I suspect the news stories are picking up on a marketing type blog post on the Fetcherr.io website that is intended to increase sales of Fetcherr. Fetcherr is the AI used by Delta. The Fetcherr blog post seems ambiguous about what Fetcherr can currently do vs what may be available in the future. It includes statements like below that use the phrase “the future of dynamic pricing” when describing the “hyper-personalization”.
Remember when offering different prices for business and leisure travelers was the cutting edge? The future of dynamic pricing goes far beyond that.
We’re talking about understanding each customer as an individual, optimizing every interaction for maximum value.
Here’s how it works:
Holistic Optimization: GPE analyzes data across your entire business, finding the optimal price for each customer while considering the impact on capacity and overall revenue.
Individualized Pricing: Factors like customer lifetime value, past purchase behaviors, and the real-time context of each booking inquiry all contribute to creating a truly personalized offer.
Dynamic Bundling: GPE creates personalized bundles on the fly, offering the right combination of products and services at the optimal price for each customer.
Optimized Operations: This level of personalization leads to optimized operations, with improved forecasting, inventory management, and resource allocation
This section says “modern AI can”, suggesting Fetcherr can currently do this:
Picture a real-world scenario: A major sporting event gets canceled, a competitor drops their prices, and a weather system threatens to disrupt flights - all within the same hour.
Traditional systems would struggle to respond to even one of these events effectively.
AI-driven dynamic pricing handles all three simultaneously, adjusting prices across your entire network before you’ve even finished reading about the first incident.
The speed of response is crucial, but it’s the precision that really sets these systems apart. We’re not just talking about blanket price adjustments anymore. Modern AI can:
Adjust prices network-wide in line with real-time demand signals
Optimize ancillary revenue opportunities in real-time
Balance network-wide revenue impact of local pricing decisions
Maintain pricing strategy consistency across all channels
Even some local venues add a ridiculous fee to concert tickets. Paying at the door may be slightly higher, but still less than the online price plus fees.
Broadway is really bad. If you search for a show, a particular website comes up that charges astronomical fees, far more than TM. Often I have had to wade through a number of search results before I can find the “official” website for the show of interest.
I wonder how this pricing will work if you are a “frequent flyer” member.
H buys suet online from Walmart because they have the best price. Yesterday, it was twice the normal price. He didn’t buy it. Today, it was back to the normal price. It’s ridiculous.
I wonder about frequent flyer status also. If Delta knows you prefer flying them, will they raise your ticket price rather than rewarding you for being a good customer with a lower price?
One factor is the portion of shoppers interested in clipping coupons from the newspaper has dramatically decreased from past decades, and the portion of shoppers interested in using the app on their phone for digital coupons has dramatically increased from past decades. I find that it’s easier to redeem when it’s automatically applied to order, rather than needing to carry/scan physical coupons. It’s also less expensive for the supermarket to print/generate/promote coupons over the long term. The majority of customers prefer digital coupons to print coupons, particularly persons in the key 18-49 demographic who had cell phones throughout their adult life.
My experience is grocery delivery services often have more unique personalizations than the major grocers. For example, I just placed an Instacart grocery delivery order at Walmart a few minutes ago. Walmart is supposed to have in store prices on Instacart, so one would expect the same Walmart prices for all items and same prices for all Instacart users. I created a new account, which largely met this expectation – same prices as in store, and same selection as in store. However, my existing account with months of history had some notable differences from the new account and in-store shopping including:
Service fee increased by $1 over the new Instacart account and past purchases with existing Instacart account, making it the highest service fee I’ve ever been charged for a not large order.
Offering an existing product I purchase at 1/4 of in-store price – just one flavor has the low price, other 3 flavors are normal price
Reducing price of full-size watermelon to abnormally low price of $2, which is much lower than in-store. All other fruits I purchase are same price as in store.
Offering a particular sports drink for free (max 1 per order)
Based on my past shopping habits, I suspect that their computer algorithm successfully predicted that I’d choose Walmart on Instacart over both physically shopping in the store and alternative grocers due to the discounts in number 2-4. The watermelon in particular was a key deciding factor because I’ll run out of fresh fruit tomorrow. Fresh fruit is often the first item I run out of and driving force for frequency of grocery trips. I wouldn’t change my shopping plans for a discount on usual fruit purchases, like bananas. However, a full size watermelon is a unique offering that caught my attention. I had originally planned to make a quick in-store trip a different grocer for fruit, but chose Instacart instead after seeing the price changes from in store.
I’m not as sure about the reason for the increased service fee. They are correct that the extra service fee didn’t dissuade me from placing the order. I did consider whether I’d get a better price by ordering from a different Instacart account, with a lower service fee. However, the savings from number 2-4 more than make up for the extra $1 fee. I also more than make up for the $1 fee by paying with a gift card (purchased at 15% off during Prime Day), and my gift cards are saved in the wallet on the existing account. I can’t transfer them to a different account.
It’s frustrating, but I jump through the hoops. The Kroger near me has excellent produce, very competitive prices … and a gas station. I shop on Fridays, when I get quadruple gas points. We take both vehicles (and sometimes gas cans) to fill up with our 35 gallons at $1.00 off/gallon. This month, we’ll save $70 on gas. As annoying as the coupon policies are, it’s worth it for me. But … I just read that they are going to have flyers at the doors that can be scanned & will apply all coupons to the customer account. I’ll have to check it out next week when I do my Friday shopping.
I don’t shop at Kroger so not sure of details, but one possible reason is being able to offer variable prices to different customers – lower prices to motivate the coupon conscious bargain hunters that aren’t going to buy without the discount, and higher prices for less price conscious consumers that are willing to buy at the higher price. They can also offer personalized coupons based on your past shopping habits. Vons/Albertsons/Safeway/Pavilions does this regularly. It sounds like a win-win to me.
As for supermarket apps/discounts… well our kids laugh if the word “privacy” is used in relation to anything digital these days. As for the discounts, If it saves more to scan the QR code under the item on the shelf, fine by me. If it then means they send me more targeted e-coupons, fine by me again.
Interesting article. A link in the comments to SFGate is worth reading. Hotels charge based on your address. San Franciscans were charged hundreds more for the same room than people from Phoenix or Kansas City.
I buy delta tix and then monitor for fare drops. When they do, I get ecredits which I then use for the next ticket purchase. They allow you to use onto 5 e credits per passenger when purchasing tix.
