More E class on the way?
 

Just checked ATL-AUS/SAT to see if DL is matching the current WN sale. Sure enough they are ... with E fares. V is $50+ more r/t. Anyone finding E on other non-leisure routes?

Yeah!, more E middle seats.Why not just cut out the middle-man and fly Southwest or Spirit.

Why on earth would someone choose Delta's "E" fare on this? It's an objectively inferior product in virtually every way to Southwest's offering, but for the exact same price:

• 100% unchangeable (even with fee) vs. 100% changeable, for only a fare difference
• No included baggage vs. 2 included bags each way
• No advanced seat assignment, with only the dregs left after everyone else picks (vs SWA's no-advanced-seat-assignment for everyone, putting all on even footing)

Then, for flights after 2/1, no upgrades and no same-day changes either.

I guess you earn miles . . .

Perhaps it's the markets I fly to/from, but I've never even seen an E fare offered.

To be fair, I usually only book a week or so in advance.

The initial markets are listed at the URL below. DTW-ERI is a bit of an oddball (no LCC/ULCC's and probably not much O&D).

http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_...-economy-.html

I'm also seeing them on DTW-DFW and DTW-IAH (Spirit routes) even though they are not listed on the webpage.

E fares generally require a 3 week advance purchase and a Saturday night stay for a number of markets. Also only available on non-stop routings.

Interesting find by the OP.

Lots of city pairs don't have published fares all the way through the most-deeply discounted fare buckets. One might think they could keep one bucket above E (V or X) for time-limited promo/match fares.

you may have answered your own question

I agree completely. Also, with WN, you can pay the extra $10 or whatever it is now to get priority boarding, so you basically get your choice of seat and can often score an exit row.

Corporate discounts for the employer and miles for the sucker (I mean employee).

+1. DL shouldn't have even wasted the resources to come up with E fares.

For a frequent flyer, these are horrible to purchase. But for someone who is 1, on a budget and just wants the cheapest flight, or 2, doesn't care. It will appeal to them. DL isn't necessarily going after the high roller here, but that causal flier that would normally choose WN, or whatever the cheapest that shows up in Travelocity. They're not going to care about changes, and they're already going to pay for bags, the seat assignments might be an issue for them though.

E flights should be avoided by any DL frequent flyer. You can't book into Economy Comfort and on the one occasion I made the mistake of buying this fare, my upgrade was not processed correctly. Silvers were sitting in F while I sat in a middle seat in Y.

I thought E fares only got upgraded after all others had been upgraded. Not 100% sure on it though, but I thought there was some strange rule in regards to upgrades.

+1 - People get all hot and bothered that these fares exist. But, the bottom line is that there is a market for these seats, nobody is twisting anybody's arm to buy them and it's highly unlikely that in the low-roller market, people are calculating in the risk of changes and the like.

If an employer requires an employee to use an E-fare to go on a trip they didn't really want to take, would that be considered arm twisting?

Clearly... It's a step in the direction of cheaper fares having less benefits even to medallion travelers. The new language on the web site about "full medallion benefits" for economy fares clearly indicates delta will move to restricted benefits on the cheapest economy fares. Remember back when a T fare was the cheapest.?? Now we have V & X. There was a lot more to that move than a supposed fare class alignment with Sky Team. I call BS.

Friday I'm flying on a U fare and feel like a big spender. Haha. No upgrade yet. 14 of 16 seats are open. As usual theses days.

After my inquiry, @DeltaAssist indicated there was an error with the processing and applied the upgrade request manually. The point is, there is something funky about these fares and medallion upgrades. Buyer beware.

The better question is, will a corporate travel agency allow it to be booked. I couldn't get one to price via our online TA (which is travelocity based). Also, cost or not, we have always required fares to be changeable. That alone would be enough reason to book up to a T or V fare.

If any of you are like me, much of my travel is booked within 14 days. Will these even price at that short of a time frame? Our buy up minimum miles to first is ridiculously low, but the few times that I haven't been able to get into F, I've been finding myself in Y, B, M or K.

Are the MSP routes new for E fares? I fly to LAS and FLL often and DL never has cheap fares on these routes. They have never attempted to compete with Spirit on these routes before. That I've seen anyways.

I would love to see some cheap fares to FLL this winter. And LAS for that matter.

The yet better question is, will a corporate travel agency allow it NOT to be booked? I just found out that I received an E fare on ATL-SAT. The agency site I used had no information of the lack of seat assignment. To the contrary, it showed the plane and I picked aisle seats. I only found out about the E when I went to Delta's site.

Cheapest fare is cheapest fare, even if it's only $8 less than a V fare for my exact same flight. I'll pay $4 each way for an aisle seat, if I can figure out how to do it. Or maybe I can just wear a scarlet E on my clothing.

That was good for a laugh. For 2016 medallions delta should print your prior year MQDs in Big bold letters on your medallion card. Maybe that's why they removed the bar codes a couple years back. Make room for MQD space.

Then. All passengers board the plan based on MQD spend rather than zones or class. Remember lining up in grade school by height. Well delta has a modern take on that ordering of pax.

I haven't verified it myself, but I'm guessing that many travel sites probably aren't coded to know that E is substantially different than all other fares and will offer it.

I don't buy E fares either, but some of us just don't want to fly Southwest: different airports/terminals (i.e., Humphrey at MSP, MDW rather than ORD, etc.), more connections (exMSP), no lounges, no advanced seat assignments, no interlining, bad IROPs handling, lots of families with kids, party flights, FAs telling jokes, playing games and otherwise annoying passengers on the intercom, no FC,......maybe more that I'm missing but for flights of this length, I really don't care that much about the FF miles (although I would have no use for the WN companion pass system to award their elites).

Perhaps my view is partly shaped by seeing a few episodes of the old Southwest airlines reality show on cable TV that seemed to always show overbooked flights, lost and damaged luggage, and unhappy passengers while WN staff enjoyed their parties and played games on board.

HAHA basing your opinion on a TV show? You do realize that TV shows are based on the ludicrous, exaggeration, fantasy and drama?

Perhaps you should actually give WN a try and then you could have an opinion based on reality ;)

I was surprised that my corporate TA allowed one to be booked. We used to use Concur and that specifically had logic in the search that excluded E fares. Our new booking tool (internal) does not have that logic.

The problem I see with corporations booking this is the lack of residual value of the ticket. If travel plans change at the last minute for the employee no changes/no cancellations can become costly.

How so? You don't like the terms of your employment, whether it's salary, benefits or work conditions (including travel), you leave.

Or, put another way, arm twisting is a made up term.

No, it would be considered cornh**ing. Are we allowed to use that word on FT?

Most of the E fares I have seen are in the $200 - $300 range (often closer to $200). Even if they were changeable, there wouldn't be much residual value after the $200 domestic change fee.

I don't need to fly WN to know that I want flights with nonstops from MSP departing from the main terminal, FC, reserved seats, airport lounges,fewer kids on average, interlining and IROPs rebooking on other carriers, and FAs that let me work in peace and quiet rather any annoying me with onboard games and jokes.

You're certainly entitled to your opinon, and all those things you mentioned are self-evident, but you really are showing your lack of bona fides with this last comment.

It's clear you don't know in this respect, having never even flown them and are relying on a cartoonish version. The jokes are much diminished if at all (i don't even remember any jokes my last trip) , and no games either.

That's a good point. You're right - not much value left in that case.

Whats wrong with kids? No kids = no future

I don't fly often, but when I do, I prefer flights without baby goats.

She hates children but won't fly private to avoid them.

No kidding, they take all the goat's milk from the beverage carts and there hasn't been enough of it catered lately to begin with.

I hate badly behaved children on planes and in airport, hotels, and restaurants. Fewer kids on board means fewer badly behaved kids on average unless we want to get into whether certain carriers have a higher incidence of bad behavior per child passenger.

You've given this some thought! :D

A few years back an AA exec observed for attribution that most people on the plane weren't accruing miles in any program, let alone AAdvantage, and certainly not carrying elite status. (AA was no slouch in promoting FF plans, either.) In that environment, an E fare doesn't forego much: those flyers weren't upgrade-eligible, they probably weren't priority boarding-eligible (CC benefit noted), MQDs mean nothing.

I don't think for a minute that DL's choice of city pairs for E fares is random - I think DL is trying to figure out just what it needs to offer at what price points to compete with WN, Spirit and Allegiant. WN has been strong in Texas from day 1 and ATL-SAT/AUS are good test routes. On-time performance, frequency, and network depth may be enough, even without seat assignments.

To paraphrase a frequent refrain here:

WKBK (want kids buy kids, or maybe breed kids would be more accurate).

An inferior product is still an inferior product- 1) Changes permitted on WN (can be no charge) , 2) and free luggage on WN. Pop the EB small fee on and you'll have a good seat and more than likely board ahead of families.

I'm airline agnostic these days and happily purchase WN and DL, even Allegiant alike, but an "e" fare as an inferior product is not even on my radar screen. I haven't sat in a middle seat in 14 years and don't intend to in the future.

Wow...I bet you are a joy when meeting kids. :(

They are kids...chill out.