Reading a jump in price history correctly: the Zakynthos case, where the nearest date vanished
One day, a 29% jump - and exactly this kind of number is why our methodology never says a "fare got pricier" until it knows it's the same fare.
As of 10 Oct 2026, our cheapest-found Zakynthos fare series for a family (2 adults + 2 children) showed 11,591 CZK. The next day, 11 Oct 2026, it was 14,920 CZK - a 28.7% jump in a single day. If this were the same fare, it would be the cheapest found fare getting 28.7% pricier. It isn't the same fare - and that distinction is exactly what our system has to recognise before it writes anything.
What changed between the two scans
Our scan compares a broad grid of departure airports (Budapest, Katowice, Krakow, Wroclaw, Vienna, Bratislava, Prague, on some days Ostrava too) against Zakynthos airport (ZTH) across a rolling window of roughly 330 days, picking the cheapest combination daily. From 3 Sep to 10 Oct 2026 the same pair led in every one of the 38 daily scans - Budapest-Zakynthos, departing 13 Oct, returning 20 Oct 2026. In the 11 Oct 2026 scan that specific combination vanished completely from the offer and was replaced by another: the same route, but departing 21 Aug, returning 28 Aug 2027 - nearly a year out.
| Scan date | Depart - return | Price (family 2+2) |
|---|---|---|
| 9 Oct 2026 | 13-20 Oct 2026 | 10,486 CZK |
| 10 Oct 2026 (last day the October date won) | 13-20 Oct 2026 | 11,591 CZK |
| 11 Oct 2026 (the date dropped out of the scan) | 21-28 Aug 2027 | 14,920 CZK |
| 12 Oct 2026 (latest scan) | 21-28 Aug 2027 | 13,834 CZK |
Why the date dropped out - and what we don't conclude from it
Our scan never searches for a departure less than three days out, and that floor moves forward every day - which is exactly why the 13 Oct 2026 date was still on the window's edge on 10 Oct and no longer fit inside it on 11 Oct. Why the replacement was not a nearer date is the other half of the mechanism: the scan does not walk every day of the window, it samples a grid of departure dates - for Zakynthos roughly every 24 days, twelve to thirteen dates across the year ahead - and stores the cheapest combination for each. In the 11 Oct 2026 scan every nearer sampled date was pricier than August 2027: 6 Nov at 24,192 CZK, 30 Nov at 22,047 CZK, 24 Dec at 21,331 CZK, and the closest rival, 4 Jul 2027, at 16,415 CZK. What we don't know: the scan never sees the days between the sampled dates (say 20 Oct or 15 Nov), so we can't rule out that one of them is cheaper.
What this means for reading the history
From 3 Sep to 10 Oct 2026 (38 scans, the last day that still had an October date) the price moved between 6,969 CZK (28 Sep 2026) and 11,591 CZK (10 Oct 2026), median 8,022 CZK. The 13,834 CZK price as of 12 Oct 2026 sits above this entire window - but writing "the price rose by some percentage" would be exactly the trap described in How we read price history: a percentage only means something between comparable points, and these two points aren't comparable.
What to do with it
We're deliberately not writing a verdict here - the jump says nothing about whether Zakynthos is expensive or cheap for summer 2027, only that the winning date moved ten months forward. Anyone looking for an October departure gets no clear signal either way from this series - the nearest sampled date is now 6 Nov 2026, and the scan does not see the days between samples. How the broad scan and its window work is described in How we track flight prices; how price, history and trend turn into a recommendation for your own dates and party is explained in How Voyscout works.
The numbers here are the state as of 12 Oct 2026 (the latest daily scan) and we do not rewrite them - the continuously updated version lives on the destination page.
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