Should conference pricing mechanisms incorporate options?

The provision of many services is often characterized by demand uncertainty, as, at the time of purchase, consumers may not be completely informed about their valuation for the service or the possibility to utilize the service when it will actually be provided. For such reason, service providers implement several pricing mechanisms to maximize their profits in presence of consumer uncertainty and heterogeneity. A commonly adopted mechanism is intertemporal price discrimination, under which service providers charge different prices to consumers buying at different times. For instance, a lower price is usually offered to consumer buying early in advance, whereas higher price is practiced to l…