Airline TIcket Pricing Can Be Baffling

Posted by Bridget Lux Jul 27, 2006

Not being the sharpest tool in the shed, I realize there are things in this world that are just beyond my understanding. Quantum physics, for example. Or how they figured out how far it is to the sun. No idea. Oh, and why Britney Spears is famous. But this is one I should be able to understand: Why is it that round-trip airline tickets are often less expensive than one-way tickets?

I just looked up the price of tickets from Nice, France to Boise, Idaho - never your most economical flight option, but my choice nonetheless - and found that the round-trip ticket price for Dec.9 returning Feb. 18 is $705. One way, Nice to Boise? $1,144. Obviously someone out there knows the reasoning for this. Same Web site listing the same airlines. Same initial date. Booking the same time in advance.

Is this merely a way to discourage one-way ticket buyers? I mean, I realize buying a round-trip ticket makes everything all neat and tidy, but is that important? And it's not like I'm expecting the one-way price to be half or something ridiculous like that (OK, so maybe I'm secretly hoping that will be the case). But when you see that Delta is upping domestic ticket prices by $5 each to offset rising fuel costs, it seems like this pricing thing is a highly complex, sophisticated calculation. Then, when you spend a little time searching for tickets and find that they range anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to thousands of dollars, depending on day of the week, when you book, and a bunch of other options, you start to wonder.

It just can't be this difficult, can it? And about Britney ...