Thanks for the replies.
Originally Posted by
javabytes
Fares don't always go in order of Y/B/M/H/Q/K/L/U/T. It's relatively common to find, for instance, an L fare priced lower than a U fare because of the number of fares published. It happens more with the lower fare classes because there are so many of them; there are usually fewer fares published for a given fare class once you start climbing the ladder, so I'm surprised at your find, especially coupled with the fact that your B fare is just above $200. The price of the B fare itself is the surprise, not so much that it's lower than the K fares.
I have seen relatively few instances of higher-level fare classes being slightly cheaper than the next class down (i.e. L is $20 cheaper than U), but I've never seen anything of this magnitude in price and separation in fare class.
This morning, delta.com was showing almost all $222+ B-fares, with a few much higher K-fares listed. Shortly after noon, the cheap B-fares disappeared completely, and now the fares again appear to be priced in order of fare-bucket, but the lowest T-fares are $478+. I’m glad I saw those B-fares for the few hours they were around.
I am curious if this was some sort of IT screw-up.