Delta Price Change While Booking!!

[nycgirl0618]

Thought I would share this. I was looking at prices for a NY-Venice Non-Stop which was $1,100. I thought it was a good price so I went to purchase the ticket and when I inputted two passengers the price went to $1,500 per person. I then entered one passenger and got the $1,100 fare. Ok great, I purchased one ticket. I then go back to buy the other ticket and the price is back to $1,500. So I have my ticket but I didn't buy my husbands. Since when do airlines change prices in the middle of the day? I'm hoping the price drops back down again. I guess I'll wait but I'm not sure how long I should wait. I don't want to pay over $1,500 for his ticket. Maybe I'll go to Venice myself. :D

[megr1125]

it probably changed because there was only one seat left at that fare...you can always try again later and see what happens.....

[FlyerTalker]

it probably changed because there was only one seat left at that fare...you can always try again later and see what happens.....

If you get a certain price for booking one ticket, and find a higher price if you try to book 2 tickets, then you're at the point where the lower "fare bucket" has only 1 seat available. If you put two seats on your purchase, BOTH will be from the next higher applicable bucket.

 

Waiting for more seats in that lower bucket is a risky proposition....it requires that either there is a cancellation from someone holding a ticket in that bucket AND the airline re-assigns that seat to that bucket - OR that the airline releases additional seats to the lower category. If it is a popular flight and the yield management people at the airline believe (through their computer models) that they can sell seats at the higher fare level, you won't see additional allocation to the bucket.

 

As an example, here is the availability for DL flight 150 from JFK to VCE on a random date in July 2008: J9 D9 I9 Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q9 K9 L2 U0 T0

 

What this means is that there are at least 9 seats in all of the fare buckets that have a "9" after them. For L fares, there are only 2 seats and no U or T fares are available at all. Compare that with this availability for a flight from CVG to CDG next week: J9 D9 I3 Y9 B3 M3 H3 Q0 K0 L0 U0 T0. On this flight, there are no seats in the lowest buckets (Q, K, L, U, & T), 3 seats in the much higher buckets of B, M & H, and at least 9 seats in full fare coach (Y) and business (J, D) with 3 seats in discounted business (I).

 

If you get really curious about this, look at the first letter of the fare basis for the tickets you are booking. If you notice they are different between a 1 ticket booking and when you try to book more, you have that "cross-bucket" situation.

 

For Delta, the coach fares USUALLY tend to run in diminishing cost from Y to T, as indicated above. So your B & M fares will be higher than L, U & T. (There are some exceptions, but it's a good rule of thumb).

 

So, long answer, but hopefully one that explains some of the reasons behind finding different prices. If you have specific dates/flights, I can look it up and see what buckets are showing up.

[nycgirl0618]

Flyertalker,

 

Thanks for the detailed information!! You are always a wealth of information.Just reading some of your other replies have been very helpful. I am flying Sept 10, 2008 NY-Venice and returning on Sept 20, 2008. Whatever info you could tell me, I would be most grateful for.

[FlyerTalker]

In ref: DL non-stops between JFK and VCE.

 

For the outbound on the 10th: J9 D9 I9 Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q9 K9 L9 U9 T9

 

For the return on the 20th: J9 D9 I9 Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q9 K9 L0 U0 T0

For the return on the 21st: J9 D9 I9 Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q9 K9 L9 U9 T0

 

Looks as though the cruise pax demand for the 20th has eliminated the L, U and T fare buckets. OR perhaps DL never loaded any seats into them in the first place (when they know there will be high demand, yield management may just allocate to the higher fares). You might be able to get U fare tickets for the non-stop return if you come back on the 21st. Balance that versus the high cost of hotels in Venice.

 

There is T availability for the return on the 20th from VCE to JFK - but it requires using codeshares on AirFrance through CDG. DL flights 8567 connecting to 8550, leaving VCE at 10am, rather than 11:30am. There's also T availability on connections leaving VCE at 12:20pm and 3:10pm, all through CDG.

 

I haven't looked at the specific fares for those dates/flights, but T is definitely cheaper than K. I'm now having some connection problems to my research source, so I'll have to followup more later. In the meantime, see if you can get a better price on the 20th with the connecting flight through Paris, as opposed to the non-stop.

[Jade13]

Thought I would share this. I was looking at prices for a NY-Venice Non-Stop which was $1,100. I thought it was a good price so I went to purchase the ticket and when I inputted two passengers the price went to $1,500 per person. I then entered one passenger and got the $1,100 fare. Ok great, I purchased one ticket. I then go back to buy the other ticket and the price is back to $1,500. So I have my ticket but I didn't buy my husbands. Since when do airlines change prices in the middle of the day? I'm hoping the price drops back down again. I guess I'll wait but I'm not sure how long I should wait. I don't want to pay over $1,500 for his ticket. Maybe I'll go to Venice myself. :D

 

There was probab only one seat in that fare. My ticket to Florida is $300 more than my Dh's. It is high season so I could not wait to purchase. Even though my ticket is more, he is in first class on the return.:(

[mom23guys]

sights do you use to see all those available fares?

[FlyerTalker]

I use ExpertFlyer as my source for fare bucket information. They also have direct access to all of the fares that are published for citypairs, along with routing rules and fare rules. ExpertFlyer is a paid service - for unlimited inquiries, it's $9.99 per month, or $100 per year. They also have other pricing plans for less searches. Well worth it for my uses; perhaps overkill for others.

 

I also use FareCompare, FareCast, AirfareWatchdog, and to a much lesser extent, Travelocity and Expedia. There is a tool called KVS that helps with award ticket searches on SkyTeam and Star, and searches out fare buckets as well - it too is a paid service.

 

Personally, I would kill to have the old EasySabre system back -- the most powerful frontend ever released to the use of the general public. Unfortunately, Sabre and much of the industry have taken their sophisticated backends and mated them to simplified, dumbed-down frontends for the masses. Easy for many to find travel, more difficult for the "road-warrior" who knows what functionality is really needed -- and pines for it from airline and travel websites.