[MikeTheGreat]

I thought that prices changed for everyone, but they changed over time. Book a flight 6 months before? You get a good price. Book a flight day-of? Hope you've got money in the bank!

(I'm not the OP but I'm guessing this is what they're talking about?)

[npinsker]

That's still person-invariant though. This gives the impression that they could potentially be tailoring prices based on what they feel each individual person will pay.

Plenty of digital services have the ability to do this, but don't. Honestly, I think the primary reason is that it's extremely offensive; it feels like saying "we're charging you more, for no reason, other than that we think you'll pay it".

[chii]

Oh absolutely. Price discrimination is hated by all customers.

The trick airlines use is to make the price discrimination transparent in a way that a customer feels is "acceptable" - time variance, seat variance and addons etc. It adds the same level of price discrimination, but because it's not directed _at the person_, the customer begrudgingly accept it.

[bombcar]

The best example of dynamic pricing I know of is college tuition; if you have infinite money you just pay the price, otherwise you get "student aid" (after taking out as many loans as you can bear) which effectively means you are paying a reduced price compared to the full-ride student.