anon2k2

I'm booking a flight SEA-SIN and find the PS pricing to be a little weird. $16 more than Main Cabin, $102 less than C+.

flyerCO

Most likely PS cabin is still fairly empty. Same thing happens from time to time on domestic flights. Discount F will cost less than the lowest available Y fare.

bloc0102

Also note that looks to be PS only SEA-ICN, ICN-SIN is Y.

Tine Rod

writerguyfl

Pricing is largely done by software using wildly complex algorithms. When looking at a case-by-case basis, there will be times when non-sensical results occur. Unless you have access to the proprietary data, it's virtually impossible to know if it's an actual error or if it's a calculated decision that results in additional revenue on connecting flights.

I'm not sure how often airlines run their revenue management software. Back in my hotel days, I was a Revenue Manager. Because it took a lot of time and computing power, our software was configured to run every few hours. In effect, that meant that all rate and stay restrictions were based on that snapshot of inventory.

I don't believe airline revenue management is real time. Therefore, each flight will have X number of seats available at each price. Perhaps someone just booked the last of the cheaper Comfort+ seats. Until the next run of the software, the strange pricing will exist. Once it runs, the Premium Select price will get "fixed" at the higher price.

Those are my guesses.

Tine Rod

xliioper

C+ fares also involve Economy seats on the SIN-ICN and ICN-SIN segments operated by KE (as KE has no C+/PS equivalents).

Comfort+ fares have an underlying coach fare class (in their fare basis codes) and tickets involve a dual inventory check (both W/S and underlying coach bucket must have inventory). So, for example, if coach U bucket and lower is zero'd out, you will get bumped up into both L main cabin and C+ fares. This helps ensure that C+ fares will cost more than whatever main cabin fare is available. BE fares also have underlying coach fare and dual inventory checks for same reason. For vast majority of routes, PS fares do not have underlying coach fare class (fare basis and booking class use P/A/G for bucket and booking class) and there is no dual inventory check to help make sure PS sells for more than main/C+. The $1316 PS fare is a GLE0ZNP1 fare with roundtrip booking and 5-day advance purchase required and there's some seasonal restrictions (25DEC THROUGH 09JUN OR 16JUL THROUGH 09DEC). Since there only has to be G bucket available to book this fare (plus meeting the fare rule requirements) and no dual inventory check, it's not too unusual to see such anomalies.

xliioper

Fares and bucket inventory are published via GDS systems. It would be truly silly to engage in such behavior since it would be relatively trivial to detect. You can easily check fare/bucket availability using OTA's/ITA Matrix, etc. ExpertFlyer and BCDTravel (free) can show you exact fare bucket availability on flights. It would also be counter-productive (if you didn't buy it at the lower price, why would bite on a higher price?).

vhfiv

Seems pretty common. From June:

manacit

I wish I had this problem! Recently booked SEA-AMS-CPH and I couldn't even get PS to price out with the (offered) SEA-DTW-AMS on an A350, it was only showing as "sold out"

rubesl

I just ran across a situation, DTW-AMS (one way) where economy was 130k miles and PS was 64k miles. After three days the economy dropped to 44k miles and the PS stayed at 64k miles. The whole time D1 stayed at a ridiculous 320k miles.

rogo

Do you recall the cash fare? I'm guessing 320K was quite reasonable given the cash fare.

Robert Leach

I have encountered similar situations where the system cannot seem to price certain itineraries that include a leg where PS is not offered connecting to a leg where it is. For example, ATL-LAX-SYD seems to be problematic in this regard. But on other routes it will price fine.

And I have been on routes where no C+ is available on the connecting leg, while PS is available over the water. In that instance, it booked the first leg in full Y and the PS leg in G. The example on this one was YVR-MSP-KEF.

I am not sure that the IT folks have fully gotten their arms around PS. And I wonder when it will start to be offered as a separate pricing option on domestic legs using aircraft with a PS section, such as the 777 ATL-LAX (which currently treats the PS cabin as C+ and the C+ seats as simple coach).

xliioper

Could be related to the fact that there are roundtrip award levels for Main cabin, C+, and D1 on this route, but not PS. When booking one-way's, there's only two award levels available in each cabin -- 44K and 130K for main cabin, 52K and 155K for C+, 64K and 185K for PS, 80K and 320K for D1. The low level awards all have a 90-day advance purchase requirement and there has to be availability in low-level award bucket. However, MC, C+, and D1 have additional levels that require a roundtrip booking. MC starts at 36K each way with 60-day advance purchase and there are other roundtrip levels between the 44K and 130K one-way award levels. If you were booking a roundtrip, it's quite possible there was availability at less than 64K each way for MC.

drakethecake

last year i flew PS from msp-hnd 60k miles economy was 150k miles