monitor

^ I'm not surprised. However, come "season," there is almost no prayer of the UG from PBI. At that time of year there is some chance from MIA and FLL, depending on the day of the week.

kate_

As enticing as this offer was...(SAN-SEA-PDX):

manacit

$299 is nice for a JFK-SEA-GEG (and the "deal" they're offering is hilarious), a bit tempted. F is completely empty on the SEA-GEG flight right now, and doesn't look super full on JFK-SEA - I'll be PM by then, but I'm still not counting on an UG there

The return is $505 or so for the SEA-JFK leg, so much more expensive.

diburning

Is the price for "All Flights" less than the individual segments because of married segment or origin and destination logic?

apodo77

I have seen that several times. My guess is they are trying to get you to buy the upgrade and making it look like a good deal with the lower amount for all segments.

PV_Premier

agree, it always happens to me as well.

i assume with this new user interface display it still upfares to a discount F fare bucket of sorts. i had a $299 and change offer like the one above a couple of weeks ago (PHL-ATL-SMF) but passed on it and i'm glad i did as the 757 on ATL-SMF was a dinosaur version with overhead TVs

jamesteroh

Offered $239 each way for a trip in August. Dtw/mdw outbound and ord/dtw return. Even if that was round trip I'd still pass

StayingHomeIsBetter

No doubt this has been discussed elsewhere in the 3500 posts in this thread. But, even if so, this VA Ave practice deserves further derision.

I booked a RT to Houston in coach, noting that FC was only $251 more RT. My intent, as has become a fairly standard practice for me, was to confirm the coach reservation and, as soon as I had the email receipt for invoicing my client, call in and pay the incremental cost for the UG to FC.

I checked my reservation on the website, and was offered UG to FC for $214 each way.

I went to the reservation page and confirmed that the FC fare was still available for the $251 RT increment, and managed to get the reservation changed.

Yes, I ended up "whole" in the end. But, it is the devious nature of the way Va Ave had decided to handle such matters that disturbs me. The only way to avoid the traps and the pitfalls in order to get a "fair deal" is to be an expert in awareness of the conniving that is attempted at the other end.

Marketing to attract and take advantage of the uninitiated and the gullible...

bergamini

Yeah, I don't think that's devious. It's just separate pricing models. The whole goal of FCM is to make money. Many more people are going to buy the FCM at $125/ea way than will at $214/ea way. So they are really only damaging themselves. But I'm guessing they are two entirely different pricing models.

StayingHomeIsBetter

So, would you be OK with a grocery store putting a product on display near the checkout for $5.00 when the same product is available on aisle 5 for $2.50?

I am not suggesting that anything here is illegal... merely that it is devious and dismissive of the importance to the business of being perceived to deal with the customer in a forthright manner.

And, you are correct that the airline is damaging itself... in several ways.

First, someone bright enough to discover the scam may subsequently have a lessened opinion of the company ethics.

Second, limited company resources were tied up by me needing to call the DM line to accomplish what I could have accomplished on-line, had the lower available UG price been presented to me on-line. When I did call, I first received a long recorded message about how the lines were especially busy due to the weather disruptions. DL management, and their chicanery, exacerbated the situation by putting me in a position where I could only accomplish what I needed by calling an already overtaxed system.

Bottom line, I will continue to maintain that, if the PAX is still within the 24 hour risk-free cancellation period, no other page of the website should be offering a purchased UG for a incremental cost that is greater than the cost available on the reservations page for the same itinerary.

Revenue management is trying to be too cute by half.

bergamini

Yes, I am entirely fine with a vendor, whether it's an airline or a grocery store, pricing their product at prices they determine. I don't have a contractual relationship with them such that they have to follow a certain pricing model, thus my rights are limited to buying or not buying the product at the price available. And I would be much more likely to buy a $2.50 product than a $5.00 so they better get this right.

Large corporations heavily segment work to different people and different teams. I have no doubts the FCM fares are calculated by different people and different models in some instances. If there is a fare sale/war going on with another carrier for a route, it is quite plausible that the A far could be less than the Y-bucket+FCM fare to me.

On a logical level, absolutely, an FCM shouldn't be more than the available fare but nobody is trying to be "cute" or use "chicanery" on "gullible" people. I think that their FCM pricing model is separate from the regular fare bucket model and that sometimes in large mega-corps that the right hand doesn't communicate perfectly with the left. I just don't think it means they are evil or trying to rip people off or means that I'm being shorted something to which I'm entitled. Would you be on here complaining if that FCM fare was the other way around?

StayingHomeIsBetter

I am interested in obtaining the ticket for its fair market value. The lowest cost that DL offers may not actually be the fair market value, but its the closest I can get to fair market value.

I am just fortunate to have been FT-educated, so I know to look in various locations when doing that search.

Regardless of which is higher or lower, I still do not believe that there should be a disparity between offered prices on different portions of the website, for the same itinerary, within the 24 hour risk free cancellation period.

You suggest that I replace my "devious intent" theory with your "they can't keep track of what they are doing" theory. Neither alternative stimulates confidence.

bergamini

Not quite. My theory is that there are different pricing models for different products and they don't have a logical check point between the two pricing models to make sure that (Y+FCM) <= A/F/P/G/etc. If I make a mistake or do something at work that doesn't mean I can't keep track of what I'm doing. It means I'm not perfect, and in this instance their pricing systems are probably not perfect. But it's also plausible that they intend the products to be priced this way because they have expertise and knowledge we don't, and that's fine too. It's their product; they can price it how they want. We are the consumer; we can buy it or not.

Qwkynuf

You lost me here. By definition, "Fair Market Value" is "a selling price for an item to which a buyer and seller can agree". If you buy a ticket from Delta at any price, then you bought it at fair market value. There is no such thing as an objectively "fair" fair market value.

pharmawalk

So now that you know this, perhaps purchase the ticket in coach to get the accurate cost and receipt for your billing purposes and then cancel it followed by purchasing the FC ticket at the more economical price.