I'm in the processing of booking a trip with the boyfriend in August traveling to Athens. Because he is starting from DCA, and I'm coming from EWR, we're going to be on separate itineraries. In booking his flights this morning, I appear to have purchased the last R fare on the return, as my return on the same flight is now pricing in Z. Is there any chance that more inventory might be released to the R bucket? I'd imagine the answer is probably not, given what a good deal the R fare is, but before I book my return in Z I wanted to see if those with more experience watching fare buckets had other thoughts. The second question, suppose I go ahead a book the return in Z, which is pricing out at around 3500 as opposed to 2200. If another R seat opens up, can I get the itinerary repriced? I assume there would be a change fee (300) but even so the savings would be substantial if such a repricing were permissible. Advice?

You could book econ return (B) and change to R (w/$300 fee, I think) if/when when R becomes available. I don't think that making the return H (if possible) would remove the change fee requirement.

Can a mixed R, H r/t be booked? If so, can it be done online?

You can do an advanced search online and make your outbound BF and return Coach and it will let you price it that way. I'm pretty sure that this will only work for the return being changed; changing the first leg usually requires a complete reprice of the itinerary.

Book as close to what you want on the CO.com web site. Choose the "Pay with cash" option and get a PNR number assigned. Then, call CC.com support at 800.300.1547 option 3. Give them the PNR, have them change the fare classes to whatever you want/need. Then, go back to the web site and complete your purchase. Of course, if the fare class you want is not available they aren't going to be able to make it magically appear.

The "advanced search" option would price out an R & B fare combo. What I was asking (trying to ask? ) was if/how one can do R outbound and H return.

The box to specify fare codes goes bonkers if one mixes coach & J/F.

This would be "simple" to price using ita, but that's beside the point.