Business Class Chaos

Apparently, as the number of seats decreases on a given flight, the remaining seats go up in price.
Anyone else have this experience?

Everyone has. That is the way the capitalist system of supply and demand pricing works.

I guess what you are doing is looking at prices in November, then buying in January? Yes prices will change. Maybe go up, but sometimes go down. If you go to the airlikne website and you look up a flight and it gives you a price, you should be able to check out at that price at that time on that day.

Real time price adjustments based on how many tickets were just sold, how many are on a fare’s webpage, what type of people are on the page, and even who (what type demographically) you are etc— that’s modern price optimization. By which I mean, they optimize right out of your pocket into theirs! Different carriers are use it more or less. If they do it right, you never notice!

It’s supposed to go both ways though. Spontaneous price drops!

Tis a brave new world! But doing special deal sales (or removing them) has been going on since time immemorial.

Good luck and happy travels!

I wouldn't call it business class chaos. It happens in economy also.

Demand-based pricing is now a regular thing in sports and travel ticketing.

Once your choices are in your cart the price should not change during the time it takes you to check out. Wait an hour or so and it can. Are you sure you are not looking at ticket price to make your selection then final cost which has all the associated fees?

Are you including the advance seat selection fee for Air Canada that is additional?

Keep in mind that many airlines offer a 24 - 48 hour fare lock for a minimal fee, so if you see an attractive fare but need to confer with others or confirm related bookings, you can hold the fare with only minor expense. In addition, you typically have a 24 hour period after purchasing a ticket in which you can back out and get a full refund - this may not extend to seat reservation fees.

I have not had this experience at all with either United or Delta. I have flown on these airlines in 2023, 2024, and 2025 and ticket prices never fluctuated in the process of purchasing them.

I wonder whether the carriers you’re looking at are showing rock bottom fares before ad ons like seat assignments? OR are you seeing two one way fares and making the assumption that’s the round trip fare? Some airlines price their fares that way, and when you get to the purchase page you discover the actual price is flight A plus flight B — obviously much higher than if you assumed the cost of flight B was the cost of the entire trip.

I booked tickets this fall for travel this coming June on United. nonstop Newark to Paris (business class) with a nonstop return in Comfort Economy. I tracked fares for weeks. When I purchased tickets the fare was exactly what I had seen at the start of the booking session. I continued to track fares and rebooked the same tickets for significantly less money when the fares dropped early this winter. Again, the fares I saw initially were the fares I saw at the end.

You might try searching on one computer, then using a different computer to book. Websites can drop cookies to track you and once they know you are interested, the price goes up.

Websites can drop cookies to track you and once they know you are interested, the price goes up.

This is a myth.

"This is a myth."

Maybe, maybe not.

This Guardian author had it happen to them but it's anecdata at this point.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2010/aug/07/computer-cookies-booking-online

[snip]
I went back to the beginning. Sure enough, the site remembered my details, knew the destination I was looking for, and, once again, gave me £212. But then I deleted cookies and removed the browsing history. Starting the booking process again, the website no longer knew my details and did not pre-populate any of the information fields. And the price of the flight, a few seconds later? It was back to £187.

If the "cookie" theory really worked...

The flight I booked last night would have been going UP not down (I've only checked it daily for a few weeks and yesterday it was the lowest it's been)

I would not have a few hundred bucks in my DL account in credits because previously booked airfares decreased when I checked.

Places like Thrifty Travel, Google Flights and the latest capitalist option, companies that monitor your airfare and rebook for you when it goes down, would all be out of business.

And yes, airfares can go up while you are booking them. Airlines only have x tickets at each fare class if you happen to be booking while someone else is and they hit "buy" before you... you could lose out!

Hard to tell but I think it's possible/likely that this was tried in early days (as the 2010 Guardian report) and was given up on. Hard to make it work and easy enough to spot that it wasn't worth it for the fallout. Don't know.

edit: In other words, I don't think it's happening (very widely) now.

You might try searching on one computer, then using a different computer to book. Websites can drop cookies to track you and once they know you are interested, the price goes up.

I just love the cookie monster!

The OP might want to delve into fare buckets -

Fare buckets are classes or groups of airfares within the same class. They are managed by the airline inventory system (AIS) that opens or closes fare buckets according to the rules set by an airline as part of its revenue management strategy. That approach is called dynamic pricing and involves constant fare rate fluctuation depending on market conditions.

So, the tickets in different fare buckets are sold for different prices. Usually, as the tickets from the cheapest, base fare bucket are sold out, that bucket is closed and the next one – with higher fares and more services included – opens up. It happens due to the traditional logic that leisure travelers are more price-sensitive and ready to buy cheaper tickets in advance, while business travelers are willing to pay higher prices for last-minute purchases.

However, airlines closely monitor demand and can dynamically react by reopening low-fare buckets to encourage purchases or closing them up sooner if the demand is too high.

Normally, the fares within buckets are fixed. However, they can also change because of external factors such as fuel price fluctuations, seasonal trends, competitors’ activity, and so on.

As well as fare class
https://www.nerdwallet.com/travel/learn/guide-airline-fare-classes