booking

Revenue Management

Airline Revenue Management

Definition

The algorithmic system airlines use to set fares and award availability. Dynamically prices both cash and award seats based on demand, time-to-departure, and competition.

Why it matters

Why saver award space opens and closes within hours. Revenue management is also why phantom availability happens, the system sometimes shows seats it later pulls back when demand updates.

Related terms in booking

Saver Award

The cheapest published points price for a flight or hotel night. Award charts publish two tiers: saver (lower, capacity-controlled) and standard (higher, more available).

Saver-Level Inventory

Award seats released at the cheapest published price. Typically 0-4 saver seats per flight, often released 11 months out and then closed within hours.

Stopover

An overnight (or longer) layover on an award ticket, usually allowed once per direction on certain programs. Effectively two destinations on a single award.

Open Jaw

An award ticket where the outbound destination and return origin (or outbound origin and return destination) are different cities.