WTP "Differential fares"?
 

Had a quick search of differential on this forum and seem to get a lot of results talking about champagne...

Anyway, I'm trying to move a booking I made, WTP upgraded to Avios to CW. Its proving rather expensive, because apparently I actually bought a WT fare that allows me to sit in WTP, so apparently I need 2 classes of availability to keep the same fare level, or I have to buy up to real WTP. Apparently I'm a 'differential ticket'. In fact to keep my upgrade and move date keeping the same price I would need all 3 categories to be available!

Given that 90% of the time this is unlikely to be an issue for most travellers but is there anyway for me to see if that is what I'm booking in the future? As I understood it W E T were the WTP booking classes? so is any of these specifically used for this? or is it a sub class of ticket?

And what is the point in these? I know AA had the AUP fares for companies who's official policy was economy class travel only, but this is almost the other way round, a WTP fare booked as WTP thats actually WT in disguise?

What's the fare? Route and date etc? Never heard of a Y DIF.

the original route is CPH-LHR-LAS-LHR-CPH

its the return leg LAS-LHR-CPH that I wanted to change. Original departure 16th june.

Have managed to find a more reasonable date, changing the route to LAS-LGW, only £180 + change fee £195 now. But still asking the agent there doesnt particularly seem like there's much way to see if you've booked one of those fares...

Can't see any DIFs with those details....

cheapest PE fare is T class - £865+taxes.

There is some info relating to changing dual inventory fares over on the BA Trade site. I hope this helps you

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb...dual-inventory

There are different ways of analysing these. I'm not actually sure that it's that helpful to think of them as WT fares that allow you to sit in WT+, even though in theory that is one way of looking at them.

You are buying a T class fare that books into T class like many other WT+ fares. However, these T class fares have special validity rules. They are only valid for a flight if there is T class availability on the flight and there is availability in the WT class to which it relates. This is why they're called Dual Inventory Fares or DIFs - and so searching FT for "DIF" may get you more relevant results.

For example, the very cheapest T class fare may require both T class and O class to be available. The next one up will require both T class and Q class to be available. If you book on a day when the flight is showing T9 Q9 O1, you'll get the cheapest fare. If you book on a day when the flight is showing T9 Q9 O0, you'll have to pay the next fare up.

This is why if you add on a UuA, which requires U class, you will need to have availability in all three classes to use that fare.I find that the fastest way of finding out is usually by using EF. You can pull up the fare ladder for your travel dates, and match the base fare to the fare ladder to see which fare bases are being used to price the ticket. ITA also helps on those routes on which BA allows ITA to use DIFs.AIUI, to allow many more price points in WT+, more carefully calibrated to the observed demand for the flight and the booking levels (for which WT availability is an indicator). Otherwise, for any fixed pair of travel dates, having only three booking classes basically allows the airline to offer only three different WT+ fares for those dates.

Substitute just about any subject that one might search on here and one will see a lot of results talking about champagne... ;)

rb211.

I wonder whether part of the limitation is caused by a maximum of 26 booking classes - the other airlines I'm familiar with that have some form of true premium economy also seem to devote only three booking classes to it - and also whether NDC may change this in due course.

Or whatever we're now supposed to be calling the channel formerly known as NDC.

Agree, which I've heard of -though only with AA now i think of it. However the agent called it a 'differential fare' twice while I was chatting to her. Makes booking these quite annoying for someone that regularly changes dates.

If that poses a problem, couldn't you simply book a non-DIF to begin with?

However, I can't really see how you'd be better off doing that. It just makes it more difficult to work out in advance precisely what the cost of a change should be - but that's a minority sport even amongst FTers.