Do you offer balloon rides? Do you offer specials or discounts on certain flights or specific days?

On of my biggest gripes over the years has been balloon ride specials on days like Valentines or Mothers Day.  WHY?  

There are days that are more popular for balloon flights than others.  Why would you CHOOSE to loose money on those days?  For Example,  Valentines day, the one day a year that is most often the most popular day to take a balloon flight.  Most Valentines days you will sell every seat you have.  In fact you most often could sell twice as many flights as you have room for.  Why would you discount them?  Why would you choose to take money off the table?  Many years ago other operators in our area would always offer a valentine day special and yes they would sell all their seats before us.  However by the time the day came we had all our balloons full (and at FULL PRICE).  

There are other operations that offer less expensive flights during the week and more expensive flights on the weekends.  In most cases this makes sense, however, we were operating in the Disney World area.  Everyone is on vacation!  Tuesday is no different than Sunday and Wednesday is no different than Saturday so for us it was not a viable solution for a problem that did not exist.  While I flew up in Michigan at Balloon Corporation of America we offered a discount on flights during the winter when no one wanted to fly in the cold.  That made sense and helped keep us flying during the winter months.  

So before you start offering flights at a discounted rate think over carefully "WHY" are you doing it?  Does it actually make sense or are you just throwing money away?

Fly well, Have FUN & BE SAFE

Jeff