DL Platinum

Team,

I am required to use a corporate booking tool and am starting to run into the dreaded "E" (Basic Economy) fare with that tool. My question, when on average, do the "E" fares close out or stop being offered? Is it 21 days / day related, or simply capacity and when that fare basis sells out it is gone?

I ask because I avoid the "E" fares like the plague. No advance seat assignment, no recognition of status, no "potential" for upgrade.

KDCAflyer

Looking at some random flights, it looks like E0 and V0 correspond. So if V either sells out, or is zeroed out at T-21, E is no longer sold.

flyerCO

Most require at least 14/21 day AP. Some markets can be less. BTW Check with your company. A number will consider E fares too restrictive to book or at least will allow booking of the cheapest non-E fare if employee feels it's in their best interest.

flyerCO

Since E is lower fare bucket then V it would make sense that if V is sold out, so would E. However that doesn't mean it's a hard rule to follow.

BenA

Weirdly, there are cases where V is sold out but E is still available. Take today's DL 1839 ATL-MCO, which is sold out in T/X/V but still has 7 seats in E:

F4 P4 A2 G1 W0 Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q9 K9 L9 U9 T0 X0 V0 E7

The good news for OP is that inventory is irrelevant - in this case, what matters is the fare restrictions on almost all published E fares requiring 21 day advance purchase. E isn't "zeroed out" at T-21, there just ceases to be a valid fare available to sell it.

KDCAflyer

ExpertFlyer will still show E as having inventory, even when DL isn't offering it for sale anymore. Guessing it's a glitch.

TTT

Inventory buckets often remain available even after Delta has stopped selling a fare that qualifies for that bucket. This occurs for a variety of reasons including facilitating schedule/voluntary changes, SDC changes, connections with different fare rules, etc. Even though changes don't apply to E, the logic remains the same across all fare buckets.

Delta.com will stop offering a flight for sale in a specific class when one of two conditions occur:

1. The fare bucket is full/zeroed out
2. There is not a corresponding fare availble for the flight selected (advanced purchase, minimum stay, routing, etc.)

3Cforme

Check the fare rules for the relevant airport pair. ExpertFlyer is good for that. Generalizations won't do you any good - you might find an exception.

BenA

Yup, exactly. For a flight to be available for purchase, you need the union of a fare that is valid (the price/rules/etc. applicable to a given origin and destination) AND fare bucket availability. If either one is missing, it will look like the flight has "sold out".

Understanding this process is the key to making sense out of airline pricing. If a flight suddenly gets pricier at T-14, it's likely that the cheapest fare had a 14-day advance purchase requirement. Similarly, if you can only buy one seat and a second causes the price to spike, it's probably because the relevant bucket only has one seat for sale. And if adding a stopover increases the price of a ticket, it may be because only more expensive fares have rules permitting that stopover.

Many, many flights in the DL system have day of departure V and E availability. Fares available for a last minute purchase in those classes are obviously much less common, though!

warrenslo

On the LAX-LAS route, Basic Economy is available on flights later today (same day purchase.) So there is no advance purchase rule that I can see...

TTT

Probably a topic for another thread, but be careful holding off on purchases to attain a higher fare class. My former employer had specific rules against that in the Travel & Expense policy. The policy required booking as soon as the travel was confirmed, regardless of fare classes offered and specifically excluded delaying purchase to take advantage of FF benefits or higher fare classes.

xliioper

There are multiple E fares on this route. The one with no advance purchase has an underlying T fare and is $104, there also a 7 day advance for $58 (underlying V fare). Routes with heavy LCC competition like LAX-LAS may have E fares with no advance. Routes with no non-stop LCC competition tend to be more restrictive with up to 3 week advance requirement along with RT purchase and Sat night stay.

Often1

I am surprised that there are still employers requiring, let alone permitting the purchase of E fares.

While this was an understandable "glitch" in the lowest fare formula back when these fares were first introduced, it only takes one cancellation or needed change to lose a year's worth of savings. Forget about all the other stuff which is largely a matter of personal convenience.

Most employers have programmed E fares out of their booking tool so that they are not even offered.

But, to answer OP's question, there is no absolute answer and he will have to look at the specific routes he flies in order to determine whether there are close-in E fares.

jjglaze77

I agree - I use 3 different corporate booking tools and all of them filter out the E fares...