AKLifetimeFlyer

I used Yapta to alert me when my booked ticket dropped, so I went on the AS website to claim the difference. The following warning startled me a bit:
Are they referring to the fare class or just the cost of the fare? The ticket is an "R" fare and I'm on the upgrade list, so it's not like they are going to drop me into a lower fare bucket that is not upgradable, right? As far as losing my place in the waitlist, the flight is several months out, so I don't consider that to be a big deal.

Beyond the above, is there any other downside? Will AS get mad if you "abuse" this feature?

Finkface

Yes, it can drop you into a different fare class. It happened to me fairly recently. I posted about it on here so I'll see if I can find that post.

And no, they won't get mad. It is a feature they offer and fully expect people to take advantage of. I have claimed dozens of fare reductions.

Edit: Found it: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/24267900-post3.html

beckoa

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

Major downside is it resets your WL for upgrades. But that's it.

AKLifetimeFlyer

My takeaway from this is that using the Price Guarantee isn't going to knock you into a fare class that earns less than 100% EQMs, nor will it disable you from getting a regular complimentary MVP upgrade. Although it will make you go to the back of the line.

Using the Price Guarantee along with an upgrade certificate however can cause some problems it seems.

CDKing

They wont get mad if you use it too much. the function is there for a reason

Scottrick

The price guarantee works by rebooking your ticket. It is a very similar process to the normal online flight change request. The difference is that Alaska will waive any change fees. (Some other airlines also have so-called "guarantees" but don't waive change fees, so there needs to be significant savings before they're worthwhile. Alaska makes it worthwhile even if the difference is a single dollar.)

Imagine that you rebooked your ticket for different flights, a different date, or a different destination. That would obviously cause you to lose any existing upgrades. The same thing happens even if you rebook your ticket for the same flight. Upgrades are prioritized based on when you booked the ticket. Rebooking your ticket at a later date means that your priority has changed.

In addition, it's possible that you will rebook at a lower fare class. Not all fares are eligible for the same upgrades, so you may lose your ability to request an instant MVP or Gold Guest upgrade.

Finkface

Yes, it can knock you into a lower fare class with the resulting consequences. See my post #2 above yours where I replied to your original query. I was knocked from a K fare to a V fare and was then unable to apply a GGU. I had to call in and get the agent to re-upfare me back into K and pay the same amount I had just gotten back on the Low Fare Guarantee claim to get me back into an upgradable fare bucket.

So yes, you can get dumped down into a lesser-earning, non-immediate upgradable fare class and, as far as I know, there is no way to tell that before you pull the trigger. You can always still request a complimentary upgrade, of course, putting you at the back of the line, but it can definitely change your fare class. That is why the agent advised me to call in rather than doing it online. Read the post I linked to in #2.

JPat

As an aside I recently used the price guarantee feature and rebooked four different trips and netted over $100. The Yapta notifying mechanism did NOT alert me to the price changes however. I sent an inquiry to Yapta who advised me that their software program currently only checks prices once in a 24 hour period.

AKLifetimeFlyer

I'm not convinced it works perfectly, 100% of the time. The one time I used it was when a RT fare dropped from $415 to $320 something. Yapta notified me but said it dropped to $388. When I went to put it in the Guarantee page, AS told me it had actually dropped to the $320 range so I cashed in.

Another flight of mine has dropped $6 (Yapta and AS concur). I haven't used the Guarantee page because I don't think $6 is worth the risks noted above in the thread.

CDKing

Well less earning if you are going down from M, B, Y, S
Or if you are crediting to AA where I believe R does not earn

Finkface

Yeah, that's more what I meant - if you were crediting to another FF account. I hadn't thought about losing the elite bonus miles if you dropped from full Y but that makes sense too.

In my case, it was losing the K that was the issue as I couldn't use a GGU on the V that I was dropped down to. Had I known it would dump me into V, I wouldn't have made the claim. V and K were the same price when I originally booked and V went down but K did not.

Waitlisted

I've used it when I see a lower fare in the Wednesday flash dash sale, and had no issues instantly getting a credit to my wallet with (as other say) the only downside being number 30 on the upgrade list. It's a great service AS offers.

IsleOfMan

As a heads up for anyone using TripIt Pro notifications, I almost always get a notification of a lower fair refund available when booking a higher fare class for Gold Guest Cert or Gold Instant Upgrade... it seems TripIt sees there's a lower fare available and doesn't take the fare class into account (even when V is lower than K to begin with, not just when V and K start out the same and V drops, for example).

Even if you do see a legit decrease for your fare class, if you have an upgrade that's already cleared (GGC or instant upgrade), you're likely to lose it UNLESS there is still U space available when you re-book.

s0ssos

But if you are a MVP Gold you don't pay a change fee anyway?

Eujeanie

Well I'm glad I searched and found this thread (and finkface's additional link).

On my upcoming flight the GGU price went down. (we were already booked using GGU's at a higher price). I called AS since I wasn't sure how to claim the lower price, and she told me that although it looked like it was a lower price, that was in a different fare bucket, that mine had actually gone UP in price, and if I tried to get the lower price I would lose...at this point I glazed over and decided to come here to see if she was just telling me hooey.

Apparently not.

So I'm just not going to worry about it and he happy with what I've got. Good plan?