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pete762yesterday at 3:42 AM1 replyview on HN

The daily and seemingly random price fluctuations of tickets are much larger than the cost of meals you'd save, basically noise.


Replies

robocatyesterday at 9:05 AM

The "noise" is very likely intentional.

A common way to price discriminate is to make the cheaper options take time and effort to obtain. People with less money will put in more time and effort e.g. price comparison, looking for discounts (codes or whatever), taking a few days to check prices, willing to move travel dates/times to get a cheaper price. Those with more money pay more and value their time/effort more highly.

Flight prices are not random - they are highly optimised (even using genetic A/B price generation algorithms that the airlines themselves might not fully be able to predict).

PS: Avoid LATAM Airlines Chile - dark pattern on website - those bastards increased the price while I was entering the credit card to pay (a popup - was ~2% but a dirty trick - maybe discrimination after detecting card owner credit details?).