Airline pricing

Hey all you savvy travelers - I have a trip coming up this summer from NYC to STT to SFO. I went to book this on Delta (need to use up some credits) as a multi-city tickets.....over $3,000 pp! When I book the same legs separately the total is around $500. Crazy, right? Pleas chime in if you know why this is so.

Gee, you want us to explain airline prices?? Even for a regular round trip, sometimes it is cheaper to book two one ways. It pays to check.

We found this a few months ago. Calistoga (Napa Valley) to Atlanta., RT 1. Drive two hours to San Francisco and fly to Atlanta $$$$
2. Drive 20 min to Santa Rosa. Fly Santa Rosa to SanFrancisco, change planes to Atlanta $$
Just a few dollars less than half price on #2 Go Figure.

calsail--I have often seen that situation, where it is cheaper to fly from one place, connect someplace and then on to your ultimate destination, than to book just the single flight of the connection place to the ultimate destination.

As I said, to expect airlines to make sense with pricing is folly.

I'm sure all the pricing is run by algorithms based on a multitude of variables with little or no human intervention....except for the buyer. Thanks Carol and Calsail (we are just down the highway from you in Marin).
Cheers,
Chris

We booked a flight on Delta today for a trip where we don’t know the exact return. One way was $519. Round trip was also $519. We just booked round trip and guessed on the return date.

Sorry, I don't know how you did that?? You can't book a roundtrip without a return date?

They put in a return date......just guessed on a date..

How crazy is that??!! It pays to check around. I usually start with Kayak, or one of the other travel sites, to get an idea of flights and prices, then go the the airline site to actually book. I was booking tickets for several folks in our group and the same flight went up by 30% in a 30 minute period. I think the Cylons have taken over (BSG reference)....haha.

Right. We just booked a return in two weeks. If we need to stay longer, we can always change the date and pay the difference. This was a last-minute trip starting tomorrow, so I’m not expecting the price to change much even if we have to adjust the dates. Regardless, it should be cheaper than paying $500 twice for two one way tickets.