Not a MR question, but I assume I'm running afoul of fare rules somehow and I figure there's a concentration of rules savvy in this forum... mods of course feel free to move.
tl;dr I have acceptable alternatives, am asking mostly for educational purposes. If you dislike reading long rambling posts only to discover there's no real problem, you'll probably want to skip this thread entirely
So I'm doing a group sightseeing itinerary that requires arriving in RAP 8/21 preferably no later than mid-afternoon/early evening, and departing SLC preferably 8/31, originating/ending in SFO (would consider 8/30, and SJC or OAK, but none of those substantially affected the results below).
A straightforward multi-city search produces $327 on Delta but the outbound has a 34-minute connection in SLC, which I'm sure is reasonably ok, but if I misconnect I'd get to RAP much later. The next cheapest DL itinerary is $502 and gets into RAP later than I'd prefer.
I also have a silly secondary objective, in that I am joining several others who are originating elsewhere and connecting to DL4699 MSP-RAP. Poking around ITA with that in mind, I found:
8/20
DL2789 SFO 22:45-06:17* DTW (T)
8/21
DL1650 DTW 07:25-08:14 MSP (T)
DL4699 MSP 11:20-12:07 RAP (T)
8/31
DL2375 SLC 11:05-12:08 SFO (V)
Fare 1: Carrier DL TEVNA0MQ SFO to RAP (rules)
Passenger type ADT, round trip fare, booking code T
Covers SFO-DTW (Economy), DTW-MSP (Economy), MSP-RAP (Economy)
Fare 2: Carrier DL VEVNA0MC SLC to SFO (rules)
Passenger type ADT, round trip fare, booking code V
Covers SLC-SFO (Economy)
for $335.20. Not anyone's first choice of itinerary I'm sure, but for a handful of extra MQMs and joining the others MSP-RAP, I'm totally willing to book it at that price. Trouble is, although clickthrough via the ITA userscript results in a DL.com trip summary reflecting the same price, fare classes and fare rules, clicking on "complete this purchase" results in "We're sorry. The fare for the flights you selected just sold out. Please search again to view and select alternate flights. #100503R". This has been repeatble for 24+ hours so I don't suppose it's a caching issue.
DM desk made several attempts to book, said they also saw the $335.20 construction but also ultimately unsuccessful. Transferred to "online support" dept who futzed around for a while and eventually said unless it prices this way directly at Delta vs. clickthru we can't help you. I didn't set out to HUCA but on a subsequent call for another purpose a 3rd agent noticed the temporarily held itinerary and also tried to price it w/o success.
If pieced together multi-city on the DL web site the fare balloons to $800-$1k+. On a lark I tried forcing "/f bc=t" on all segments and that prices at $386 but also bombs at final checkout. Tried building it as SFO-DTW; DTW-RAP; SLC-SFO. Kayak also shows some $335 and/or $386 similar itineraries, as does Orbitz but also fails at final checkout.
So I assume I'm violating something basic in the fare rules, but I get lost in the combinability language... if anyone has too much free time on their hands and wants to explain this I'd be interested just for educational purposes...
TEVNA0MQ:
http://pastebin.com/fXTrQ8si
VEVNA0MC:
http://pastebin.com/SWEYe9fX
for now I booked an award ticket DL806/DL4699 on 8/21 and DL2375 on 8/31. Perhaps not the best use of 37500 SkyPesos, but I've also tried various combinations of one-way revenue & award segments, or flying back through MSP on the return etc., but haven't found anything better so far. Should prob just abandon the MSP routing and take the 34-min connection in SLC (or try to SDC on the day
)