You know that feeling you get when that highly coveted award seat you’ve been waiting for finally becomes available? Or when there’s availability to redeem points at a “dream” hotel over the holidays? Usually you get that elated feeling from doing lots of research and/or monitoring availability closely.
Apparently sometimes forgetfulness pays off as well, and this was just such an extreme example that I couldn’t help but share.
I need to fly from Los Angeles to Dallas soon, and when I looked a few days ago, the fare was $212 per person ($424.20 total for two people). I placed it on hold, and was planning on booking it the next day. While I wasn’t thrilled with the fare, ultimately I was willing to book it, since we had to be on that flight from a scheduling standpoint.
Unfortunately that flight slipped my mind the following day. Grrrr. With my luck, I was imagining that the fare had doubled, or something.
Only that wasn’t the case. Instead, the fare fell by over 70%, from $212.10 per person to $58.10 per person.
At that price I ticketed the reservation right away, rather than even placing it on hold, out of fear of making the same mistake again.
I know this might sound minor to some, but I think as humans we have the tendency to be critical of ourselves. I can remember all kinds of instances where I made mistakes when booking travel and it didn’t benefit me. It’s nice to remember that sometimes forgetfulness/not planning as carefully as we should can work out in our favor as well.
Have you ever saved money on travel as a result of forgetting to book something?
@lucky - Got it, thanks for the clarification.
@Oops
UA has a few $132 LAX-DFW RTs so perhaps AA wanted to undercut them.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mileage-run-deals/1711215-ua-132-lax-iad-rt-4694pqm-2-80cpm.html
@lucky I'm confused. "with my luck" Does that mean Lucky is your name because you have bad luck? Hmmm.
Ben, could a price guarantee from a credit card (AMEX) come in to play then?
Any insight on why the fare would go down that much? Is this something that happens often or was it a mistake, or something else? Thanks!
Ben, have you ever requested a refund for the price difference when the price has fallen? What's the procedure on that nowadays?
@ Louis -- Many airlines used to offer a voucher for the difference, but most don't anymore. I know American doesn't. So unless you want to pay the change fee (which would be more than the fare difference in this case), there's not really a way to do that.
Looks like the tickets were booked in "O" class. Does "O" class refer to Main Cabin Extra (based on the seat numbers)?
@ Michael C -- Nope, that's just an economy fare class. I got Main Cabin Extra seating due to my status.
This seems like a hint at your route to London.
What day did you original hold it and what day did you find the lower fare? I find that mid-week fares are usually the lowest
Wow pretty lucky there Lucky.