Fare Buckets Query

Old Mar 23, 2019, 2:48 am
  #1  
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Fare Buckets Query

Can I seek some clarity around fare buckets, looking to book Club home from PRG next month, there are these;


buckets left... it looks like they’re selling D now, is it worth waiting for R, will it be cheaper?

Not sure how these work so apologies if it’s pretty straightforward!
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Old Mar 23, 2019, 3:01 am
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You have to check the fare rules as well. Currently on that flight that BA is willing to use fare bucket J C D and R but not I. When it comes to sale each fare bucket assigned to a fare rules. These fare rules can have different conditions depending on who sell it under which channel. So like public R fare rule needs a 90 day advance purchase or a Saturday stay, etc. It could be that a corporate R fare rule is not that strict so you can buy under that R fare bucket.
So in your example check what is the conditions for the R fare rules so you will know that you can buy or not. So ie if it has a 90 days rule then you won’t able to buy under that fare condition only the current D fare, etc. If you wait it can be worse because as the D fare can have other restriction which could prevent you to buy that fare and only C and J left.
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Old Mar 23, 2019, 5:46 am
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Typically pricing only goes up, not down, as the fare buckets are bought by other passengers. So if price is the driver for you here - noting that there's also a BA Sale on for another three days, which could mean better current pricing - then I wouldn't expect the fare to decrease in price, nor lower fare buckets to become available.
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Old Mar 23, 2019, 6:13 am
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The fare buckets have wide price ranges, so it's possible that an expensive I could be more than a cheap R. Most booking tools including BA.com take care of that for you so you need never see this.

Fare buckets decay by two factors - sold inventory (so how many seats already sold) and anticipated future sales. If BA knows it will sell 10 high cost tickets in the 5 days before departure it had better make sure it doesn't cannibalise this by selling too many cheap seats now. BA is fairly sharp in this area but it is entirely possible that bucket I will open up again. All it would need is a few days where the sales aren't as high as expected - and what happened at the exact same time last year is a key but not sole feature. However I note the ET buckets look to be selling well too, so that's another complication so it's not looking hopeful. And if it is the beginning of April that would be a very different scenario to the end of April.
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Old Mar 23, 2019, 6:16 am
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Put simply, just because you can see seats available in a fare bucket, doesn't mean there is a fare available for you to buy from that bucket for the route you are travelling. For a fare to be available, not only do you need seats in that fare bucket to be available for sale, but you also have to meet certain conditions of that fare type, such as advance purchase which may be e.g. 28 days prior to travel on an R class fare (hypothetically). However, a passenger buying a ticket from PRG to JFK may be able to get an R class fare because tickets for that routing may only have an e.g. 14 day advance purchase in R class (again, hypothetically). Hope that clarifies.
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