FlyerTalk Forums - Dual Inventory Fares - Is there an idiot's guide anywhere?

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Quote:

Originally Posted by flatlander (Post 29652475)

If the availability on the flight was T3 and N1 you could book three such tickets. But if the availability was T3 and N0 you could not book any of them.

Are you sure about the first part? I would have expected you to need N3 if you want to book 3 tickets.

I've done a quick test for LHR-JNB-LHR on 29 April outbound, 7 May inbound. (JNB is a good route on which to test this, because BA shows DIFs to ITA.) On the outbound, there is no difficulty with T class or O class availability, but inbound has T9 O1 and T9 O0 which could provide a test.

Pricing one seat with the availability checker switched off provides the lowest theoretical T class fare, which appears for all combinations (as one would expect): £1,314.61.

Pricing one seat with the availability checker switched on returns the lowest fare if using the earlier inbound flight: £1,314.61. If using the later inbound flight (on which the lowest economy seat is in L class), a non-DIF is used for that sector, and a much higher fare results (£1,448.61).

Pricing two seats using the earlier inbound flight returns a mixed result: ITA prices one seat at £1,314.61 and the second seat at £1,334.61. Both ITA prices use "TLXZ67S7" for the inbound half, and the gap between the prices for the two seats corresponds to the gap between one published TLXZ67S7F/DIF4 at £834.00 and the other published TLXZ67S7F/DIF4 at £874.00. The half round-trip fare components quoted by ITA match those published numbers when the £16.00 GDS fee is taken into account.

I can't be sure that the lowest DIF refers to O class but the results suggest that. And they strongly suggest that the last ITA quote for two seats is because you can only price one seat at the lowest DIF because there is only one O class seat. In other words, T9 O1 allows you to book only 1 seat at the lowest DIF, not two or three.

All the ITA quote numbers include the £16 GDS fee, so for simplicity I have not deducted that here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swanhunter (Post 29651979)

lucky you - both of mine required a long (10mins + call) with holding and a supervisor intervention.

It might need the fares team to quote them as ive seen issues with being able to quote the difference (taxes fees n charges) or quote then correctly. Dont see why a supervisor would need to be involved as we regularly call fares or send bookings for quotes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Globaliser (Post 29652826)

Are you sure about the first part? I would have expected you to need N3 if you want to book 3 tickets.

Buying at the same time, you're right. I was thinking, but failed to write, "one after the other" or " three people could each buy a ticket" for same effect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by flatlander (Post 29653307)

Buying at the same time, you're right. I was thinking, but failed to write, "one after the other" or " three people could each buy a ticket" for same effect.

Ah yes, that could work - so long as buying T class seats doesn't cause the system to remove seats from O class (which in theory it could).

Are these xxxxxxxx/EUUP fares sold by AA also considered 'dual inventory fares'? And do they work the same way?
I tried to apply the same logic (availability in both classes) and never seem to be arrive at the right calculation.

Example: SLX8C1M4/EUUP for NCL to BWI
Which class codes require availability to get this one working?

Stan