upvote

points

by beloch13 hours ago |
comments
upvoteby alistairSH12 hours ago|
[-]
The problem is that airlines play all sorts of games to get higher prices, and this guzzles resources that are supposed to be for dealing with legitimate problems.

It works both ways. If they can use AI to charge me more, I should be able to use AI to save a few dollars.

If you’re actually arguing they should set a fair, stable price and I should pay it, then I agree. But that shipped sailed decades ago.

reply
upvoteby beloch12 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
It does work both ways. You can always use another airline. They're just saying they can rely on another customer.

I would tend to agree that there is the potential for airlines to be more open with how they price flights to spread the load out to let them minimize overall prices. An airline that worked openly with its customers to do this might do well.

Algorithmic pricing will, in general, invite the use of AI agents. Companies who are now considering it in places where it has not previously been used should probably pay attention to what happens here.

reply
upvoteby gamblor95611 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
Using AI bots makes you more of a problem than the airline using AI to price seats. I can choose to fly another airline if I don't want AI-pricing, but that only works if jackasses aren't using their bots to snatch up seats they have not intention of actually sitting in.
reply
upvoteby alistairSH11 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
I can choose to fly another airline if I don't want AI-pricing

Can you though? How would you even know? All I know is airline pricing has been a bit of a blackbox for as long as I've been a buyer of the tickets. Even if they aren't using AI, they're still playing games. And if they're games are such that using an AI on the buyer side, that's what people will use.

And to be clear, I have no desire to use AI to buy my tickets, certainly not the "buy now, refund tomorrow, buy again, repeat until flight time" stuff proposed in comments. I just want a ticket at a fair price, which to me basically means "roughly the same price the guy next to me paid"

reply