pkerr

Aside from the question is it "worth it" or not, how does AA come up with almost $13,000 for this seat? It's not a non-stop. It's not a lay flat. Does anyone actually pay $ for this?
And the miles to redeem these seats are the complete opposite of their $ cost. 145k for the non-stop and "only" 110.5k for the 1 stop flight.

BlooJoo

Worth it at twice the price!

JJeffrey

Just some sort of a fare/pricing glitch on the connection, that's all.

Dave Noble

This isn;t mecessariy a glitch - checking on EF, there is the one way fare basis J which books into J which is 12919.06(USD) - add taxes and that would be about right.

It may just be that one of the flights is close to sold out and the lower booking classes are sold out. Looking at the fare rules, the cheaper J3AA fare would require travel on a 777 or 787

pkerr

But someone has to decide this pricing makes sense. Even if it is almost sold out, why would a non-stop, lie flat seat be 70% less? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

MarkOK

Wow, the "F" on the second option gives you the same seat/similar enough service experience as the PE seat in the 789 (plus the layover!)

Would it be that hard for AA to change the way they present this to have the PE/Domestic first in the same column?

USFlyerUS

It looks bizarre out of context. It's possible there are other fares that merely connect in LAX where First is much less. Or, it's possible AA is keeping a few seats LAX-HNL priced that high so other routings (e.g., LHR-LAX-HNL) have First available for those who buy Business on the transatlantic leg. In other words, AA may be willing to lose out on a J passenger LHR-LAX-HNL only if they can otherwise sell a few remaining F seats LAX-HNL for an exorbitant amount. They may be keeping a few seats open for other routings that, in the bigger picture, might be more profitable.

Dave Noble

The full unrestricted fares are expensive. This is not unique to AA - United has a fJ are of $17656 and AS has one of $17664

It seems odd that there doesnt seem to be a J fare that allows travel on the smaller aeroplanes

rucksack

In this case, it's an error. I looked at a random date (Mar 17), and AA's search engine is pricing the itinerary at the fully refundable "J" fare class. However, "R" inventory is available on both segments and ITA is pricing the through R fare at $1,449, significantly less than the lie-flat nonstops.

In concept, though, pricing like this could make sense. If one of the segments is close to sold out, married segment logic usually forces the other flight into the higher fare class. The logic behind this is that if AA can sell out one of the flights on its own, there's no point in feeding connecting traffic to that flight.

JJeffrey

True but as noted just above there are plenty of cheaper fares available but for some reason aa.com isn't displaying them.

And on the March 17th example a DFW-HNL search at aa.com returns the crazy $12k fares, however selecting these flights at Google Flights then clicking through to aa.com that way returns the normal ~$1,400 fare.

Call it what you will, it's a fare/pricing glitch in my book

Dave Noble

.sdelte

BlooJoo

There are not humans involved in pricing every flight. Clearly this one was down to J only, and based on the fare rules, this is the price. Yes, if someone looked at it, they would realize it was not priced right, but there is a lot of automation in the system, and sometimes it gets it wrong.

rucksack

In this case it's an IT error. The AA search engine is displaying a J fare when R inventory is available for the itinerary. Furthermore, a one-way fully flexible J fare (JA2AA) for DFW-HNL (X:LAX) should price at $5,870, not $12,944.

BlooJoo

Got it!

xliioper

The $1400 fares are actually broken fares (involving combining separate R fares on DFW-LAX and LAX-HNL flights -- see faring breakdown from ITA below) and AA website fare search is ignoring broken fare options by default (connection time is valid for a single through fare) as the fare being quoted is a single through fare for DFW-HNL. While there is bucket inventory for cheaper fares on DFW-LAX-HNL, the routing rules on all the cheaper through fares do not permit LAX connections (shown below).



Only full J fares on DFW-LAX permit LAX routings (shown below) and hence aa.com is only presenting full J through fares for purchase since it is not showing broken fare options by default. Delta is more restrictive than AA on broken fare bookings and won't let you book broken fares on a single ticket when there are valid covering through fares on the route (and connection time is valid for a single fare). The only way to book the separate fares in such cases on Delta is to book the fares on separate tickets.