In case anyone was wondering, and for future reference...So I did a dummy booking to determine how this actually works. I found flights were there were just 2
award seats available at the low level,
and where there were just 2
paid seats available at the low price level on the same flights. I booked 2 paid seats (completed the process including confirming and paying). Then I checked and the 2 low level
award seats still show as available (I did not book them, but I assume the availability would update in real-time once seats are purchased). So, at least for the route I tested, I found answers to my questions below:
Originally Posted by
nwflyboy
Once I grab the 2 award seats, does that mean the 2 lowest-price (for purchase) seats would also be gone - in other words, if I book the 2 "cheap seats" as an award, would that result in zero "cheap seats" available to purchase at the lowest price?
Nope, at least if done in the order of booking paid seats, then searching for award inventory.
Originally Posted by
nwflyboy
I'm assuming that the low-level award seats are in one bucket, and the low-price paid seats for purchase come from a separate bucket, so "using up" the low-level award seats would have no impact on the number of available seats in the paid low-price bucket.
In my test, taking the two cheap
paid seats first did not wipe out the availability of the two cheap
award seats - it seems that they do come out of separate buckets, at least in this simple case. Now, it's quite possibe there may be other variables in play with a different test case, but for this simple one, the results seem clear enough for my purposes.
Now that I have a workable plan to book 2 award seats plus 2 paid seats (all at the lowest and cheapest levels), I have a separate question about getting baggage fees waived for all 4 travelers (when 2 of us qualify), but I'll post that in a separate thread...
Cheers.