Airlines and flight booking used to be simple. Choosing the airline, the travel date, the seat class, making the payment, and getting your ticket. However with time, more data and its inferences being available to airlines, and increasing margins always being a goal, things have become more complicated. There are now multiple sellers, aggregators, and booking platforms, each with its own set of different fare options, all of which have in culmination resulted in some difficulty on the consumer’s part.
Let’s create a comprehensive list of airline fares and their kinds.
13 Types of Airfares
1. Published Fares
Published fares are the most common and visible airline fare type, they are what you buy directly from an airline website, online aggregator or platform, and any common travel agency.
Their prices fluctuate day to day and can even change multiple times during the day. They will usually be the same price whichever aggregator or platform they are bought through.
2. Private Fares
Private fares comprise a carefully managed inventory of airline fares, privately allocated via a Global Distribution System to certain air ticketing consolidators, travel agents, and online travel agencies. These fares generally remain the same price for the entire duration of their availability. They can be sold any time between the time they are issued to about 3 days before the day of the flight when the payment is required.
Private fares were introduced so that airlines can get rid of their excess inventory, which exists in the form of seats with minimal demand. These are usually provided to the aggregator agencies at a net price, on which the agencies put a market-driven markup generating their profit.
3. Opaque Fares
Opaque fares are generally used by online travel agencies. In the case of opaque fares, flights are presented to the buyer without the exact data regarding the carrier airline, flight number, or seating before the transaction is complete. These tickets are also often paired with hotel bookings, creating a package. The buyer is unable to determine the exact worth being offered by the agency because of the lack of a fare breakdown. Thus giving the fare its name “opaque fare”.
These fares often come with significant discounts if the buyer or traveler is flexible with their plans but comes with certain conditions like being unchangeable and non-refundable.
Private fares being the most common of the three, has many types of fares clubbed under them. Let’s take a look at what they are.
4. Apex Fares
Apex fares are discounted international or long-distance fares. They come with certain stipulations attached like being non-refundable or needing extra charges for seat selection or making changes post-booking.
5. Discount Fares
Discount fares are highly discounted fares sold for a very short time usually a few days to a week before a flight in the form of a “seat sale”. They almost always are non-refundable and non-changeable.
6. Full Fares
Full fares are what one can describe as walk-in fares. These are expensive and are the base rate for any seat on any airline. They can be bought on the day of the flight. Discounted fares refer to this price when setting the discounts.
7. Joint Fares
Joint fares are charged when more than one airline is involved in getting the traveler from their initial boarding place to their eventual destination. These fares usually include a layover or stopover during the journey.
8. Through Fares
Through fares come into play when the journey involves the traveler going through a gateway city. This kind of fare can be coupled with the other types. Although the journey will be via a gateway city, only one fare is charged.
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9. Bereavement Fares
Bereavement fares are usually last-minute fares available to be bought, up until the time of departure. These are exclusively offered directly by the airlines to the family and next of kin of an individual who has recently passed away or whose passing is inevitable, to enable them to attend a funeral or be present for a moment of grief. These fares are now rare and require extensive proof to avail.
10. Open-jaw Fares
This fare is involved in journeys where two-way tickets are bought, however, the airport of departure for the return ticket, and the destination for the initial journey are not the same. This is required when a person will be traveling long distances by road or rail or a local flight after reaching a destination and needs their return flight to be from a different location for convenience.
11. Multi-city Fares
When the buyer or traveler is looking for multiple stop-overs in different cities or different countries within the same journey, it will fall under Multi-city fares. It is cheaper than booking numerous international flights consecutively.
12. Child/Senior/Student Fare
These are discounted full-fare tickets provided to individuals who fall under a certain age or academic stipulation. As full fares are expensive and these discounts are often only 10-15%, discounted tickets are usually the cheaper option.
13. Excursion Fares
Excursion fares are moderately discounted airline tickets that are sold with certain restrictions like being bought certain days in advance, time of year during travel, and minimum/maximum stay period.
Conclusion
Airline travel in the 21st century has become a staple. But with more airlines and airfare options today than ever before, it can be easy for a customer whether new or experienced, to be lost and confused. Hopefully, the brief breakdown of fare types helped people who had questions or just needed some guidance to make their way through the airfare maze.
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Types Of Airfares FAQs
Why are there so many types of fares in airlines?
Airlines are faced with two challenges, filling the most seats possible and making the most revenue possible. To fulfill both goals in some way has resulted in a system confusing for the customer.
What are the main different types of flight tickets and fares?
There are three main airfare types, Published fares, Private fares, and Opaque fares.
What are Published fares?
Published fares are what you buy directly from an airline website, online aggregator, platform, or travel agency. They are the most common type and have varied fares that fall under them.
What are Private and Opaque fares?
Private fares comprise an internally managed inventory of airline tickets which are distributed to agencies and agents via a global distribution system. They are not available directly on websites and their prices remain the same throughout their availability. Opaque fares are tickets that are presented by an online booking platform to a potential buyer without any information regarding the carrier or flight number. It is meant to be this way so that an accurate representation of worth cannot be made, although these tickets are heavily discounted from full price.
What are the different types of Published fares?
Apex fares, discount fares, full fares, joint fares, bereavement fares, excursion fares, and open-jaw fares are a few of the most common types of published fares among others.
