Special holiday one-way sales can be excellent deals, or rip-offs
After seeing another unusual type of fare sale it’s reminded me that some of these specials can be fantastic deals for the right person, though more often than not they turn out to be “bait and switch” for the average consumer. Specifically I’m referring to Delta Airlines’ current Memorial Day fare sale, which promises one-way fares from between $59 and $169 for city pairs all over the United States.
Why this is really Bait and Switch
A special low fare for a 3-day summer holiday when everyone wants to go somewhere? What could be better! Well, in this case when you read the fine print toward the bottom you’ll eventually notice that these fares are good for May 27 and May 28 ONLY. I’ll save you the trouble of taking out your calendar to tell you that that is a Saturday and Sunday, on a weekend where nearly everyone gets the Monday off. Unless you are a courier, you aren’t going to want to fly somewhere one day and return the next, regardless of how cheap the fares are.
Yes, that explains why the sale even exists. Those who are flying somewhere to celebrate the long weekend would prefer to fly out on Friday, or maybe even Thursday, and then come back on Monday. So the Saturday and Sunday will have plenty of half-emtpy planes, which makes it a perfect time to sell some of those seats for cheap if they can.
Most people, I’d guess, just see the headline advertising flights from Los Angeles to Tampa for $169 or from New York to West Palm Beach for $119, and they jump online to see if their Friday to Monday flights fit the sale criteria, which of course they don’t. Some of those people will go ahead and buy tickets at much higher prices anyway, and Delta does well and those cheap tickets still remain for the right people.
Getting value out of these fare sales
It’s true that more than half the people work or go to school Monday through Friday, and they get these big holidays all off at the same time as well, but not everyone. People who work in restaurants or other retail outlets often have a totally different schedule from the office drones, so those people should really take advantage of sales like this when they can shift a trip a day or two each way from the norm.
There are also plenty of people looking to take a one-week or longer trip during the summer, so when a sale like this comes along you can always consider flying out on Saturday, at a very low fare, and then flying back the following Saturday or Sunday, perhaps even on another airline.
Too few people realize that these days nearly all tickets are basically two parts of a one-way journey, and that by booking only one half the price usually cuts right in half. Even ten years ago this was almost unheard of, with one-way prices often twice what a “super saver” round-trip ticket would cost, but in the days of minute-by-minute load balancing and computer fare manipulation (often bringing prices down rather than up) the airlines have unbundled most tickets so returning on another airline might save you money.
This fare sale has seats from Orange County to Atlanta for $149 and you might find that Southwest or US Airways has a cheaper ticket home than Delta Airlines. These sales can really save people money if they are strategic about it.