One easy way to save money on a flight: stay at your destination over a Saturday night.
Why? It's no secret that the big legacy airlines (Delta, United, American) make most of their money off of business customers. First and business class fares are clear examples… but airlines can even target these deeper pockets in economy class.
How exactly do they do that? By exploiting a business traveler’s willingness to pay more to get home for the weekend.
Often, business travelers with families and significant others prefer to stay with their loved ones on weekends following a long work week away. Because of this preference, airlines are able to make trip itineraries between Sunday through Saturday morning more expensive, and still sell plenty of them.
Is this just a myth or can it be proven?
Try it for yourself! Attempt to book two roundtrip itineraries, one with a Saturday night stay and one without. You should notice a price difference.
In the screenshot below, you'll notice that two NYC-AMS Monday to Friday round trip itineraries with identical flight numbers and take off times have different pricing. The difference is that one has a Saturday night stay and one does not. Also note the difference in fare class: V vs. H. What this means in laymen's terms is that the airline ticketing system is aware that there is no Saturday night stay.
Has it always been like this? How do airlines get away with that?
The Saturday Night Rule is a revenue generator for carriers that has come and gone throughout the history of the business. It most recently disappeared in 2005 when online travel sites gave airlines a run for their money and came back in 2008 when carriers had more control over third party pricing and saw that business travelers were willing to pay for higher priced tickets.
What about Southwest and other low cost carriers?
Low cost carriers such as Southwest charge based on one way ticketing and availability and tend not to fluctuate between having a Saturday night stay or not.
So what's a guy/gal like me to do?
It's up to you to decide what's more important: the time away from home or the money you'd spend on airfare. Even factoring in an extra night at a hotel is usually cheaper than the more expensive flight. Personally, I prefer to stay home but if that's not an option, it's also fun to stay an extra night or two and explore the area. Just make sure to FaceTime the family whenever possible and get them some nice local gifts with all the money you saved.
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