Award ticket in O class different miles charged
 

Trying to book TPE-JFK-DCA. Same flight (CI + DL) both flight on both trips show O availability. If I book in September Delta wants 85k miles. If I book within 2 weeks, they are charging 105k miles. Spoke to 2 different agents and they are telling me that even in O class there are multiple levels of awards which I think is BS. Any experience on how to get this fixed? Are they charging a 20k surplues for close in bookings? I noted a pattern online 105k withing a month, 95k after 30 days and 105k after 60.
Thanks in advance for your help or info :)

Angel

yes, O does not have the same cost for every date; there is nothing to get fixed. book when you see the price you want. if platinum and can re-deposit for free, then book now, and change if the price drops

The agents are correct, there are multiple levels and they all book into O. The award level amount and the booking requirements are listed at the "fare rules" link when you go to book an award. If you follow the link, you will see that the 85K awards have a fare basis code of CSMH850 and have a 60-day advance booking requirement. The 95K awards are CSMG950 awards and have a 21-day advance booking requirement. The 105K awards with no advance booking requirement are CSM1050 awards. Most of DL's lowest level awards have some sort of advance booking requirement (for US domestic awards, it is typically 21 days). It is similar to revenue fares, where the cheaper fare classes typically have advance purchase requirements. It is not at all unusual to have multiple fare filings book into the same booking class. For example, Delta has many different Comfort+ fare filings on routes (to go with each main cabin fare filing), but they all book into the same 'W' booking class.

I did a thread search, and this goes back even further than I thought it did:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...rd-levels.html

note the levels listed in the wiki on that thread. When you're booking you'll only see O or N but on the receipt you'll see the two-letter code if not booked at the lowest level.

Yes, I thought this practice started with the new award search engine from November '14, when, more usefully, they began adding a lot of partners to online search.

Don't see them using separate two-letter booking classes any more for the different levels. Receipts all show only O or N booking classes for DL awards. The underlying fare basis codes of the awards (from which the mileage levels are derived) are listed in the Fare Details: section of the email receipt. Awards on partners can book into different booking classes.

DL metal flights still use two letter fare classes. If you book in the app it shows you the two letter code during booking. The receipt always just shows O/N.
Partner awards book into whatever the partner uses. For Skyteam airlines this is O for business, and N/X for coach. Other partners uses different fare classes.

As for OP, if the DL metal flight isn't available at the lowest level then pricing becomes additive. It means you have to book an award for TPE-JFK and a separate award JFK-DCA. If JFK-DCA is available at the lowest "saver" level then you can book one award TPE-DCA instead.

Many skyteam partners book into X for coach awards. Didn't realize the app still shows the two letter booking classes. But looking at it more closely, it appears that the second letter in the booking class is simply the third letter from the fare basis code.

They use the classes from the revenue buckets but it does not actually track the availability in the revenue buckets. DL17 and DL19 both have Z revenue bucket availability on 10/16, but if you try booking an award ticket on them you get OI second level awards instead of an OZ. So it seems pretty clear that the award buckets for each flight are maintained separately from the revenue buckets.