How Come No Basic Economy On Award Tickets?
Aug 5, 2018, 7:37 am
#1
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 5,187
How Come No Basic Economy On Award Tickets?
When my family of 5 has definite travel plans on very short flights that are unlikely to change I will often book BE to save money which can add up on 10 one-way tickets. How come DL doesn’t ever offer cheaper BE class on award tickets? Is it solely due to the free redeposit by PM/DM members or is there another obvious reason that I am missing?
Aug 5, 2018, 7:52 am
#2
Moderator: Hyatt; FlyerTalk Evangelist
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Interesting thought. BE excludes certain elite benefits like upgrades and SDC, so if they introduced this they could say they're not eligible for free redeposit either.
Aug 5, 2018, 8:42 am
#4
Moderator: Hyatt; FlyerTalk Evangelist
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Aug 5, 2018, 8:52 am
#5
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Panama City Beach, FL (ECP)
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Let's not give Delta any ideas...
They've already made SkyMiles hard enough to use; do you really want the only "affordable" award ticket to be one where you get zero benefits?
They've already made SkyMiles hard enough to use; do you really want the only "affordable" award ticket to be one where you get zero benefits?
Aug 5, 2018, 8:55 am
#6
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: midwest
Programs: DL PM, Marriott Gold
Posts: 920
"BE didn't bring fares down."
Correct. Alaska announced that they are planning to roll out a basic product, and that it will grow revenue by $100M thru ancillary fees. Not thru generating additional paid load factor, but thru fees.
And I agree - let's not give DL any ideas on further diluting award travel.
Correct. Alaska announced that they are planning to roll out a basic product, and that it will grow revenue by $100M thru ancillary fees. Not thru generating additional paid load factor, but thru fees.
And I agree - let's not give DL any ideas on further diluting award travel.
Aug 5, 2018, 10:51 am
#7
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Seattle, WA
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As others have said, basic economy is not a discount for wanting fewer features: it’s a surcharge for elites and business travelers for upgrades and seat assignments.
This is easy to prove when BE is introduced on new routes: just look at the fares of alliance partners. Repeatedly, AF/KL fares in “V” remain identical, while DL sells an “E” at the same price they were previously selling “V” for. (Multiple FT’ers have documented this with hard data in the past, including myself.)
It’s amazing that some people here vigorously defend the practice, when it’s aimed squarely at extracting money out of the FT demographic.
This is easy to prove when BE is introduced on new routes: just look at the fares of alliance partners. Repeatedly, AF/KL fares in “V” remain identical, while DL sells an “E” at the same price they were previously selling “V” for. (Multiple FT’ers have documented this with hard data in the past, including myself.)
It’s amazing that some people here vigorously defend the practice, when it’s aimed squarely at extracting money out of the FT demographic.
Aug 5, 2018, 11:57 am
#8
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Please oh please don't give Delta any ideas. Award bookings are pretty cheap as it is, I've been able to book flights in the 5,000 to 10,000 miles range that would've usually costed me 25,000 miles. BE is horrid and did not bring fares down, it just replaced the older regular economy fare.
Aug 5, 2018, 7:03 pm
#9
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To change the topic a bit, some of the cheapest BE fares require a roundtrip purchase. You can't assume that all roundtrip fares are just the sum of two one-way's like on Southwest. Since you are price-sensitive, I'd suggest you look at round-trip BE pricing in addition to two one-ways as the flights may be cheaper that way. To give an example, the cheapest one-way BE fares on DTW-ATL are $139, while roundtrip BE fares on this route can actually be less than the one-way price as they are available for as little as $127 total.
Last edited by xliioper; Aug 5, 2018 at 7:20 pm
Aug 5, 2018, 8:15 pm
#11
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BE fares are here to stay. Large businesses see real value in them for cheap tickets because on a typical domestic penalty fare, the $200 fee wipes out the bulk of the value anyway.
They are not likely a good SM product because the entire purpose of cheaper award tickets is to use up unsold inventory. No need to go even lower.
They are not likely a good SM product because the entire purpose of cheaper award tickets is to use up unsold inventory. No need to go even lower.
Dec 6, 2018, 10:57 am
#14
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(not really at you)For those who are not sure what Sydney is talking about:
Now that United, Delta, and American all offer Basic Economy fares (no advance seat assignment, no cancel/changes, no upgrades or extra legroom seats, and in United’s case no full-sized carry on bag) it’s only been a matter of time before one of the carriers tried booking award tickets into Basic Economy.I admit to being surprised that it’s happened so quickly, since it’s not in the best interests of the airline – it’s a bad business decision – but I’m not surprised that it appears to be Delta going first.
https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea...basic-economy/
https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea...basic-economy/
I notice that the new BE fares aren't cheaper, just like everything else basic it is an opportunity to raise prices on the full fare.
Dec 6, 2018, 11:06 am
#15
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Be careful what you wish for. Davetravels started a thread on the new Basic Economy award tickets, which seem to cost more miles than not just regular coach but also C+.