JayTeaBee

Looking for a little guidance from the Delta FT community please. I’ve been glued to some fares for a vacation I have coming up at the end of the year, PWM-MBJ. Now, I’ve already booked two J tickets for the in-laws at what I consider a decent price but couldn’t get 4 tickets to price out so looking to book the Mrs. & I separately.

J fares are still out of control but this morning on ITA when searching for cheapest available it spits out Y fares for the domestic segments and Z (business fares) for the international leg, for the same price I booked the in-laws directly into J. Since Y may auto upgrade or at least put us at the top of the list (am I correct that even my non status wife would be at the top with me on a Y fare?) I’d be fine with going this route just to lock in the tickets.

To make it an even longer story, I can’t get the ITA itinerary to price out at dl.dumb and I have tried doing a multi city search and all. Is my only hope to call in? What is my best chance at getting an agent to price this out? If I provide the fare construction to them will it be helpful? Or if you think this is a horrible idea please let me know why.

Fare Construction (can be useful to travel agents)
PWM DL X/ATL DL MBJ 434.00ZNNL6NFZ DL X/ATL DL PWM 434.00ZNNL6NFZ NUC 868.00 END ROE 1.00 XT 5.50YC 7.00XY 3.96XA 35.60US 11.20AY 21.85EK 5.00EL 20.00HG 3.00JT 20.00QK 8.00UC 14.70WD 13.50XF PWM4.50 ATL4.50 ATL4.50

rucksack

Try using one of the ITA -> booking scripts:

https://github.com/paul21ft/ita-matrix-powertools

JayTeaBee

Thanks for the tip, I have not ever heard of this before but sounds pretty neat I'll check it out.

Regarding my other question, is it correct that if me (PM) and my wife (no status) are booked on a domestic Y fare we both will have priority on the upgrade list if we don't clear in advance?

TTT

The ITA script is awesome! But unfortunately, it too will fail on multi-cabin tickets. Delta.com just can't do them.

I would suggest calling the reservation line and giving them the fare details you have from ITA. That will be your best bet at getting the right price.

EZEDoesIt

I've attempted multi-cabin with a res agent and that didn't go so well either... It was a bit more of a complex itinerary though. Orbitz was the only thing that worked for me.

rucksack

The ITA script provides a number of options for booking a ticket including both direct (i.e. Delta.com) and OTA options (e.g. Orbitz). There have been a number of times where I could not get Delta.com to price correctly (even using the ITA script), but was able to get the correct pricing from an OTA. In fact, it's even still possible to book a Delta ticket on American Airline's website! The price defaults to Euros for some reason, but it's possible.


On a full "Y" fare, your upgrades will clear at the time of ticketing (if available); if no upgrades are available at ticketing, you and your wife will have priority behind all other Medallions on a "Y" fare but before all other Medallions on a lower fare (e.g. B, S, H, Q, etc.)

On any Main Cabin fare below "Y", you and your wife will have upgrade priority after all other Medallions traveling without companions.

JayTeaBee

Thanks everyone. I'll play around with the script tonight and see what happens. I really appreciate the guidance! I have tons of time to lock this in I would love to get it done sooner than later but today is the first time another reasonable fare has presented itself.

JayTeaBee

Wow that script is amazing! Unfortunately it still doesn't price out correctly on Delta's site. Interestingly enough it does price out on priceline and american! I can't see the exact fare details so I'm a bit hesitant to do something like that. I ended up calling in and the agent couldn't reconstruct the same fare. Oh well, the hunt continues.

EZEDoesIt

If the fare works on Priceline I'd book it. You always have 24hr to cancel if you notice something wrong. You should be able to check the receipt on DL to verify it's what you were expecting.

JayTeaBee

I went ahead and booked it on priceline and it came through exactly as advertised. The strange thing is the domestic Y fare segs show "NOT COMPLIMENTARY UPGRADE ELIGIBLE" and I can't select C+ seats (thought I could at least do that since international, but it is Caribbean)

rucksack

This is probably a bug resulting from the new Comfort+ W fare class changes. But you should call Delta to ensure it's not a consolidator fare and you will still earn full MQMs.

JayTeaBee

Called in, it's a full fare and I will earn 150% MQM. Because Mrs. has no status Y fare will not clear ahead of T-24 and priority is as described by those above (Thank you!).

Even though this is an international itin, the C+ changes are segment by segment which is why I don't get C+ at booking on the domestic legs. All in all I'm satisfied with the result, the advice in this thread was great.