Originally Posted by
brocklee9000
So I guess most of my FCM experiences have been at the time of booking, seeing the coach vs first prices and the cost is either justifiable, close to Y, or pretty much the cost of buying C+, or all of the above. However, a lot of you are talking about getting offers after booking economy tickets and later checking on my trips. Do you just check every day? Is it only shown when you check "My Trips" on the website? Is there any sort of consensus on when or why they may be offered?
I ask because we have to go back down to SAT, this time for Thanksgiving/Wife's sister is getting married/Wife's father's AF retirement ceremony is all happening around Thanksgiving. Currently, SLC-SAT roundtrips are pricing about $400 in coach (V fares) and $590 in discounted F (G fares) (and around $370 for E fares). In the past, this route used to be about $350 and the discounted F was maybe $100-150 more. i.e. this route used to be cheaper across the board, and the buy-up was a lot less. Now it's nearly $200 more per person.
Outright buying the G fare gets the extra MQM/MQDs, baggage, etc, but is $198 more per person. And the flight is blocked for 2hr46 minutes, so it's a bit over the $1/min guideline I've seen lately (166 minutes for a $198 buy-up). I guess I'm kinda torn, because C+ is $49/person each way, effectively adding $100 per person (if we still had free/discounted C+, it would be a much simpler decision). Therefore, if a later FCM is even offered, it would have to be less than $50/person roundtrip (since I would then be eating the cost of C+, anything over $50/person would essentially make the FCM more than the initial cost of just buying the G fares).
I haven't noticed a rhyme/reason to the buy-up offers AFTER purchase, but then again, like you, I'm usually just buying the PAG fares at the time of booking.
Re the $1/min rule - if those are RT fares, remember to double your minutes - making this comfortably under the threshold.
One thing you could do, is purchase the coach fare, wait for it to finish ticketing and finalize and all, and then go to My Trips to see if there's a cheaper buy-up offer there. If so, take it. If not, call in and ask DL to up-fare you to FC, where they'll just charge the difference you would have paid to the G fare anyway.
I do this frequently when a client will only pay for coach, but I want to pay out of pocket for FC. The only caveat is that the FC inventory must still be available, so if you wait too long, that cheap G fare may no longer be available.
And, of course, you won't get to wait and see if the post-purchase buy-up drops in price. But that's a gamble only you can decide whether you want to take.
