Originally Posted by
LegalTender
Of course it's speculative booking. It removes the seat from inventory - in FareLock's case for 72 hours to a week. The fee varies, but is nominal. Online travel agents popularized an even more prodigal Hold For Free option, though WN doesn't play in their sandbox.
The reservation is created, the flights are reserved for you and the space is being held, meaning no one else can have “your” space when you have a reservation on hold.
Gives you time to transfer miles or price shop. Small price to pay if your plans aren't certain or you think there may be a fare war leading to even lower fares.
The speculative bookings that WN is now canceling were free and with a deadline of just 10 minutes prior to departure. How is that comparable to a service that costs money and expires in a week? Even if the service were free, the fact that it expires in just a week, and not 2 months from now or whatever -- minus a whopping 10 minutes -- when your flight actually departs, is what makes a massive difference. What is the fare difference between the lowest fare that you bought speculative bookings for and the fare you would have to pay when you make up your mind 3 hours before departure?
A lot, right?
This very expensive free version of "FareLock" is going away. Too bad!