A few weeks back, Air India introduced a new offer under which they offered up to 40% discount if booked four hours before departure. The offer was intended to try to sell last-minute inventory at lower prices so that seats do not go empty. According to the offer,

• Buy seats up to 4 Hours before departure time. (Launched at 3 Hours before departure, changed to 6 Hours prior at the time of publishing this)
• On select domestic sectors every day.
• Baggage Allowance: As per fare rule
• Change & cancellation fees as per fare rule.
• FFP Miles Accrual as per booking class.

The promotion is supposed to work on the Air India app, website and many other portals. The catch is Air India did not mention on which sectors does it provide last minute discount fares and up to what extent. There is no promo code which you can enter. So, it is as vague as it can get, so that, perhaps Air India does not have to offer any accountability with this promotion.

So to check if the offer works, I started looking at flights between Mumbai – Delhi/Bengaluru/Kolkata/Chennai/Hyderabad as well as Delhi -Mumbai/Bengaluru/Kolkata/Chennai/Hyderabad sectors. The selection was made with the thought that these are the sectors where Air India has enough frequencies through the day to be able to lead pricing rather than be guided by other players.

Ajay of course vehemently disliked the scheme, even though his last-minute ticket purchases could benefit from this pricing if it worked.

Dear Air India, your job is to maximise the money you make given you live on dole. Don’t go for these stupid schemes and spoil the market for yourself and other airlines too https://t.co/wLuH5ukiBn

— Ajay Awtaney (@LiveFromALounge) May 10, 2019

It turned out, Air India does offer some last minute discounts but its not always the case. The catch is Air India provides discounts only on a few frequencies and not on all frequencies or routes.

Flights between Mumbai and Delhi

Mumbai-Delhi	Ticket price at 10:28	Ticket price at 12:07	Ticket price at 13:41	Delhi-Mumbai	Ticket price at 10:35	Ticket price at 11:32	Ticket price at 13:43
AI 677 DEP: 15:45	INR 4517	INR 4517	INR 4517	AI 865	INR 5201
AI 144 DEP: 17:00	INR 6250	INR 6250	INR 6250	AI 863	INR 9979	INR 8929
AI 660 DEP: 18:00	INR 15805	INR 15805	INR 15805	AI 1102 DEP: 17:00	INR 6199	INR 6199	INR 6199
AI 888 DEP: 19:00	INR 13180	INR 10030	INR 7930	AI 624 DEP: 19:30	INR 5201	INR 5201	INR 5201
AI 314 DEP: 19:45	INR 7930	INR 6250	INR 7090	AI 805 DEP: 20:00	INR 5201	INR 5201	INR 5201
AI 101 DEP: 21:00	INR 22000	INR 22000	INR 22000	AI 191 DEP 21:00	INR 5201	INR 5201	INR 5201
				AI 868 DEP: 22:00	INR 4466	INR 5726	INR 5726
				AI 317 DEP: 23:00	INR 7091	INR 7091	INR 4466

Mumbai-Delhi

As you can see, there is a fare drop on flights AI 888 and AI 314. On AI 888, you can notice a fare drop twice by 24% and 21%. Whereas on AI 314, there is a fare drop by 21%.

Delhi-Mumbai

As you can see, there is a fare drop on flights AI 863 and AI 317. On AI 863, you can notice a fare drop by 10.5%. Whereas on AI 314, there is a fare drop by 37% that too 9 hours before departure.

Flights between Bengaluru and Mumbai/Delhi

Bengaluru-Mumbai	Ticket price at 10:36	Ticket price at 12:05	Mumbai-Bengaluru	Ticket price at 10:28	Ticket price at 12:05
AI 608 DEP: 17:25	INR 3845	INR 3845	AI 507 DEP: 14:30	INR 3625	INR 3625
AI 610 DEP: 19:10	INR 3845	INR 3845	AI 607 DEP: 17:05	INR 3625	INR 3625
			AI 609 DEP: 20:00	INR 3100	INR 3100
Bengaluru-Delhi	Ticket price at 10:38	Ticket price at 11:59	Delhi-Bengaluru	Ticket price at 10:30	Ticket price at 12:05
AI 501 DEP: 14:00	INR 13400		AI 502 DEP: 13:30	INR 11554
AI 503 DEP 17:00	INR 32457	INR 32457	AI 88 DEP: 17:40	INR 5359	INR 5359
AI 173 DEP: 21:05	INR 25947	INR 18125	AI 504 DEP: 20:30	INR 7879	INR 7879

Bengaluru-Delhi

As you can see, there is a fare drop on flight AI 173 by 30%, 9 hours before departure.

Flights between Kolkata and Mumbai/Delhi

Kolkata-Mumbai	Ticket price at 10:37	Ticket price at 12:53	Mumbai-Kolkata	Ticket price at 10:29	Ticket price at 12:57	Ticket price at 14:19
AI 773 DEP 16:55	INR 29240	INR 29240	AI 774 DEP: 20:30	INR 4990	INR 4990	INR 7090
Kolkata-Delhi	Ticket price at 10:37	Ticket price at 12:54	Delhi-Kolkata	Ticket price at 10:30	Ticket price at 12:04	Ticket price at 14:19
AI 701 DEP 17:30	INR 13700	INR 9290	AI 20 DEP 14:00	INR 5884
AI 23 DEP: 20:30	INR 8240	INR 10550	AI 764 DEP: 16:55	INR 5884	INR 5004	INR 5004
			AI 22 DEP: 20:15	INR 5004	INR 5004	INR 5004

Delhi-Kolkata

As you can see, there is a fare drop on flight AI 764 by 15%, 5 hours before departure.

Kolkata-Delhi

As you can see, there is a fare drop on flight AI 701 by 32%, 4 1/2 hours before departure.

Flights between Chennai and Mumbai/Delhi

Chennai-Mumbai	Ticket price at 10:29	Ticket price at 12:26	Ticket price at 14:13	Mumbai-Chennai	Ticket price at 10:29	Ticket price at 14:14
AI 672 DEP: 14:55	INR 3565	INR 3565		AI 94 DEP: 18:30	INR 3730	INR 4780
AI 93 DEP: 21:35	INR 3565	INR 3565	INR 3565
Chennai-Delhi	Ticket price at 10:38	Ticket price at 12:28	Ticket price at 14:13	Delhi-Chennai	Ticket price at 12:29	Ticket price at 14:15
AI 539 DEP: 17:00	Sold Out	Sold Out	INR 37270	AI 42 DEP: 17:20	INR 37279	INR 28669
AI 43 DEP: 21:05	INR 25667	INR 25667	INR 11545	AI 540 DEP 20:40	INR 7039	INR 7039

Delhi-Chennai

As you can see, there is a fare drop on flight AI 42 by 23%, 3 hours before departure.

Chennai-Delhi

As you can see, there is a fare drop on flight AI 43 by 55%, 7 hours before departure.

Flights between Hyderabad and Mumbai/Delhi

Hyderabad-Mumbai	Ticket price at 10:28	Ticket price at 12:49	Mumbai-Hyderabad	Ticket price at 10:28	Ticket price at 12:49
AI 618 DEP: 17:00	INR 3023	INR 5648	AI 617 DEP: 14:00	INR 6565
AI 51 22:00	INR 3023	INR 3023	AI 619 DEP: 19:20	INR 2575	INR 2575
			AI 50 DEP 21:05	INR 2575	INR 2575
Hyderabad-Delhi	Ticket price at 10:37	Ticket price at 12:48	Delhi-Hyderabad	Ticket price at 10:35	Ticket price at 12:48
AI 541 DEP: 16:15	INR 23498	INR 23498	AI 126 DEP: 17:15	INR 7616	INR 7616
AI 1127	INR 7118	INR 7118	AI 839 DEP: 21:10	INR 7616	INR 7616

There were no fare drops on flights between Hyderabad and Mumbai/Delhi.

Bottomline

Fare classes/brackets are tough to understand. Sometimes tickets are cancelled last minute and thus lower fare brackets may open, or the airline is genuinely providing last minute discounts. There are a couple of instances where there was a fare drop ranging from 10.5% up to 55%.

While I cannot say for sure if all the fare drops are a part of Air India’s offer since they have publicised it as up to 40% and 4  6 hours before departure and from what is noticed it can be even 9 hours before departure and the fare drop can be up to 55% also.

Have you tried booking with the Air India Last Minute Bookings offer? What has been your experience using the Air India Last Minute Bookings promotion, and on which sector?