Flight price confusion

Could someone please explain this to me?

We live in middle Tennessee, about 80 miles from Nashville. We used to fly out of Nashville, but they don't have any direct flights to Negril. You have to have a layover somewhere. We stopped flying out of Nashville several trips ago because the last time we did the airlines lost my luggage for about 24 hours. For the past dozen trips or so, we have been driving to Atlanta (about 4 hours away) and flying direct to MBJ. When we go to Atlanta we go the night before and stay in a nice hotel. We have a leisurely dinner and off to bed with no worries. We buy the park and fly package so we can leave our car at the hotel during our trip and the hotel will shuttle us back and forth to the airport. The hotel is still cheaper than paying airport parking rates and we get dropped off at our airline terminal. The only downside is having to drive 4+ hours home after we leave Negril and land in Atlanta. It has worked wonderfully so far. Now here is where it gets weird......

If we fly out of Nashville this year, it's cheaper than flying out of Atlanta. ??? Almost $100 per person cheaper. Since Nashville doesn't have direct flights, you have to have a layover somewhere and some of the potential layovers are in Atlanta. But it's still cheaper than flying out of Atlanta!! How can this be?

I can never figure out airlines. We are still about 90 days out, so I have plenty of time to buy the plane tickets. Most studies show that about 45 days from travel time is the optimal time to buy your tickets. I am the type of person that checks flight prices daily (at least) but I can never remember this situation before. Can anyone explain this to me?

Never underestimate the bean counters.

Cap

Competition. We have the same situation here, flying from upstate NY. There is a direct flight to MBJ from PHL, and it's more expensive to take that from PHL than to fly from here to PHL then get on that same flight. The reason is that from here I have the option of flying to Detroit and from there to MBJ, so it puts American in competition with Delta from here, so they match Delta's price. They may also have decided to simply charge a premium for direct flights.

would love to see the answer to this question.......ha ha

Cool Runnings, Marko

I cannot explain, but we have a similar situtation. We drive 3-1/2 hours to MSP fly to CLT, spend the night and on to MBJ the next morning.
The ticket for that right now is $650, if we were to take the same flight only from MSP to CLT and back that would be $542.
The ticket for the same flight from CLT to MBJ and back is $612.
The people making only the one flight must be making up the difference to allow us to fly for "ONLY" $650. I can't complain too much.

It takes a lot of searching to gather the information, but having done it for the airports that are options for me, I reiterate:

1. If there are options from multiple airlines for your destination from one point of origin, all options from that point of origin tend to be cheaper, because everyone changes the price to keep pace with the cheapest option.

2. There appears to be a premium charged for direct flights.

Do these not fit with what you are seeing?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wrtiii

It takes a lot of searching to gather the information, but having done it for the airports that are options for me, I reiterate:

1. If there are options from multiple airlines for your destination from one point of origin, all options from that point of origin tend to be cheaper, because everyone changes the price to keep pace with the cheapest option.

2. There appears to be a premium charged for direct flights.

Do these not fit with what you are seeing?

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I've been researching flights out of DFW and American has a direct flight to MBJ for around 496 I think.(that was for March, April goes way up)
Delta is mostly 1 stop through ATL and they are 502, and American also has 1 stops in that same price range.
Southwest also flies there now and they are in the same price range, but free bag check.
BUT all this can vary greatly as we all know. Plus if you play around with departure days, you can save a few bucks also.

Now for the next question: does anyone use a travel agent anymore? If so, are the prices any better?

$481 out of Nashville

$548 out of Atlanta

Here is where I'm confused. The Nashville flight has a layover in Atlanta. So why is the Atlanta flight not cheaper?

Now taking it a little further, could you buy that Nashville flight but check in at Atlanta?

We constanty check airfairs several months out using kayak...I check flights out of Omaha (where we live), Kansas city, Chicago, des Moines. Few years ago we got RT out of Chicago for $250 so was well worth hotel and 7 hour drive.