Originally Posted by
DLATL777
Its always been this way internally-its just interesting Delta is making them bookable on their website vs a TA/Calling in. There will often be 5 different Z fare basis and some are refundable and some are not. This has always been true. Many people wrongfully assume that one Z fare is the same as the next-but of course the basis is what makes all the rules and stipulations of the fare.
Not all fares have both non-refundable and refundable variants and that looks possibly to be the case here. I looked a bit closer and there are actually both non-refundable and refundable D1 one-way fares on route (there aren't in lower classes of service and I initially assumed that to also be case for D1). There are also roundtrip D1 fares that only require a 12 hour min stay on this route (which OP qualifies for). For D basis fares, these are refundable DNX00RD8/DNW00RD8 fares (the 3rd position distinguishes between mid-week/weekend travel). There don't look to be equivalent non-refundable DNX00ND8/DNW00ND8 fare filings for these and these are actually the cheapest options for these dates. OP could request non-refundable one-way D fares each way for these dates, but they would actually cost more than the refundable roundtrip 12-hour min stay D fares.
Although, now that I look closer, DL is actually quoting BOS-AMS fares here (not BOS-MUC fares). The refundable BOS-AMS fares allow for 2 stopovers (at $500 each), while the non-refundable ones don't allow for stopovers at all. So the refundable roundtrip 12-hour min stay BOS-AMS fares with a stopover are actually the cheapest option compared to booking BOS-MUC fares roundtrip when you don't meet min-stay requirements for the cheaper roundtrip BOS-MUC D1 fares.
Here are fare options on OP's dates when booking as BOS-MUC fares instead of BOS-AMS fares from ExpertFlyer.
