Cheap airline tickets on Tuesdays?

[Dieter Meyer]

I recently heard someone say that airlines will lower the prices on the tickets they want to "get rid of" (whatever that means) on Tuesdays, and so that's the best day to find cheap plane tickets.

Has anyone heard anything like this before? Any truth to it?

[diddy]

This may be just me, but my thought was that Tuesday traveling would be light already so they would lower prices on Tuesdays to entice more flyer's that would be traveling normally on Monday to alter their plans for a day. Cant say that its actually true, but its just intuition.

[WildaBeast]

I got an ad from Northwest Airlines in with my junk mail last week in fact. I don't recall what the exact fares were, but there was a table that showed the lowest fares for Tuesday and Wednesday, and something a bit higher for travel on Monday, Friday, and Saturday. That doesn't explain why the fares are lower on those days, but it does seem to confirm that fares are lower on those days.

If I had to guess, I'd agree with diddy, that those are lighter travel days, and lower demand equals lower prices.

[nancyfancypants]

I don't know if they still do this, but USAirways used to issue cheapo fares on Tuesday or Wednesday. (One of my bosses used to get an email with them. They were called Super Savers or something to that effect.) You had to travel between Saturday and Tuesday to get the fare, but they were really low prices.

I remember reading on a travel site that all fares 'reset' after midnight on Tuesday. I do'nt remember if it was going INTO Tuesday or going OUT of Tuesday.

Makes sense to me--simple supply and demand. It would seem that Tuesdays on average would be one of the slowest travel days so it would make sense for them to have the lowest fares on that day.

[Chloe]

But I think the OP is about booking the seats on a Tuesday, when great deals may or may not be available, not actually traveling on a Tuesday.

[FloridaGirl]

I have been told Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are cheaper for air travel by a travel agent.

Also, with the amount of flying SO has done in the recent years, I can safely say the cheaper tickets are midweek.

One can always take a three day vaction Friday-Sunday or Saturday-Monday.

Oh, I see. Well, I guess that could still make sense if Tuesday were the day in which they traditionally sold the least tickets overall, but I'm not familiar with the sales patterns of airlines. I withdraw.

Since I took 6 hours worth of economics courses plus a business course, I think I should weigh in.

The Airline Industry is very notorious for price discrimination. Its not uncommon for 30 different prices for tickets within an airplane with 100 passengers. Thats largely because if they don't use up a certain seat, they won't get any $$; but they still want to maximize profit, charging the most that any person is willing to pay. This works well with business people who have very specific needs, like the plane has to leave NOW, plus they usually have more moolah. The average joe has a much more flexible schedule so they take whatever they can get.

I think that as people are picky, they tend to prefer every day except Tuesday, thus it makes sense to give Tuesday to the non-picky people, at a reward of a lowered price. Price discrimination is an interesting concept, since the companies are maximizing profit but theres no deadweight loss so the consumer doesn't lose out. Very weird.