Then show up at the airport that day and sell each ticket for a premium above what you paid for.
After several attempts by the airline, the cash got high enough that my companion and I practically stood up at the same time.
Each six months for several years we booked, boarded, and got cash. The worst being that we'd make the flight and take the trip we'd intended.
We never made it.
Still, it'd be a nice way to get a bolus of cash for buying, say, December holiday presents.
>Also, if you guess wrong and a popular flight did not fill up -- you have to take the flights!
You don't have to take the flights... Last I flew, there wasn't anybody forcing people to get on the plane. As long as you're willing to eat the loss (which you have to be in a speculative endeavor), you can skip boarding the first available flight and still try to win auctions on the rest of them.
I suspect the real problem with doing this is the relatively large up-front capital investment: depending on the flights, you're looking at the 100-500 dollar range per-ticket which they hold for at least a month.
Frankly, the more tricks like this they pull, the less I want to fly. At this point, I'm not willing to fly any more than is strictly necessary.
I'm curious as to why you think that's good for me, the consumer? More "effective" pricing means that the price I pay will get closer to the maximum price I'm willing to pay. In short, it means that I'll pay more. The article discusses this, with the airlines taking away as much of the "consumer surplus" as possible--i.e. getting people to pay them more money.
I'm really, really confused right now as to why you think that having to pay more would make me want to fly more? Surely I would want to do things where the benefit to me is higher than the price, not where the benefit and price are as nearly equal as possible. After all, I can do only so many things, so the opportunity cost of doing that instead of something with more benefit (e.g. taking a road trip instead of flying, or taking a cruise at sea) makes flying a losing proposition all around.
Remember: Overbooking is usually not a problem, since a few people don't turn up anyway.
Compare an English auction to a straight sell: In the latter, the supplier just guesses a price, and you can accept it or not, and unless they guess right, there will be surplus left. In an auction with multiple bidders who value the item in question at similar levels, the supplier doesn't have to guess. The bidders will make sure that almost all surplus goes to the supplier; essentially the winner will pay slightly more than the second highest bidder was willing to pay.
Still, auctions are good for buyers, if there's competition between suppliers.
I don't really expect them to do that, though, even with this sort of setup. There would be little reason to get rid of a customer surplus if they planned to give it back to us.