Delta.com vs. EF and availability
 

Hi, I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before, but I wanted to try and see if there's a solution to this.

I am traveling from MCO - IAH via ATL on 10/08 and returning back to MCO from IAH via ATL on 10/11 and booked 3 tickets already with another 4th traveler I was looking to book today. All were booked on U fares.

When trying to book the 4th person a day later (today), all of a sudden I notice that there are no U fare options for that segment, and it's only K fares. This is for DL1618/DL1675 going to IAH. If I check EF, I see DL1618 showing U4, and DL1675 showing L4.

On the way back, the segments I have my group on is DL1675/DL81. They are all on U fares for this too. Delta.com says only L available for both flights. I check EF and see DL1675 with not only T4 but E4 as well. DL81 shows K4 and nothing for LUTE.

Tried searching on Delta.com with the fare class instead, but that didn't do anything.

Any advice? Suggestions?

Any suggestions? My apologies if this has been asked already.

You may be running into married segment logic. Fare bucket availability (and price) is determined by the overall route (origin and destination), not by the individual segments that are pieced together to form your itinerary. (There are exceptions to this statement but they don't come into play here.) So although there may be lower fare buckets available MCO-ATL and ATL-IAH, the lower fare bucket may not be available MCO-IAH.

Then again, DL.com has earned its poor reputation. I suggest searching on a third party site like Kayak, Orbitz or Expedia to see if you can find the lower fare you booked before. If you can't, you are probably out of luck and will have to pay the higher fare if you want that last ticket.

Also, for the future, I strongly suggest booking everyone's tickets at the same time. There is no guarantee of availability of fares or awards or even seats from day to day or even from hour to hour.

Before giving up, try doing multi-city search by fare code (T or higher, for example) to check whether breaking the fare to get some segments in lower fare codes raises or lowers the total cost. IME delta.dumb tends to do this automatically when it results in a higher than necessary price, but it principle it can sometimes save money depending on fares and available inventory.

Something must've been slow in updating from DL's internal system... I checked EF and 1618/1675 are showing K7L0 for outbound. 1675/81 for return are showing L9U0.

When you check EF, make sure you put in the MCO-ATL routing and not just look at the individual flights so that you get the inventory for your route. Otherwise, you get inventory for the individual segment as if you were booking it alone.

I had similar experiences trying to book rt flights NYC-PBI for Easter time next spring. Finally settled on Tues-Tues EWR-ATL-PBI-ATL-EWR for $239 x 5 pax. Ideally wanted the prior Fri/Sat/Sun with 7-8 night stay on a direct flight.

First off, DL has already blocked out direct flights (LGA or JFK) at $600+ (rt) in Y (H or higher) for months (we've been looking for a while). EF often showed LUT 0. Then just after pressing the PAY button (and I mean moments later), I get an EF Alert saying T loaded on the way down and just a second after that, another EF alert that T loaded on the way back - alerts I setup earlier for the direct flight. Naturally, I look at EF and sure enough, M9, H9, Q0, K0, L0, U0, T4, E4 - on several flights and several days. Went on line to book but up came the same really high prices. Called DL and tried to book and that's all they saw too. Checked again just now before posting and is now T0 E0 again.

God, how I hate a tease.:D

Yeah, I've been playing around on delta.com with multi-city segments, and one-way options, etc to see what I get.

In one Multi-city segment with the same itinerary, I got L fares going to IAH, and L fares on the return. I tried to book it, and it said "sorry those segments are no longer available"...searched again 20 seconds later, and got K going to IAH and L coming back to MCO and $100 higher. Checked on my workstation, and it's now L going to IAH, and K coming back to MCO. EF shows K going there, and L coming back.

The Benny Hill Show going on over here with delta.com.

It was answered in your own earlier thread on this.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...low-fares.html


The availability of inventory in a specific fare bucket (let's say U) doesn't mean your dates, route, flight selections/times of travel satisfy the rules of the fare(s) that uses U.