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Roland Perry · April 2nd 12, 09:40 AM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london

In message , at 08:23:17 on Mon, 2 Apr
2012, d remarked:
The real blackmail is in the holiday companies and airlines stiffing people
with exhorbitant fares during school holidays. There's no reason for them to
do it , they just do it because they can. Its naked profiteering.

They price things according to supply and demand. It's difficult to
criticise that in a capitalist economy.

Except they put the prices up in the expectation of demand long before
the season, not actual demand during it.

What?? The demand for holidays occurs when people book them, not when
they take them.

If that were the case you'd find the prices slowly increasing as time went
by and more people booked. They don't. They start high and remain there. Its
only when they have surplus left over and its close to end of season that
the bargains start appearing.

Holiday companies know quite accurately what the demand is going to be,
in advance. Because of historical data and their knowledge of the
market.

Therefore it's possible to set prices with the intention of exactly
selling out both the August and February slots, despite considerably
differing demand.

The "sales" are simply evidence of when that prediction didn't quite
work out.
--
Roland Perry