And all that data about more tickets being sold midweek is kind of a red herring – just because more tickets are sold then doesn’t mean that fares are cheapest. Actually, if you look at booking TIMES, you’ll find that there are definite spikes, but it’s mostly during the 9-5 period, when people are at work. No surprise then that weekends are slow, and I’d guess that on Mondays, people are too busy getting a start to their work week to poke around online booking travel.

Finally, about the sales – they can happen any day of the week that an analyst notices a market needs help. I don’t know why various sources perpetuate the myth that most sales happen on Tuesdays – that is just NOT TRUE. What, does the WSJ think that pricing analysts only work on Tuesdays and then sit back the rest of the week? As a revenue management analyst, I’d come into work on a Monday and get a list of the sales that were filed by pricing analysts over the weekend – they weren’t waiting till Tuesday to do that!

Here’s a post I wrote on my blog a while back about airline pricing: http://www.50by25.com/2009/08/getting-to-race-tips-for-finding-cheap.html

Other than that, I’ve flown with SouthWest and the staff were lovely (6.5 years ago, but still…)