Delta forcing higher fares!?
 

I am booking a trip out of Colombia.. I've checked all the rules, and fares, and found certain V fares which I prefer.. Yet Delta.com will absolutely not allow them to be booked.. Also over the phone the agent can't book it even though she sees the lower fare category.. The fare comes up on google flights, and matrix, but delta won't allow it... After hours and several calls I managed to get them to force a certain itinerary.. Again, when I try and book it online with multi city it is not possible..

Example
CTG-LAX is not available in V class this Thursday, yet a several hour overnight in ATL has it. Can't get it on DL.com They try to force you on different flights in a higher category.. You have to know the flights from matrix/EF, and call and manually enter them (We are talking something as simple as CTG-ATL-LAX) It really seems that Delta is trying their best to take every dollar they can from PAX, even if they cover up the lower fares, and make people book higher fares..
As much as I like Delta for a US carrier... Their ripping off customer through cash and miles is disgusting.. I have no problem getting the same fares through AA at all..

It's called married segments and all airlines do it.

Delta prices itineraries differently (higher) when you book multi city trips compared to married segment trips. I think all airlines including AA do the same thing.

Some low fare buckets like V have advanced purchase requirements (this can vary based on the route and I'm pretty sure is longer for international flights). It doesn't come as a surprise that this thursday's CTG-ATL-LAX flight is booking into L.

Looking out for April I'm seeing a $514/RT X fare leaving 4/12 and returning 4/21.

If you found lower fares on AA, fly AA then. I am not sure that DL has the malicious intent you are asserting, but even if they did, U.S. airlines have the right to make a profit, and have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit for their shareholders. If they charge too much, then fliers will select other airlines or simply not travel and then they lose money, like they did for decades.

Yep, probably fare logic screw-up on google flights/matrix. Also, the cheapest fare I see on Google/Matrix for Thursday with bucket availability right now is an H fare.

I understand the logic you all bring up.. Nonetheless I was able to book a fare which not only would the website not show, but upon calling again I was not able to replicate.. The fare was pieced together manually .. So I guess at the end of the day I got a favor.. Married Logic aside it's seems that sometimes one must use a TA, and not Delta.. Which is ok by me, but makes me wonder how many people pay more than they should for A-B tickets...

Many airlines also set up their fare class inventory to depend on the point of sale.

TA's cannot override the married segment logic. The system will just say "invalid compatible fare classes" or something to that affect. Reservations usually cannot override it either. It generally takes a supervisor and even that is difficult. It is just the way it is. As mentioned, all the major airlines do it. Delta started about 12 years ago.

When I try to get around married segments in DLTerm by selling the itinerary one segment at a time, it gives an error similar to "invalid routing point to point. Must book origin & destination." Even when the class availability is there on every segment, sometimes it will only let me sell the itinerary married.

In my experience (for these types of situations, anyway) if ITA matrix can price it, a TA with GDS access can book it. I am (sort of) a travel agent myself, and have seriously considered switching to a host agency where I can book these fares. It's not frequent enough for it to matter, though, and the commissions are nil, so I haven't bothered. If you can find a TA willing to go through the hassle for you, keep her/him! I've pretty much stopped booking airfare without charging a service fee - and that really only feels acceptable for points bookings.

I suspect these situations arise when something is miscoded in the fare rules - they are not supposed to be available (married segment related) but some error somewhere allows them to technically be patched together. I could be completely wrong, of course, it's just my gut feeling.

I notice that some searches on delta.dumb give broken fares that are more expensive than through fares. the fix seems to be to search by fare class and keep raising it one step at a time until you see a through fare. These can be much cheaper than broken fares even if the broken fares use one or more lower fare classes.

I've found in the past where DL.com shuts off longer connections from being booked even though they are perfectly valid. The several hour overnight in ATL comment in the OP leads me to believe this might be it.

My recent example is a connection through ATL with a 2 hour layover would not come up on DL.com because a 1 hour connection was available, but the 1 hour connection was higher because inventory was unavailable out of ATL (same outbound flight). Had to book through an OTA instead.

Be very careful with google fights and ITA matrix. They sometimes find flights which are not actually available. What I suspect is happening is that google is searching during the overnight period when airlines are also updating their systems. During a brief period overnight, the airlines may use a default availability scheme, which may open up lower fare classes for, say, an hour in the middle of the night. This might be why there is sometimes "phantom" availability, which is not actually bookable.

When this happens, I call DL and ask the agent to price the flights I want, including overnight connections on international itineraries.