Crazy Pricing
 

I recently booked a premium economy multi city flight with American. As I was testing bookings, I came up with a flight from MIA to BCN(direct) and returning BCN to FLL. I live in Fort Lauderdale, so flying out of MIA is ok, but I wont fly into MIA unless its absolutely necessary. My return flight has a 2.25 hr connection in CLT. The fare came up at $898 for premium economy. Even though the flight is not until next May, I thought that was a great price so I booked it. About a week later, I tested a dummy booking, and the fair today is $2007 pp. Quite a jump.

All are on American. Both TATL are PE. Going over on a 777/200. Coming back on a a330/200.The short flight from CLT to FLL is in economy, but you can pick main cabin extra at no additional charge. Only 1.5 hr flight.

Fare is still around -- OKW8F7P5. Finding dates with O bucket availability in both directions is the difficult part. Seeing availability for Apr 23rd outbound and May 9th returns. Nothing particularly "crazy" or surprising here. Airlines change up bucket availability on flights all the time. Seeing a different price for same flights doesn't mean the "fares" have changed, it usually just the airlines altering fare bucket availability on the flights. Prices may return should they open up the lower buckets on the flights again (in this case, the 'O' bucket).

I also experienced something funky about their Florida pricing. Three weeks ago, my wife and I compared the following airfares:

Both Class F
DFW-MIA-PUJ-DFW $2,600
DFW-MCO-PUJ-DFW $6,800 :confused::confused::confused:
Both had 4-day layovers at the FL cities

Unless they were codesharing with Etihad domestically :D, I didn't understand the crazy pricing, but chalked it up to the fare buckets theory.

It's only crazy if you think you're the sole traveler on the planet purchasing tickets for next May between these cities. But the reality of it is that if you're doing it, a few other people probably are doing it, too.

Given the extremely limited supply (21 to 28 premium economy seats on any given flight), it would only take a couple of tickets sold to exhaust the limited number of deep-discounted slots in a fare bucket.

Not fare bucket availability, fare combination issues. Since you mentioned Florida cities, presumably you mean MCO, not ORD. DFW-PUJ FC fares permit a stopover in MIA (with a small additional charge), so you are able to book that stopover as a simple combination of reasonably priced DFW-PUJ and PUJ-DFW fares (you can actually get FC on this itin for as low as about $1000). If you read the fares rules (can be found on aa.com or ITA Matrix when pricing out a fare) for DFW-PUJ FC fares, you will see the following --
1 STOPOVER PERMITTED ON THE PRICING UNIT ONLY AT THE
GATEWAY IN MIA AT USD 50.00/CAD 50.00.

But since the DFW-PUJ fares don't permit an MCO stopover, you need three separate fares for that itin. DFW-MCO + MCO-PUJ + PUJ-DFW. Further, the fare combination rules in the cheaper FC fares don't let you combine such fares together on a single ticket. In order combine all these fares on a single ticket, you must upfare to full J fares on the flights. Here's end-on-end combination restrictions in the cheaper FC fares to PUJ that forces the upfare --
END-ON-END COMBINATIONS NOT PERMITTED WITH DOMESTIC
FARES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES. VALIDATE ALL FARE
COMPONENTS. SIDE TRIPS NOT PERMITTED.

You can get a much better deal by simply breaking apart the itin onto separate tickets. One FC ticket for DFW-MCO fare, and a separate ticket for MCO-PUJ + PUJ-DFW fares. That will avoid running afoul of the fare combination rules on the lower fare classes and you will be able to get cheaper F/J fares on the itin. Still almost certainly more than the MIA itin because of the requirement for three fares vs. two, but much less than having to purchase full J fares in order to combine all the fares on one ticket. The fare combination restrictions are a form of fare discrimination meant to ensnare business flyers who often book such complicated multi-city itins and are less price sensitive. Price sensitive leisure flyers are more likely to book simple roundtrips. This is also why there are often minimum stay/Saturday night stay requirements in the cheaper fares (business flyers tend to have shorter stays and often avoid Saturday night stays so they can be at home on the weekends).

Thank you! Typo fixed!!

This is fantastic. Thank you for the incredibly thorough response and assistance. This is truly great to know as I spent quite some time trying different combinations,

I have amended my original post and fixed the ORD/MCO typo!

Sounds like my experience wesport.

We booked PE tickets from South Florida to Rome as soon as they went on sale last summer, althogh we connected in Chicago because I wanted to be on a 787. They were $100 more than regular economy. It was a no brainer. I watched prices the entire time leading up to my trip and right after we had purchased them they also more than doubled in price. I think it's more about being an early-booker. ;)

FWIW, I don't really like Miami either but we had to fly there on our leg home last month due to some flight cancellations and I was pleasantly surprised by the experience. It was far better than years past where I dreaded that place.

I am not sure if you have any status but keep in mind the "free" MCE becomes a real pain in the butt if you don't have status and you bring a carryon...

We didn't have any status at the time. We had MCE for the domestic legs, like you, for free (or complimentary). However, because they don't consider you a person who has purchased MCE, you do not get the early boarding group perk. You board with whatever boarding group is for the peasants. lol. So you get to your seats and all the overhead bins are full. Both times we had to put our bags in the back 1/4 of the plane and then wait until everyone was seated or swim upstream. It happened to us twice and quite a few other people in MCE seats on our flights. It was frustrating!