EditingFX

When I'm booking a flight and get what experience says is a pricy fare, I'll do due diligence for my clients & double check against other carriers. Usually fare differences among the big 3 are within a reasonable range (call that a couple hundred maybe), but this time, DL was almost DOUBLE for main (Q) fare. $935 vs $485. Both nonstop, both flights within an hour of each other. ATL-LAX RT 11/5-7.

Thoughts on why such a huge difference in almost identical product?

So I'm shaking my head that as DL Diamond, I just bought a main cabin fare using my DL Reserve card on AA out of ATL. I'm totally used to paying somewhat more, being in a fortress city, but wow. Hate missing out on the MQMs & almost-for-sure UG (lots of empties in F), but gotta draw the line somewhere.

flyerCO

Ugh. We just had an exactly similar post. Bottom line, people will pay it. You're ignoring a whole host of variables and making an overreaching assumption based on one data point.

dmbolp

No idea about price differences, but Southwest will get you there non-stop the morning of the 5th and back the evening of the 7th for $333 total

findark

It is almost entirely meaningless to draw conclusions about the price of one flight, on one day, on one route.

DL has a much stronger schedule on ATL-LAX. They have a hub on both ends. You just said you were giving up a "almost-for-sure" UG... for $450 r/t I would certainly not be doing that, so maybe the fares are reasonable to some people. Etc, etc... very difficult to say anything about a particular case.

EditingFX

Sorry I didn't see the exactly same post.

What assumption am I making? I'm giving facts about pricing, asking what factors might contribute to having such a wide fare difference, other things being equal. The only thing I can see would be FF's willing to spend the difference for the MQMs, RMs and UG shot. I guess that could be enough. Not worth it to me if my client found out I paid almost double for that!

sydneyracquelle

Book the AA and cancel within 24 hours. Book the DL and fly on DL but submit the AA invoice for reimbursement. Everybody wins.

ethernal

Except when you get in trouble for expense fraud (even if it is "technically" harmless, companies really don't like it when you aren't accurately reflecting expenses).

To OP's point - Delta is banking on people booking them from Atlanta. If they haven't filled the plane, they will save their garbage yields for connecting traffic it with cheap connecting yields. For example, you're welcome to fly down to Miami first and get MIA-ATL-LAX-ATL-MIA for $486 on the same exact flights on DL.

xliioper

DL is fairly competitive with AA on it's 14-day advance fares (X fares for $397 roundtrip), but it's cheapest 7/10-day advance fares are limited to a handful of mid-day and red-eye flights (I see flights with L outbound and K fare return for $583.40 roundtrip on your dates). Since you have missed the 14-day advance purchase requirement for both outbound and return flights, and you don't won't to take the flight options within the cheaper time-slot windows, you are stuck with the pricey Q fares as your only option on DL. If you had booked this back on Tuesday, you would have met the 14-day advance purchase requirement on the cheaper X fares (for both outbound and return) and would likely have had less expensive options available on DL.

findark

In this particular case, it seems like DL responded to a hub attack from AA by leveraging its extreme strength of schedule. You are looking at very narrow slice of the market (sub-14 day AP, no SNS) and in that narrow case AA has attacked with discount fares and DL has used time restrictions to limit the bleeding to what they feel are head-to-head flights.

or

...depending on the discount fare. Seems like they feel they can discount "non-business" times of day to avoid high-dollar OPM pax with corporate contracts who simply don't look beyond DL.

ATOBTTR

Probably the first time I�ve read �ATL-LAX� and �easy upgrade� in the same post on FT.

EditingFX

lol, and in reality, those 12 F seats will likely be gone 12 days from now. They do tend to drop like flies in the last week.

Thanks to ethernal, xliioper and findark for your points, that's the sort of fare pricing info I was looking for. I thought findark's info was particularly interesting.

ecaarch

I was sorta scratching my head at the concept of ATL-LAX being an "easy" upgrade. Most of us here would be happy if it was just a "realistic possibility."

flyerCO

Looks like the thread got deleted (as did the OP for it). Its in my Chrome browser history, but no longer can find the post or the user in system.

It was about this exact issue, even between same airlines.

writerguyfl

It's counterintuitive, but sometimes the best way to make money is to send customers to your competitors. If Delta knows that this flight has a high demand for last-minute seats, that might be what is happening.

We used to do that back when I was a hotel Revenue Manager. (And by "we", I mean the revenue management software.) You raise rates so high that people would be silly to pay your rates when your competitor across the street is 50% less. They sell out and then anyone needing a room at the last minute has no choice but to stay with us because we're the only hotel with available room.

It's a bit of a gamble. But given the amount of data that airlines/hotels have with which to make predictions, it's not that risky.

Admittedly, it's not egalitarian. But any for-profit business with dynamic pricing isn't going to be fair for all customers.

hotturnip

I flew ATL - LAX today on DL. 19 out of 37 for an upgrade--AFTER 7 empty seats had been filled.
Just Gold, but still. . .