Another example... looking at PHL to SEA. Fare from NWA website: $286 AI. Fare for the exact same flights on DL website: $554 AI.
Originally Posted by
channa
This is pretty common with codeshares. DL and NW still have separate pricing, so take advantage of it while you can and book the cheaper NW ticket.
This situation is no longer a codeshare arrangement. It's all one company. Yes, NWA and DL are still operating under separate FAA certificates, but the same corporate governance is calling the shots for both branches of the same company.
In my case, NWA was marketing the flights under the same flight numbers as the DL site. Please tell what there is about this situation that makes it a codeshare situation.
Originally Posted by
indufan
Yeah, the $150 is royally screwing the airline.
Granted, DL cannot achieve the fares that it wants or, for that matter, probably financially deserves. But that is the economy it is working in.
Your posts generally imply that anything that DL wishes to do to enhance the bottom line is OK (presumably, as long as it doesn't result in planes crashing to the ground or executives going to jail). If it is OK for DL to take advantage of a free market, is it not OK for the passenger to do so also?
My complaint here is the lack of transparency in how DL does it business. Marketing the same product under its two different websites, but posting a price on one site that is 2X the price on the other does nothing to inspire confidence in either the competence or the integrity of the company.
If this were a singular example, my attitude might be different, but these situations occur all too frequently. As I posted yesterday, in a five minute period I found a 50% difference
between two fares for the exact same flights in the exact same fare class in two different searches on the DL website. And the search results were reproducible. An A class fare found when searching for A class and above was 50% higher than an A fare for the same flights found when searching for T class and above. And the higher fare was conspicuously identified as the lowest available fare for that itinerary.
Marketing a 50% higher fare as the lowest fare available (when the lower fare can be found in about 1 minute on the DL website), if not legally actionable, is patently stupid.