mathisfun

I can't actually, because it only happens after you click "buy." I'm new here, and it is kind of a dick move to question the veracity of people's statements, especially when what they are describing has clearly happened to several people on this forum.

However, I did take screenshots when this happened about 8 times in a row last week. In this instance, I was buying tickets no matter what, and I wasn't going to have to risk wasting 1500 dollars just because you have a tough time believing that an airline would intentionally try to screw people over. I grabbed these shots in case they didn't give me the lower fare over the phone. There are some weird time gaps because I was doing things like checking the fares that came up on the website at the same time it was telling me the fares had gone up and because I was on the phone with Delta sometimes on hold, sometimes talking to an operator, etc

https://image.ibb.co/gtPuoa/Screen_S...2_57_44_PM.png
https://image.ibb.co/gOQpMv/Screen_S...2_59_55_PM.png
https://image.ibb.co/g6f0Ta/Screen_S...1_01_22_PM.png
https://image.ibb.co/mDmw1v/Screen_S...1_01_48_PM.png
https://image.ibb.co/g3M78a/Screen_S...1_33_56_PM.png
https://image.ibb.co/cnBkuF/Screen_S...1_39_12_PM.png
https://image.ibb.co/dkyLTa/Screen_S...1_41_11_PM.png
https://image.ibb.co/hy3WZF/Screen_S...1_40_51_PM.png

mathisfun

I think I mentioned last week, I also used a VPN that I use to live stream blacked out baseball games. Still no luck. I had seen that logging out had worked for people in the past, but it didn't work this time

RealHJ

Then it really may be that in this particular case Dullta is caching old, sold out fares and the search results are cached vs. real-time (or anything close to real-time) inventory based. That would be so if it happens for a few minutes...hours at most (but really shouldn't be more than a few minutes*). If any longer, though, then it is an intentional bait and switch.

*based on the fact that I've seen that after I buy a last seat in a fare, it'll still show up in searches, but at booking will be "sold out", for a few minutes...but in just a few minutes the search results will update to the current availability

xliioper

This has nothing to do with DL tracking your IP or login. DL multi-city search has issues with married segment inventory when pricing multi-city searches as was documented in another thread from a few days back. The bug also exists in ITA/Google Flights code. The problem with the above pricing is likely there is no actual inventory for the married segments in either Q bucket for outgoing or the M bucket return. The web search does not look at the married segment bucket inventory until you go to purchase, and only then discovers that there is no inventory in the priced married segments. Note that this itin is now showing only M bucket for outgoing, and B for return. I suspect it was the M availability above that was erroneous, and there was actually only B bucket open as a Q outgoing + B return yields a price similar to what you were seeing. Note that it is trivial to verify this by simply redoing your searches at the time on third parties like Priceline, Orbitz, etc.

mathisfun

The search was originally on Google, and I did verify that it was still showing the lower price after Delta raised the price at point of sale. I went to either Orbitz or Expedia as well, initially, but not after Delta raised the price on me so I don't know if the "glitch" ended up there as well.

I can't verify the change in price at checkout via a third party site. If it happens to me again in the future, I'll check on other third party sites and try to verify what you say is happening.

Also, it still doesn't change the fact that Delta lets you put all your info in and then charges a different price after you click buy. Whether or not it is a glitch or some scheme to make more money, they need to put a hold on the price you clicked on initially and give you that price within a reasonable (e.g. 10 minute) time frame.

toolate

here is is 2018 and this same "GLITCH" continues to happen.
I tried to get a quoted fare of $681 five times over 8 hours today and each time it repriced it to $950

Even the phone agent saw it and could not explain it

xliioper

What route and flights were you looking at and were you using multi-city to price it?

RRDD

Are “BE” fares available on the flight? I once had the same issue, so I booked the low BE fare.

dalehill

I had a similar thing happen to me last summer when trying to book award an ticket SFO-JFK-SFO (DeltaOne). I forget what the fare in miles was that I was quoted--let's call it X--but every time I tried to complete the transaction I got a "oops something went wrong" message and had to start over, only to arrive at the same outcome.

I eventually phoned and the agent was able to see that fare but was also unable to book it. While I was on hold, she consulted with someone else, came back and said that the fare was supposed to be X + 10,000 (+/-). Yet, the website was showing X. Long story short, after quite some time and after being put on hold several times, the very diligent agent (she really did want to fix this) was able to book the trip at X.

The next day, just for grins, I checked that same flight and the fare was indeed X + 10,000 (+/-), and it stayed that way for a few days until I got bored with checking it.

HWGeeks

You don't need proof when calling delta about a pricing error like this. I have had 3 instances where I needed to call delta due to this and each time they needed no proof. The first two times I offered to show them screen shots.

Oh and on another ocasion, it was showing me an upgrade price of 89 but when booking it was doubling it. They didn't ask for proof either.

hotturnip

It's happened to me a couple of times booking packages on Expedia. In fact, the last time it happened, I think it occurred twice: there was one price downgrade when I first chose the hotel for the package, and another downgrade when I hit the "buy" button. It was a lovely experience (especially since the price was already ridiculously low).

Occupationalhazard

That's what triggers it for me. I've tried booking and using credits/vouchers and suddenly the price doubles.

In those cases I have called the Diamond line and they fix it up without difficulty.

Also, welcome to FT.

O/H