littletiger

our firm's travel agent has reserved several long haul premium cabin tickets (some of LHR to HKG, some of LHR to SIN and some of LHR to HND). These tickets are semi-flexible (R class) but never issued. To cut the story short, due to the miscommunication, the agent released all of them instead of just LHR to HKG. We found out the mistake about 3 mins later and tried to book the tickets for SIN and HND for same date/flight/class, the price jumped significantly as only C or J fares are available for the routes. The agent has constantly checked the fare availability and R class never appears (or may have gone within 3 mins we realised the mistake?).

how long does it take for the released inventory to be back to market, if at all? Is it possible for BA to hold previously reserved lower class fare while keeping higher class fare? Thanks for your inputs.

rossmacd

There is no guarantee at all that they go back into the same bucket. If, as in this case, R availability is released back, BA may have already decided that they do not want to offer R for sale (advance purchase, POS limitations etc) and hence it may/could be switched into higher fare buckets.

It is not like in a shop where a product is returned and placed back on the shelf for re-sale

nufnuf77

Some TAs are really bad. The corporate one we use is close to useless....