I have been preparing for my holidays to Japan in Month. The hotels and tourist attractions planning I will do it after a couple of weeks, but right now what was most important was to book the flight tickets. It's season time and the fares are high. Not only that but also I wanted to take a direct flight and avoid any stopovers. Hubby works with Oman Air, but Oman Air does not fly to Japan, else I would have got discounted tickets and there was no hassle. I did not want stopover with Oman Air, as the travel time was becoming double and the second sector anyways I had to pay full fare which was not making much of difference.
Thankfully from March onwards All Nippon Airways, Japan's national carrier is starting direct flight from Mumbai to Tokyo. I had checked 3 weeks back and the fare was around 55K, I got busy with few things and could not book it. Couple of days back I thought of booking the flight and I saw that the price had gone up by 10K. So without any further delay I had to book. When I started booking, I was comparing the price on different sites like skyscanner and others to check if I was getting any deal. Eventually after some R&D I decided to book directly with the Airline.
I selected my flights and as I proceeded with the booking, I got a prompt if I would want to upgrade from economy to premium economy, and the difference was decent. Before going ahead I did another search to see what was the direct premium economy price, and it was much more then what I was getting in upgrade. I decided to do it in the upgrade way. In all of this multiple times I went back and forth on the search-engine. Finally when I was sure to book, I went ahead, and selected for 3 people. As soon as I selected for 3 people, the upgrade price became exactly double compared to what I was being offered for one.
I decided to do one booking at a time. I booked hubby's ticket first, and got the deal of economy with upgrade. Then I proceeded with the second, when I started booking for the second, the price jumped up by 3 times now. I got nervous by the time. I went on skyscanner to see if there was any possibility there, but there also it showed the same. Then hubby told me, wait for a day or two and the price will get stabilized again. For 2 days I kept checking the fare and it was same, very high. Even without the upgrade the price was double then what I booked for hubby's ticket. Final last night I again checked and saw the fare had come down again.
Immediately I booked the other 2 tickets of self and son and thankfully I got the same deal of earlier one. Now again I am checking and the price has gone up. Pheww, it was quite a task booking the tickets. When the price shot up, I was worried that my budget would go all haywire if the prices would not come down. As it is from 55K it shot up to 65K in 2 weeks.
Getting the economy premium upgrade is a good deal, if I would buy a direct economy premium the cost is way more high. Because it's a night flight, I thought it would be good for a little extra money to travel comfortably. Some times I do not understand how these fare systems work for airlines. Hubby says the pricing is very dynamic, it is monitored continuously and changed depending on the demand factor. Anyways, I am happy now that my tickets are booked.
Thank you for visiting my blog. 👼🏻👼🏻💖💖🌹🌺🌸