stephem

I generally find that what AA has done since the introduction of Basic Economy fares is that they have jacked up the regular base fare they used to offer and in it's place offer the former price as BE with of course some important things lacking that you will then need to pay for or just not get. Ok, marketing geniuses at work, I get it. But what bugs me is that they dont have a setting to just shut it off... never show it to me, it will never work for me and I don't really care that you offer that price because I can never use it. I have three young kids and mostly travel with them and my wife when I am using AA.com, so the process of looking for tickets is always met with, "ooh that seems like a good price," followed by the realization that I will click on that date and not be able to use the fare at that price, but instead have to select a higher one. Whatever this product is and whoever it was created for, it is not for families with young kids. I actually find that whatever revenue benefits they might get across all customers, there is at least a segment where showing BE fares is a cheesy gimmick that will ultimately result in less price transparency than what used to exist.

AA, could build in a check box in our profile or on the search page that allows us to "never show BE fares"?

DataPlumber

gogomustangs

AA will try to seat parents and kids together. Sometimes the seats are assigned soon after the ticketing. This actually creates an option value for family. If you like the seat, you can keep the seat. And if you don't like it, you can pay for the change.

azepine00

Ime airlines that dont assign seating due to fare will seat at least one adult together with kids. Never tried on AA but since i dont see any reports of such here (although sometimes it may go to the gatei assume its the same.

Many airlines dont advertise family seating practice hoping for more revenue from reserved seats but they definitely dont want bad publicity or even liability related to any issues enabled by small kid being seated away from parents.

Gig103

Are you shopping on AA.com or on a website like Kayak or Expedia? The latter are definitely pushing the BE fares.
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I do wish there was a way to disable BE fares since I won't buy them either.

apeortdz

OP, I like your idea. I will never ever purchase a BE fare and would prefer to never see them as an option when I am logged into AA.com.

Often1

AA will never do that. Too many people who say "never" wind up purchasing a BE fare. E.g.,
1. Micro-haul flight.
2. 2-2 seating, so no middles.
3. F & MCE are not really a valuable proposition.
4. Ticket cost < change fee and BE delta is significant.

I am not sure why this is a big deal. More people out there will never book an F seat, but aren't whining that it is displayed. Savvy consumers benefit from more choices.

3Cforme

I'm waiting for the OP to come back and describe his fare search method. I see a column for BE, Main Cabin, and First in domestic searches on aa.com. I don't see the OP's difficulty.

enviroian

I think the OP is referring to when the price comes up initially it says "from $XXX " and it's not until you click it the matrix comes up stating it clearly .

dc9703

Got my 1st BE tix for the family and they ended up assigning us seats together in the back. Basically I only lost 15 rows but everything else is the same as a gold elite for this family.

donotblink

GTITAN

Well not that this is super helpful but if you want to use ITA Matrix, you can set it in advanced routing controls to F ~bc=B, and it will exclude "B fares" on AA. My favorite way to do it (both domestically and internationally) is <alliance oneworld; F ~bc=B.> (wiithout the "< >" of course). That way getting nothing but AA or One World fares.

Safe Travels

VegasGambler

UA does it.

Remember that the airline doesn't actually want you to buy a basic economy fare. They want to advertise a low fare and then have you pay for a more expensive fare.

3Cforme

I'm still waiting for the OP to clarify. That image I posted is the screen immediately after entering dates and hitting Search. Maybe other browsers work differently. That's from Chrome.

kaydee7

maybe using google flights or something? However, I set my search toggle to Economy or PE usually.