The ever-widening gap between Basic and Economy
In previous posts, I've discussed how I have evolved my travel habits to be more of a free-agent rather than a super loyalist. I still maintain that I will fly whatever airline gets me to my destination in the quickest and cheapest.
In that post, I also shared that I started booking basic economy (BE) tickets, which used to be off-limits for my flexible travel patterns. My argument was that for every 2 BE flights, my third flight would be basically be free compared to if I had booked regular economy (Y). Spending $300 on 3 flights certainly sounds better than $300 on 2 flights!
It used to be a negligent upsell
When first introduced, Basic Economy tickets were consistently $30 cheaper than a regular ticket. That means if a BE flight from BOS-ORD was $69, then Y would be $99. If a cross-country BE flight was $169, Y would be $199. That was simple and straightforward.
Then we started seeing sliding scale differences depending on length of flight and price. While a flight from $69 in BE was still $99 in Y, the same $169 in BE would suddenly be $214 in BE, a $45 difference!
Last year, the price difference was between $30-$45 for any flight domestically. Well, now it looks like many airlines are doing disparities of between $35-$55 now.
Take the below example flight from BOS to LAS in April, with a shocking $55 difference:
And I couldn't manage to find any flights that were just a $30 disparity anymore. Only $35:
That's quite the change! Now the Y:BE ratio isn't really 4:3, but closer to 3:2! And remember there isn't any sort of discount for booking as a roundtrip. The disparity is mostly just going to be double the amount. Given I fly cross country at least ten times a year, that's quite the hefty chunk of change...