goodison

I'm trying to book a few transatlantic flights for 2018 (LAX / SJC) in F.

I don't usually use BA GGL line to book flights and prefer agent / online. This time I emailed BA the details so they could set the bookings up as there were a few and I was looking to use a Joker & 241 for some of them on the same flight as a cash booking but wanted to ensure there were enough seats for us all on the same flight.

Prices were a very reasonable £2,278 and have now jumped to £3,713 and I've been quoted £9k+ by the GGL team. I'll call the UK team in the morning but what happened? What did I miss that caused this jump?

jerry a. laska

When are the flights? Is there an advance purchase requirement that you are now missing? Some discounted F fares have a 50 day advance purchase requirement.

goodison

Good to know but these are for more than 50 days away

Ldnn1

As I mentioned in the thread below, those super-cheap F fares had to be booked by 14 November so you're out of luck unfortunately:

massive price discrepancy - single vs separate bookings

For future reference, if you see a cheap fare you like but aren't ready to book immediately then always make sure to check the expiry / ticketing deadline on ITA Matrix.

aardvarkdave

There were a bunch of cheap fares (I think I was quoted £2.2k F return, £1.8k J return to some combination of SFO/OAK/SJC in Jan) which were "ticket by 14th Nov" so this might explain it.

Edit - beaten by a few seconds by Ldnn1!

BrianWBrazil

I noticed this too. I've been watching regularly the price of CW to JFK in January, just to see if the price goes up or down. Yesterday it suddenly went from £1100 to 160O

xenole

Must be a sale approaching where they'll drop to £1300 or something

goodison

Thanks Ldnn1, aardvarkdave

Given that the agent I spoke to seems to have got the price quoted way off then what's the chance of getting these ticketed at the original fare? It seems that the quote I was given was wrong and I should have been quoted £2.7k. It would also have been helpful if the agent had been as knowledgeable about the fare expiry as you two!

Smid

It is approaching the increasingly early Black Friday sale time... A week on Friday, I think. All sales fares would be withdrawn until they're discounted, perhaps less than previously.

orbitmic

hmmm none, there’s no evidence even the 2.7k fare was available on your flights when checked and the fare expiring on 14/11 did just that (expired), they can’t just recreate it. For bookings email is never the best way I must say, best to phone or Ask them to phone you if you are abroad.

scillyisles

There were some cheap F fares to selected US destinations of which LAX and SJC were included. New York was also included. The prices were very cheap - so cheap in fact that I picked up a 2 at £2248 return to LAX both ways on the A380 which is very cheap for LAX. The cheapest fares were in Jan and Feb although March was cheaper than normal too as were some other months. These fares had to be ticketed by November 14th and did have an advance purchase requirement of I think 60 days.
The motto of this story is if you see what is a cheap fare then best to purchase and the best way to purchase is either online or phone GGL line.
As for retrospective ticketing on the old fare basis now expired - I would say you have next to zero chance.

corporate-wage-slave

I suspect that is sadly correct in this case, given the outline given above. It is however possible for a contact centre agent to hold a reservation for you for 2 or 3 days pending payment. It doesn't sound like this happened here.

Better still there is a £10/10€/$10 Hold Your Flight Price option online, which explicitly guarantees the price for 72 hours, regardless. The fee can even be refunded if the booking is cancelled in the first 24 hours, though it doesn't say that online. The catch is that the ticket is largely set up at that point, and though you can just pay off the full amount within the 72 hours, you can't do much alteration, e.g. you can't switch flights or change currencies. I know this offer doesn't always show up, but at least in theory it should be available for flights more than 3 weeks off.

goodison

Thanks all. I did have proof of fare availability at 2.7k luckily as I hadn't closed the Google Flights tab so was able to send them that and get the fare retrospectively applied

It's frustrating that the GGL line have always been very keen to book flights and always say I should use them instead of a travel agent, the first time in a long time that I do this they screw up. I also learned that BA can't add another flight to the same PNR so given the new baggage debacle a TA is much more useful.

Agree on calling getting a better response than email in general, the problem is that calling out of hours is a complete waste of time, I've tried a couple of times and had to give up. Calling out of hours is often the only viable option when abroad so this devalues the GGL benefit somewhat. In this case I got some nonsensical emails back a few hours after I'd completed all 3 bookings on the phone, their explanation was something to do with Avios affecting the price of the ticket.

There seems to be some sort of Chinese wall between the email team and the phone team which I couldn't quite fathom. The agent I was speaking to seemed to have to go and request access to the email from another team.

Net result is I got almost what was needed, frustrating process to get there. BA in a nutshell?