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It is known that a significant part of a traveler's expenses is reduced exclusively to the purchase of airline tickets. At the same time, the pricing policy of the airlines is not transparent at all, and the algorithms that form the price for the flight completely base their work on invented rules, so it is always better compare prices on tickets.kz before buying The main rule of airlines is to increase their profits, tourists with an average income should pay the minimum, but travelers with a high income should spend the maximum. Experienced travelers use the little-known technique of "Hidden city ticketing", which we will understand using specific examples.
What are the general rules for the formation of ticket prices?
In pursuit of profit, marketers of large airlines use a number of techniques. The main task of these methods is to determine how much money a passenger can spend on a ticket, and based on this information to generate a price for him. What methods are used for the following purposes:
- First, the duration and days of the week chosen for the flight are estimated - it is considered that if weekends are excluded, then it is most likely a business trip, which means that the buyer spends his employer's money on the ticket and, accordingly, he does not care much about the price;
- Return tickets are always more expensive (for example, in the pair "Moscow - Ljubljana", "Ljubljana - Moscow", when purchased separately, the second one will always be more expensive);
- If the flight is scheduled to a small airport, but through a major transport hub (Moscow-London-Inverness), then these tickets are cheaper than direct tickets (Moscow-Inverness);
- Most often, a one-way ticket is more expensive than a two-way ticket, but in this case the rule is not strict and there are always exceptions.
In addition, airline algorithms often analyze geolocation data and the history of past ticket purchases to generate an individual flight price.
How to deal with high prices for air flights?
As a response to such a cunning marketing policy of airlines, an algorithm for searching for "hidden tickets" appeared. Its essence is based on a simple idea - a direct ticket from point A to point B is more expensive than from point A to C, but with a transfer in B. In this case, the final point B is somehow hidden and is a transfer point for a more complex route . The traveler just has to get off at the desired transfer point and cancel the flight for the rest of the route.
Let's look at a concrete example. We are looking for air tickets on the route "Moscow - Milan" for September 7.09.2019, XNUMX. Let's use a well-known air ticket aggregator to understand the cost of travel:
- The cost of air tickets Moscow - Milan - Moscow is 16 rubles. Now we will try to use the "Hidden city ticketing" technology (in this example, we used the Matrix Airfare Search service);
- The cost of tickets in the series of flights Moscow - Milan - Prague is 14 rubles (economy slightly more than 871 rubles).
According to this option, all that remains is to simply leave the airport building in Milan and enjoy the saved finances.
The disadvantages of the method
The first question that arises among travelers is about the legality of this method. The answer is unequivocally affirmative - "yes, it's legal." In particular, this is confirmed by the story of the creator of the Skiplagged service, who won all the courts against United Airlines, which accused the guy of fraud.
The disadvantages of the method based on the search for hidden tickets include:
- It is necessary to travel only with hand luggage. If the baggage is handed over separately, it will fly to the final point of departure and it will not be possible to pick it up during the transfer;
- Airlines have the right to introduce changes to transportation tariffs if part of the flight segment has not been used (for example, this is formally stated in the charter of Air France);
- Some carriers may deprive their customers of accumulated privileges in loyalty programs for such behavior.
Of course, the decision to use the method or not is entirely up to the traveler. Most often, this method is suitable for those who are used to flying "lightly" with a minimum of things. One thing can be concluded for sure - the method allows you to significantly save money on the flight.
