(FARE GONE) DL: BOS/MIA/TPA/JAX/MCO-AMS business class $1,360 All summer long
Mar 24, 2011, 3:19 pm
#21
Formerly known as fsa_ea
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Mar 24, 2011, 3:34 pm
#24
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Manhattan Beach, California
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These US-AMS fares are actually AA instigated- AA is taking a swipe back at DL for DL's month+ long sale on the BOS-LHR and MIA-LHR routes that used to be cash cows for AA. They will probably come and go again in the next week before the DL fare sale expires. Just like AA pretty much has to match DL on the LHR routes, DL almost has to match on the AMS routes.
Since there are no *A hubs or cash cows at issue, it's not clear they will jump into the fray.
Check other DL cities, like RDU too as those were available on the last round.
These are not 90 day advanced purchase, the fare rules only require a Saturday night stay (and a max 90 day stay).
Taxes are lower on AMS routings, that explains why $725++ winds up being less than the BOS-LHR routing.
Since there are no *A hubs or cash cows at issue, it's not clear they will jump into the fray.
Check other DL cities, like RDU too as those were available on the last round.
These are not 90 day advanced purchase, the fare rules only require a Saturday night stay (and a max 90 day stay).
Taxes are lower on AMS routings, that explains why $725++ winds up being less than the BOS-LHR routing.
Mar 24, 2011, 4:34 pm
#25
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: BOS
Posts: 15,027
It's unbelievable, one deal after the other to fly to Europe. We had the AA/IB deals in January, the DL deals to Scandinavia in February, recently the LHR deals, yesterday the NYC-TXL deal, and now to AMS. You would think the airlines gone mad 
I'm looking forward to more biz deals in the fall
I'm looking forward to more biz deals in the fall
Mar 24, 2011, 5:43 pm
#26
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Join Date: Mar 2000
Posts: 17,417
It's unbelievable, one deal after the other to fly to Europe. We had the AA/IB deals in January, the DL deals to Scandinavia in February, recently the LHR deals, yesterday the NYC-TXL deal, and now to AMS. You would think the airlines gone mad
I'm looking forward to more biz deals in the fall
I'm looking forward to more biz deals in the fall
You're not likely to find these biz deals in the fall, because that's when the corporate business comes back.
What is a bit silly this year is that the summer tickets "in the back" are so crazily expensive that you can buy one of these biz class deals for only a couple hundred bucks more. It's obviously worth it if you were going to pay, say, $1200 to cross the pond in steerage this summer.
The only people losing out are the ones who wanted to redeem mileage for this biz class seats. They will see the available inventory diminish. That said, I don't think there are that many savvy folks who realize they can fly biz class for about the price of coach, so there will probably still be ample award seats.
Mar 24, 2011, 5:57 pm
#27
Join Date: Jul 2005
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The airlines aren't "mad." They don't have enough business travellers in the summer to fill up these seats, so they're selling them to affluent leisure travellers. This isn't any kind of "mistake." Biz class seats are regularly priced for spending "other people's money" (like your employer), and are well beyond what most folks would pay out of their own pockets. They will still make money on anyone who buys these seats.
These sorts of fare wars are also used as signaling to change behavior without technically colluding on pricing.
Mar 24, 2011, 6:11 pm
#28
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Join Date: Mar 2000
Posts: 17,417
Not enough business travelers is not the reason these fares are being priced so low (they could probably price them at $2k and still do the same thing). It is an attempt by AA and others to drive DL out of these new routes by making them unprofitable for as long as possible and also to make other hub routes like AMS unprofitable (BOS-LHR, MIA-LHR, BOS-CDG where AA traditionally dominates these routes).
These sorts of fare wars are also used as signaling to change behavior without technically colluding on pricing.
These sorts of fare wars are also used as signaling to change behavior without technically colluding on pricing.
Mar 24, 2011, 6:26 pm
#29
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: MA
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CO has had a Business First sale every summer for many years! So it is about time that DL realized that its front cabins were being occupied to a large degree by award tickets pax or NRSAs and had a similar sale to generate $$$.
Mar 24, 2011, 6:35 pm
#30
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All airlines have business class sales to Europe during the northern hemisphere summer because those cabins go begging when business travel drops off from June through August. Those fares are generally in the $2K range and have been on sale for months now. These are definitely fare wars between airlines.