cameramaker

I'm looking for return flights to MIA on some specific dates in March, Y outbound and W inbound. The price of the return sector in W has gone up by £500 overnight. Checking on EF, it is showing T2 E7 W9, which I presume means they're willing to sell 2 more seats in the lowest World Traveller Plus bucket, however when booking on BA.com it books straight in to E class.

There is the desired fare on the BA210 2 hours later but it is a mid-J 744, so was hoping to get on the A388 operated BA208 a little earlier.

Am I missing something obvious here or could it be some jigging around ahead of next weeks sale? My dilemma here is whether to snag the cheap T fare on the mid-J later flight or gamble on it reappearing next week and being in the much more desirable A388 UD.

Cymro

What is the point of sale in each case?

Can you get a better result from Kayak, SkyScanner, Momondo, etc,?

What about the BookWithMatrix Chrome extension through Priceline?

Krisz

Are you sure that ba.com books it into E? You can check that if you select 3 seats. The reason I'm asking because the W pricing is usually a dual inventory fare where one component is an economy ticket and the other is the availability of T or E. It is possible that to get the cheaper W ticket the fare bucket in the economy class disappeared hence it's cost more.

cameramaker

BA.com/the iOS app is the POS.

The booking is for 1 person. Currently BA.com is allowing me to book BA207 on 22/03 in N class and BA210 on 25/03 in T class, but only E class on the BA208 on 24/03 despite EF saying T2 with the 207 remaining in N class.

Krisz

my check on EF for 24/03/2019 BA208 shows only W9 E8 T0 only BA210 on that day shows W9 E9 T5 BA206 W9 E9 T0

Cymro

By point of sale, I actually mean - which country are you trying to buy your ticket from? But you've indirectly answered the question.

ExpertFlyer with a UK point of sale shows

However, with the default USA point of sale, it shows

BA.com in all its forms, including the app, sets the point of sale as wherever you're departing from (in this case, your outbound presumably starts at LHR).

So what you need to do is find a US-based travel agent. My recommendation would be to get the BookWithMatrix Chrome extension, install that, and then go through to Priceline where you should pay the appropriate fare in US dollars. But any US-based travel agent that will accept UK-based payments will work.

Do be aware that you can't upgrade using avios if there is any non-BA metal on a travel agent booking, however.

corporate-wage-slave

I see the PoS issue seems to be cause here, I think it's always good if the full details are published to find out the root cause - but just to mention there can be many other reasons. It's a complex area (and I'm not saying I know it all either). Among the other factors are

- married segments
- through fares versus end-on-end fare construction rules (huge issue in its own right)
- fare combinability rules (often you can just shove two fares together)
- "most restrictive conditions" applying
- dual inventory fares (particularly for WTP) which have special construction rules
- maximum permitted mileage rules (though that seems less of an issue these days)
- advance purchase rules which can vary on sectors
- BA.com tries to find the cheapest fare even if it goes up a fare bucket - some taxation aspects cause odd results
- BA.com thinks it is finding the cheapest fare - and occasionally it doesn't!

There's no great short cuts here, even after so many years of staring at fare basis rules - and that's one of the things I never thought I would become knowledgeable about - quite regularly I get caught out by some strange or new oddity or other.

Anonba

cameramaker