Originally Posted by
JulienMSP
DL to Asia from the West Coast has been super limited since the pando so I'm often forced to go SEA-ICN and then spend the night in ICN and take a KE flight to where-ever I need to go the next day. This was no exception. Also, I had to book the ICN-GUM-ICN portion separately on KE.com because if I tried to purchase the entire itinerary through DL--it was a whopping $19,000!!. (All in all, the cash price for both flights together was just over 5500). I am not sure why I continue to run into issues purchasing through-route tickets directly with DL that involve a KE connection and an overnight stay. I really wish someone would look into this. Also, why can't I buy a KE flight through DL.com? They are supposed to be partners so...??
You could equally blame KE for having a limited schedule to GUM with the single 9:45AM flight. It's not so much the "pando" that limited connections, but rather the loss of the NW/DL NRT connecting hub where flights were all operated by NW/DL and were all timed with the idea making connections.
Fares are priced on an O&D basis, not hop-by-hop. When you are attempting to book SEA-GUM-SEA flights, DL is quoting you SEA-GUM fares, not SEA-ICN + ICN-GUM fares. The goal of the airlines is revenue maximization, not necessarily giving people the best possible deals (just because you won't pay those fares, doesn't mean there aren't others out there who will -- business folks with healthy expense accounts, for example). D1 fares on SEA-GUM start at $6650 roundtrip for Z fares (fare basis ZNXGZRDD) with a 50 day advance purchase requirement and Mon-Thu flight departures (Fri-Sun departure 50-day AP Z fares are $125 more each-way). Getting the cheapest fares require meeting the 50 day advance purchase requirement for these cheaper Z fares and finding fights that have Z class inventory open (the other D1 classes are J/C/D/I). $20K roundtrip would be J fares in both directions and not really a fare AP issue, but simply choosing dates poorly with flights that only have J open. Many of us here use Google Flights and calendar view for our fare searches rather than delta.com.
