Originally Posted by
redtop43
I was once in Vegas and hadn't booked my flight home. Last-minute fares (to PHL) were around $600, however there was one flight (a redeye) with a BE price of $97. So I bought BE and paid $80 for MCE. The other BE's were very close to the MC price.
They are just matching NK/F9 fares (who compete non-stop) with BE fares and are trying to extract a large premium from FF members who won't or can't (due to corporate policy) purchase BE fares and are loyal to AA due to captive hub non-stops. While they no longer have walk-up BE fares on this route, there are still 3-day advance BE fares on this route with huge difference from MC fares available with less than 7-day advance. Whenever you see these large differentials, just check who else flies the route non-stop and in pretty much every case there will be an LCC/ULCC on it.
