ethernal

I understand revenue management and why this is done. But my god, this is depressing. Especially since I always end up in Y-.

The flight I just booked in Discomfort-Y:



The flight I could have booked if I was in Miami:



How often do people see this? I know flights are priced cheaper with connections (due to competition) but it's still quite depressing.

Paplover

My last two business trips my government guided travel agency put me in F on A or P fares for some legs. My only guess is that the discounted F was cheaper since we are not allowed to buy F versus Y fares.

3Cforme

You're flying from a hub, on a route with no non-stop competition, without a Saturday night stay. This screams business traveler spending the company's money.

If you've bought even twenty plane tickets in the last three decades this shouldn't be novel for you.

ethernal

I said I understand why. It's no different than how a Y ticket connecting being half price on the same flight. Just never really thought about the consequence of it in premium cabins vs. coach.

runninaway

I see this out of MSP with some degree of regularity. Ironically, the last time that comes to mind was to PDX. MSP-PDX was something like $750 for Y while I could find MDW-MSP-PDX for $240. I bought the MDW-MSP-PDX trip and then a MSP-MDW. Between the two tickets I saved just under $400 at the cost of a couple hours of my time. It was worth it just to see the FA do a nice double-take when I settled into the same seat for MDW-MSP I had just vacated 40 minutes earlier.

strickerj

I hear ya... it’s the same way here at DTW except in some cases to cities that Spirit and/or Allegiant also fly to. The Mrs. hates connections, so we suck it up and pay it.

Speech99

While the process is understood, Delta has been much more aggressive in raising prices this year than last. Same routes, same months. For my limited status, their service is good, but can't justify my companies strong loyalty anymore. I'll also blame Hartsfield-Jackson for part of this, especially on international routes. The lack of competition here is sad. Almost all of our direct international flights are Skyteam.

readywhenyouare

Having MCO as my home airport is nice. Lots of competition. And I can also fly out of DAB or MLB if I need to. It's not hard for me to find a cheap F fare.

MCO Flyer

I can usually find pretty cheap F fares from MCO if my flight dosen't involve a connection. I often see F only $50 more than Y on MCO-ATL and I got a great F fare that was only $136 about a year ago on MCO-ATL. However it is pretty inconsistent as I was looking at booking MCO-DCA and F on a AA non-stop was only $238 and on DL it was $350 with a connection.

pbarnette

Why does this thread exist? The OP is free to move to Miami.

Kevin AA

The thread title is wrong. You are not paying more for coach than for F on a trip from ATL to PDX. The fact that F is cheaper if you start from MIA is meaningless... unless you're willing to fly there; maybe it's cheap and you should do that.

A thread letting us know that fares are different and that you know that fares are different could have been posted in 1995 and the response is the same: "and your point is?"

danielonn

To me its like why would anyone pay $$$ to fully load a Lexus when they could get a Mercedes for close to the same or for the same cost. For me if I saw a Premium Faee less than Y of course thats the one I am booking.

To.me Quality Price Ratio the best quality for the best price and yes I could be spending less $$$ than the guy in 1D unless I want the max MQDs.

CPMaverick

Even if you gotta drive to Miami from Atlanta?

Often1

This makes no sense.

OP is not comparing ATL-xxx, he is comparing a different routing to what he needs to fly. If ATL-LGA is cheaper in F than ATL-DTW, that only matters if you are looking for a cheap F flight to anywhere. If you actually have to go to LGA, what it costs to go to DTW is irrelevant.

ethernal

Yea, it's not comparable products - obviously if F was cheaper than Y for the same routing then I would buy F. In this case, the product is technically different (which is how Delta - and other airlines - get away with it). That's why I just said it was depressing - it's depressing to know that someone could buy the same flight as me at the same time for less and sit in F (as I sit in seat 34B) . I know the products are different, but there is still a psychological element that bums me out - hence my use of the term "depressing".

Here's another thing that annoys me and I feel is less excusable:




I am okay with cheaper fares on connections, but I used to (ignorantly) think that fare class was almost perfectly correlated with cost, even on connecting flights. Meaning that, hey, at least I'll be above someone that paid $500 for their ticket on the upgrade list. But it turns out that this isn't the case. I used to get confused how I could be so far down on the upgrade list when I was booking high fare classes (that stayed the max fare class booked ATL->XXX). Turns out a lot of people have connections and then have higher fare codes - even if they paid significantly less.

I get that it again comes down to competition - Delta would want to give people that have choices (due to connections) a better experience and, therefore, give upgrade preference to them versus a hub captive with only one non-stop option - but at an emotional level it still hurts. I spend a lot of time in Y-, and can only wonder how many times someone who bought a cheaper ticket takes my upgrade into Y+.