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I've had a flight price tracked in Google Flight for a couple of days because I couldn't yet decide if I could take it. Unfortunately it has gone up by 25% last night (~170 to ~220 EUR).

The flight is short-haul, from an European airport to London Gatwick, and will take place during high season (winter holidays).

Is it possible that the price will go down? Or are BA prices only known to go up?


(Edit)     The price increase that has happened last night wasn't a result of the cheapest class being sold out: the same level of service was sold at a higher price.

I'm only looking at economy class prices, therefore the answers to the other question don't answer my question.

I'll rephrase my question to make it clearer: A given economy class ticket on a British Airways flight can increase its price, as observed empirically. Is the contrary ever observed? (an Economy class ticket going down in price?)

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    This great answer to a similar question should tell you all you wanted to know.
    – TooTea
    Commented Oct 11, 2018 at 9:22
  • Anything is possible. Commented Oct 11, 2018 at 9:57
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    The old question and answer are still good. Just because the airline shows the same customer-facing service class doesn't mean it's the same fare class under the hood. Airlines typically work with a lot more fare classes than they have cabin classes, exactly so they can adapt price do demand without publishing new fares all the time. Commented Oct 11, 2018 at 11:10
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    It'd be poor economics if they could only ever go up; a competitor could simply offer a fare slightly below BA's and be assured of getting all the price-sensitive customers. BA must have at least the ability to lower fares, even if only to be able to make a credible threat of a fare war to deter their competitors from undercutting them. Commented Oct 11, 2018 at 18:36
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    You can try searching for that flight on Kayak and see how they think the price is going to move. Prices can go down, if a flight doesn’t fill up as fast as expected or they try to respond to a competitor’s promotion, but in general they go up, especially at busy times like holidays.
    – jcaron
    Commented Oct 11, 2018 at 19:41

2 Answers 2

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The very flight that was the reason for my question has just had a price decrease:

enter image description here

Google Flight price tracker. "Today" is 2½ months before the flight.

So, I'd say that yes, prices CAN go down. I agree, however, that counting on that possibility is not a safe strategy.

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An advise: unless an excepcion, all flight rates will be increasing for the next winter holidays. And in general prices can change anytime no matter for what season is. So it is normal, that if you see a price for a flight, then, the next day varies.

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