Originally Posted by
Viajero
... BA would be closing the door not just to OWEs, but to other higher revenue A tickets as well. I know POS issues exist but here I seem to get the impression from your post that the discrimination is against a particular type of ticket, instead of a particular class. Or am I reading it wrong?
Your reading is correct. BA does sell A fares non-OWE and these are typically 2-3x the revenue of the OWE sector (so quite a significant difference in the fare). BA is deciding on seat availability based on fare code and other info, not just the booking code. So the agent can see the A seat and can start to book it, but the booking process then checks and makes the seat unavailable, so the booking will always fail. Some other A fare code will be able to book that seat. BA might change inventory closer to departure time (or might not, that is a yield management decision).
So the bottom line is that seat inventory is no longer determined just by the booking code (F, A, etc.) but by other factors. Making services like Expertflyer useless, as none of these can see the other factors (and they are known only to the airline powers that be, even the agents cannot see what seat is really available). POS was the first bite of this apple, but now BA is getting to the tasty bits.