Why do return ticket prices jump up if the return flight is more than six months after the departing flight?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 11 Aug, 2023
- |
This is all about fare rules.
Usually the maximum stay is 1,3,6 or 12 months.
The fare rules for a flight can be found at https://matrix.itasoftware.com/ for free.
You can also use Expertflyer, but that isn’t for free.
This is not a specific ‘policy’* the airlines have. All itineraries and routings are dynamically priced.
Why the jump at exactly 6 months? The pricing engine has a rule that increases the return fare on qualifying itinararies.
Why the rule? Only someone in revenue management knows that at each airline but I will speculate that since 6 months is the upper limit for a number of visa types, anything beyond that represents a higher risk of repatriation. Or, they just figured out people will pay it for some reason or another.
*I know, esoteric difference, but still a difference.
Airlines typically charge "whatever they can get away with", which depends on a lot of factors: season, holiday/special events, historical loads, competition, length of stay, time between booking departure, competition, number of connections etc. It has often very little to do with the actual cost of operating the flight. It’s frequently the other way around: non-stop flights are cheaper for the airline but priced higher than connecting flights.
Overall this makes airline pricing mostly incomprehensible and the number of fares and associated fare rules very large even for a single flight. Often a "trial & error" search can save you a lot of money.
In your specific case, you would have to ask Singapore directly. It doesn’t appear to be standard practice and I don’t see any price jump by going from Jun 28 to Jun 29 for other airlines. Could be operational: maybe they are thinking about changing the route-map and rerouting a passenger that has already started a trip is more work and more expensive than just cancelling an itinerary that hasn’t started yet. So the price jump is either "insurance against future timetable changes" or "we think people will just pay extra for this".
If you don’t like Singapore Airlines pricing, choose a different airline. Currently a good alternative for 12/28/2020 – 6/29/2021 would be Emirates at
£724 and you can go as low as £553 if you are willing to accept more inconvenient routings.
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