ibrandsguest

So often, first class on AA seems to be the same price or cheaper than coach. For example, on Christmas Day, this is the case.

Why does AA do this: presumably to fill up first class at a price AA thinks people will pay, and then have only coach seats left available at high prices, assuming that people will be forced to buy them?

Does anyone book coach if first class is the same price or cheaper? (I assume that some corporate travel departments allow coach only and would thus require it, even if it's more expensive than first class.)

Thanks.

Often1

1. There are people who are traveling on employer-paid tickets where the employer's travel policy does not permit the purchase of anything other than Y. Thus, no F/J no matter what the cost. Over and above this, many of these people may be traveling on corporate contracts with substantial discounts so what you see is not what their employer pays.

2. If you look, you will generally see that what you are describing is a seat in the First Class cabin, but not at the F fare basis, compared to a seat in the Economy Class (Main Cabin) may well be that the First Class ticket is inflexible while the Economy Class cabin is. For people who require or prefer flexibility, the cheaper First Class ticket is not useful. If your display is set up to show the cheapest available fare buckets, it is likely that the cheaper and thus inflexible fare buckets in Economy are sold out and that the cheapest Economy seat is in a high fare bucket.

pkerr

They have to get some weight into the front of the plane because of load balancing. Best way to do it is with pricing. :-)

Austin787

During the holidays, there isn't much business travel but tons of leisure travel. So economy sells quickly but few first seats sell. And thus you have flights with only most expensive economy fares remaining while the same flights have discounted first fares still available.

My travel plans are usually firm, so I would definitely choose first if it is the same or cheaper than economy

formeraa

I've noticed that Alaska is better at maintaining cabin integrity than AA is. While AS has been offering lower F fares, I have never seen a case where F is cheaper than Y. In fact, when the lower fares in Y sell out, the F fares seem to automatically increase (regardless of how many seats there are left in F). Why AA doesn't do something like this is a bit of a mystery. However, many infrequent travelers don't even look at the F fare -- even if it's right next to the Y fare. Frequent travelers check both -- in case F is cheaper or just a small amount more.

fly747first

Yes, but that's because AS has a much smaller Pricing team with lower turnover than AA's which lately seems to be a swinging door so you often get very low skilled analysts right out of college making pricing decisions at AA.

diver858

Or more likely AS has fewer F seats - 12 on 737-X00, 8 on LVX A32X - so there is less room to maneuver.

matrixwalker2012

danbrew

I frequently purchase last minute tickets due to changes in travel or last minute trips. While the company does want me to use the company travel agent (who is an outside firm, benefit to working for a smaller company), I'll often have to remind myself to check both fares. If it's close, I'll pay the difference and recoup the > EQMs. And, more often than not, if I'm buying tickets the day before travel? It's often close. As in less than $50-75 difference. It's worth it to me to have a confirmed seat and it doesn't hurt when qualifying for status.

Interestingly enough, though, I've been keeping a spreadsheet since I made EXP and I'm upgraded 90% of the time. I'm going to keep the spreadsheet throughout the year and see how often I'm upgraded. It will make a difference if I have to consider a MR next year.

seawolf

BobOscar

Same thing happens with AA reward tickets. Every so often it is the same amount of miles for a Saver First seat as it is to fly coach (no Coach Saver seats available and the Anytime Coach seats can be the same miles as the Coach seat. I had that happen a few months ago and grabbed the First seat rather than Coach.

pmiranda

I see it often on reward tickets with AA since they don't seem to allocate many coach saver seats.

hotelexec

Yes, for the reasons noted in the responses above, some people will buy Y when F is the same or cheaper. As to why this happens, I'm sure it varies by airline, but I have noticed it numerous times on AA, both with paid tickets and award tickets, and taken of advantage of it several times (yes, it really works). With AA, having observed closely and having some awareness of their yield management approach, I believe the cause is that their repricing algorithms run periodically, and also have implicit triggers (via what they call inventory buckets), where some number of new bookings will force an immediate change (the rate at the current tier "sells out" and therefore you can only book at the next higher tier, at a higher price). So at a periodic update, for example, they may set coach to $100 and F to $130, but then there's a trigger that if five coach seats sell at that $100 price (say a family of five, or a couple of smaller parties), the coach price gets bumped up to the next tier, say $150, while F is still $140. Most likely the F price gets adjusted at the next periodic update, where there's a check for inconsistencies like this. Or a couple of people see that deal and book it, and that triggers an automatic bump of the F price. The moral is, if you see this and you want it, grab it quick, it won't usually last very long.

Some airlines seem to be a little smarter, and dynamically ensure that the F price is always at least some increment above Y.

My family and i enjoyed a nice vacation in Phoenix on Saver award tickets in F at 40,000 miles each round/trip, vs. Y which was only available as AAnytime awards at 50K each. It wasn't a hard choice

SandmanDFW

My employer doesn't give a hoot as long as it's cheaper. Like other travelers, I do a lot of last minute flying, and I always look around for the specials. The only problems I have ever had are when Kayak quotes one first class fare and then when it switches to aa.com, the fare is now "unavailable". A bit of bait and switch, I believe. I started buying the tickets through wherever I find the fare, Don't get much on Amex Travel, and our in-house CWT is horrible.

Mark Gerrard

If your management actually sat down with their travel agent and set the reporting up correctly then the monthly financial report would show that you had took the lowest fare despite the class.

Not sure how you can show that to the client though.