Why does the same flight cost less for someone else? Fare buckets explained
By Diya Verma (Diya Verma flies from Tier-2 Indian cities and chases every possible fare hack — reposition flights, hidden-city ticketing, mileage runs and OTA bundle tricks. She has booked 200+ international trips out of Lucknow, Indore and Jaipur.) · Published · 10 min read
The same IndiGo flight from Delhi to Mumbai can cost ₹2,800 today and ₹6,500 tomorrow. Your colleague booked the same flight last week for ₹3,200. None of this is random — it is the result of a system called fare buckets that every airline uses, and understanding it changes how you shop for flights.
TL;DR — why your flight price is different from everyone else's
Airlines divide the seats on every flight into a series of fare buckets — groups of seats sold at different prices with different rules. The cheapest buckets have the fewest seats and sell first. As they fill up, the airline opens the next bucket at a higher price. When you search a flight, you see whatever bucket is currently open. Your colleague booked earlier; they got a cheaper bucket. Someone booking tomorrow might get an even more expensive one. This is not a glitch — it is deliberate revenue management.
What is a fare bucket and how does it work?
Every seat class on a flight (Economy, Premium Economy, Business) is subdivided into multiple fare buckets, each represented by a letter code in the airline's inventory system. For economy class on IndiGo, Air India or Emirates, you might have buckets labelled Y, B, M, H, Q, K, L, T and so on. Each letter represents a price tier with its own:
- Price (typically lowest at L/T end, highest at Y)
- Refund and change rules (cheaper buckets are often non-refundable and change-fee heavy)
- Baggage allowance (sometimes)
- Mileage accrual rate (relevant for full-service carriers)
When a flight is loaded into the system, the airline's revenue management software allocates a certain number of seats to each bucket based on historical demand patterns for that route and season. The lowest bucket (say, L — perhaps two to six seats) is released first at the cheapest price. When those seats are taken, the system closes L and opens K, then Q, then H, and so on up the ladder. By the time the flight is nearly full, only Y — the walk-up fare with no restrictions and the highest price — may remain available.
This is why the price you see changes between searches. You are not seeing the same seats repriced; you are seeing different buckets opening and closing as demand shifts.
Why does the price change even when you are mid-search?
It happens, and it is jarring. You check a flight at ₹4,200, spend five minutes comparing options, go back to book — and now it shows ₹5,500. Three things could have happened:
- Another passenger booked the last seat in that bucket while you were comparing. The system moved to the next bucket automatically.
- A dynamic pricing algorithm adjusted based on a surge in searches for that route — some airlines and OTA systems raise prices in response to demand signals, even before all seats in a bucket are sold.
- An airline-side inventory update released or recalled seats based on group bookings, codeshare allocations or internal blocks.
This is one reason it pays to book when you find a price you are comfortable with rather than spending days second-guessing it. I have watched the Delhi–Bangkok economy price jump ₹3,000 in 48 hours when demand surged after a Diwali sale closed. The bucket I was waiting on disappeared overnight.
Does the airline know I have searched before? Does it raise prices?
This is one of the most persistent myths in flight booking. Technically, some airlines and OTAs do track search patterns — and there is anecdotal evidence that repeat searches from the same IP or account can occasionally surface slightly higher fares. But the effect is small and inconsistent compared to the much larger movement driven by actual fare-bucket progression.
A more reliable explanation for why prices seem higher 'when you go back': the cheap bucket sold out in the time between your first search and your return. That is just supply and demand, not personalisation targeting you specifically.
The practical defence: set a price alert rather than repeating the same search. Google Flights and Skyscanner will notify you when the fare drops or changes, without the visual impression that your searching is 'training' the airline to quote you more.
How do airlines decide which buckets to open?
Revenue management is a genuine discipline — full-service carriers like Air India, Emirates and Qatar Airways employ teams of analysts and software (tools like PROS, Sabre AirVision) to optimise this in real time. The system considers:
- Historical booking pace — how fast this flight typically fills relative to how many days are left before departure
- Current bookings vs forecast — if the flight is filling faster than usual, close cheap buckets early and push higher-priced ones
- Competitor pricing — if IndiGo drops a bucket, Akasa's system may respond
- Event demand — a cricket match, a big Bollywood premiere, or a government summit in the destination city spikes demand and the algorithm responds by closing cheaper buckets faster
- Seasonality — pre-coded seasonal demand patterns (Goa in December, Kerala in August) push higher buckets to the front during known peak windows
LCCs like IndiGo and Akasa use simpler bucket structures than full-service carriers but the underlying logic is the same: sell cheap early to stimulate demand, then yield upward as fill rate improves.
Can you game fare buckets to your advantage?
Partially. Here is what actually works:
- Book early on popular routes — the cheapest buckets on Delhi–Mumbai or Bangalore–Hyderabad during Diwali sell out weeks before the flight. Being early gets you the bucket your colleague got and you missed.
- Search adjacent dates — a Tuesday flight that is 60% booked might have open cheap buckets while the Friday flight on the same route is already at the expensive end. The bucket availability differs even for the same route.
- Watch for bucket resets — airlines sometimes release previously held seats (from cancelled group bookings or codeshare adjustments) in the two-to-three-week window before departure. This is less predictable, but real: fares sometimes dip unexpectedly close to the departure date on flights that were expensive throughout. Price alerts catch these.
- Use OTA bundle fares carefully — OTAs sometimes have negotiated inventory access (net fares) from airlines that do not appear in standard public buckets. A 'special deal' tag on MakeMyTrip or EaseMyTrip occasionally reflects genuine below-bucket access rather than a markup game.
Hidden-city ticketing (booking a flight that connects through your actual destination and getting off there) is technically a way around bucket pricing but violates airline conditions of carriage and can result in account bans. Not something I would do on an airline where I hold status.
Bottom line
The price difference you see between your booking and your colleague's is almost never personal — it is the bucket system running as designed. The best response is to search with flexibility, book when a bucket is open at a price you find acceptable, and not wait for a lower bucket that may already be gone. Understanding this also makes 'price guarantees' on OTAs look less impressive: they mostly guarantee against the bucket going lower after you book, which rarely happens once cheap buckets are closed.
Search with flexible dates on FlightGPT to find the open bucket across your travel window. Also see: how to find the cheapest tickets from India, 12 tricks for low-price tickets, and cheapest time of day to fly.
Fares and fees change — check the live price before you book.
Frequently asked questions
Why did my flight price go up between when I searched and when I tried to book?
The most common reason is that another passenger booked the last seat in the cheaper fare bucket while you were comparing options. The system automatically moved to the next, more expensive bucket. This is not a glitch — it is how airline fare inventory works.
Do airlines track my searches and raise prices?
There is limited evidence of personalised price targeting, but the more reliable explanation for rising prices is fare-bucket progression driven by actual bookings. Setting a price alert rather than repeatedly searching the same route avoids any potential search-pattern effects and gives you a notification when the fare moves.
What is a fare class (bucket) on an IndiGo or Air India ticket?
A fare class or bucket is a specific price tier within a cabin (economy, business). Each has its own price, refund rules and change fees. IndiGo's Super Saver, Saver and Flexi fares are essentially simplified buckets for passengers — behind the scenes, they map to letter codes in the inventory system.
Why is a Tuesday flight cheaper than a Friday flight on the same route?
Fewer people want to fly on Tuesdays, so the airline keeps cheaper buckets open longer on those dates. Friday and Sunday flights fill faster, so the airline closes cheap buckets early and you see higher prices. It is the same bucket system running against different demand forecasts.
Can I get a refund if the price drops after I book?
Most airline fares in India — especially the cheapest ones — do not offer price-drop refunds. A handful of OTAs have 'price lock' products that partially address this, but they come with conditions. Once you have bought a fare, that bucket price is yours regardless of what happens to other buckets later.