So, I booked my tickets to Budapest (to present my paper)! Very exciting. I’m also visiting Naomi in Ireland. Of course both of these places turned out to be pretty tough to fly between, and the cheapest solution ended up taking two round-trip flights. Aaron tried to convince me that three one-way legs cost more because I’m “paying for convenience,” but intuitively it always struck me as stupid that they would charge me less to fly more. I did some hunting around for a better explanation. (Along the way, I found this fun page about frequent flier programs.) The closest thing I’ve found so far is this, which says:

Consultant Nick Bredimus explains that in the early days of the aviation industry, there were only one-way fares. When computers were introduced into the pricing equation, carriers were able to track seat inventory more effectively and predict who might show up for a flight and who wouldn’t.

“You see some anomalies [in pricing] but you can’t figure out why they exist,” says Bredimus.