Someone else mentioned it further up, but Ryanair's continuous special offer pricing is now just getting silly. I'm keeping an eye on quite a few flights up to the end of the year and many prices are changing two or even three times a day! For me, with Ryanair, there are three basic types of flight:
1) The Mon after 12, Tue, Wed, Thu before 12, Sat after 12 group.
2) The Mon before 12, Thu after 12, Sat before 12 group.
3) Fridays and Sundays.
The special offer box seems to usually state group one only, but then when you look the fares are often there in group two as well (but these come and go). Very rarely, you'll find a "higher" special offer for group 3 (i.e. group 1 and 2 flights £5, group 3 £10).
One flight I wanted (Stansted - Prestwick on a Sat morning) has gone, in the last 7 days (inc tax): £23.94, £9.99, £10.00, £5.00, £10.00, £15.00). Thankfully, I booked when it was £5 as I didn't trust another 1p offer turning up before travel. After I booked it though, the Friday night flight, which would have been even more convenient, went from £23.94 down to £9.99 special offer, but only for one day!
Now, there seems to be the crazy situation where there are two types of deal. Taking Stansted - Prestwick on Thu 25/9, you have the AM flights at "NO TAXES", and the PM flights at "SPECIAL OFFER". The fare for the former is £15, and for the latter £0. But select a flight and the taxes become £0 for the former, and £15 for the latter! So all flights are the same price!
I guess those of us who spend a lot of time searching for bargains have got used to this erratic system of pricing, but whenever I try to explain it to anyone else in the office, they just get confused, and often give up and book with another carrier. "But why does a SPECIAL OFFER fare of £0 end up more than a NO TAXES fare of £10?" etc, they'll ask.
I'd love to spend a day in FR's yield management department to see how they come up with these prices!
