Travelblog » availability

December Vacations

admin — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:24:55 +0000

Ok I am certainly not one to promote shopping around – ie via Travel Agents – however shopping and asking various tour operators can be adventitious as I have learned this week. Here is why – and I us Mauritius as reference in this article – various operators punt / push and sell various properties in Mauritius, so looking for 4 or 5 star properties you need to shop around various operators to see what the various hotels are offering and boy changing dates can make an enormous difference. One can note that the peak holiday season which is in line with the school holidays or a week in either side for the peak peak times can see an increase in rates from low seaosn rates upwards of 60%, an average holiday to Mauritius for a family of 4 would comfortable be under R50 000 all inclusive however you will see this rate climb to between R75 000 and R100 000 during the peak season. Now for Mauritius various operators will offer various resorts so asking various operators and getting various resort opotions is a must when looking for the best peak season deal.

Now on the flip side if you find an agent that offers 4 quotes from 4 various tour operators then there is not much point in going to another travel agent to try and get the exact same quotes, what I am saying is the various operators have different specials not various travel agents – generally speaking, so for Mauritius you have the likes of Club Med, Beach comber, Naide, Movenpick and the likes – some with availability and some not. Also note that some operators will say you have left it late – well in a nut shell you have to have the full range however not to late to say we cannot assist you – if you get this response then find another agent. Some operators have flight location for some prime flying times – so ask around – shop around the operators not the agents – bottom line shop the various resorts as you do certainly have a plethora of options in Mauritius and yes there is still availability, not everywhere however there is still space for that December / New year vacation.

If you an operator and have allocation - drop me a mail and I will create a post with Dec availability in Mauritius to assist you in selling the seats and the viewers in getting away for Dec.

Yield management

admin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:40:20 +0000

This is somethingw e have touched on before here:

http://www.travelblog.co.za/travel/my-agent-says-the-flight-is-full/

However as w are in peak season we encountered many questions as to why the fare levels are different. Airlines have a system in place that is called yield management. This is for the airlines to maximize their earning potential on flights. So in a nut shell they want to fill up their planes with the best possible paying passengers. Hence airlines only opened up full Y class for world cup 2010. So they anticipated fill their planes with the highest possible paying passengers. So what happens is the airline has various fare levels, each fare level is governed by a fare basis – this fare basis attaches the fare notes and rules to a particular fare or fare level. Here is a display from an airline showing availability from the cheapest fare upwards – note the fare basis:

As you can see from the above – certain rules and booking classes show various fares and immediately various rules, ie minimum stay at destination can be 6 days or less. Also notice the NRF attached – this means that the fare has cancellation fees attached to it and in some cases the ticket is non refundable.

Now that we have a basic understanding of fares lets have a look at availability:

And have a look here when it is really busy:

And now when the flights are not busy at all – wil almost full availability:

So when you are told this is the cheapest available fare you have some understanding as to why.

My agent says the flight is full!

admin — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:18:51 +0000

Here is something that comes up a lot:

My agent says the flight is full! However when I go to the airlines website there is availability?

Well the airlines have something in place called Flight Optimisation. This means they need to get the flights filled with the best paying tickets. So they release a certain number of cheaper seats depending on the demand on the flight. Then the fares are arranged accordingly, if you need a ticket that is not changeable depending on availability will be cheaper than a ticket that is fully changeable, an example of this would be a Full Y Class economy ticket.

This is how flights are divided up by price from the highest paying ticket to the lowest paying ticket. In essence it is supply and demand and a little bit of luck. Here is what I mean:

F9 A9 Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q9 K9 L0 U0 T0 (This is an extract from Amadeus)

So using the above as an example the seats to the right are cheaper than the left, as you go left you go up to the F which is First class. As you can see from the line above there are seats available from F – K (9 seats). However the cheapest return ticket would be in T class and as you go up the row (to the left) so does the price.

With this being said it can happen that you purchase a ticket today for a flight in 6 months time and someone at the last minute found a cheaper ticket. This could be due to the fact a group has cancelled or there has been a lot of cancellations. The airline would *open* up the flight and the lower classes would be come available. This can be rare and in peak season you generally find the opposite where only full Y class is available.