however many seats there are available will determine how the fare buckets (funnel) fills up

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Antipode Guest

And you are sure that it's location that determined the price difference instead of some other reason (inventory for lower fare buckets were opened up between the two times you checked, lower fares were loaded, etc.) how? Unless you can find a difference in fares for the exact same flights while looking at the exact same time from two different places (either one machine with a spoofed location or by coordinating with someone else at a different location), this anecdotal observation doesn't mean anything because there are dozens of reasons the price could have changed between when you were in LA and in Texas that have nothing to do with location.

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