GagaPilot

Yesterday I purchased a roundtrip reservation, ANC-BKK, for this October. I had been eyeing a set of flights since around the first of the year for a probable trip to Thailand this fall. The PS fare decreased drastically yesterday and I quickly snagged two tickets as it was almost a thousand dollars cheaper per person than what I originally saw. The reservation ticketed normally and I assumed what I purchased was the usual non-refundable fare where if one cancels they can only received a credit, less the cancellation fee. I briefly reviewed the reservation on the app after booking and made sure the flights, dates, seats, etc were correct then I headed off to bed.

Today, I did a more thorough review of the reservation and noticed on the email receipt, just above the fare calculation, the following appears: "REF WITH FEE/CHG FEE APPLIES"

So, is this indeed a refundable fare, subject to a fee? Not complaining if it is and I'm happy to have an extra layer of flexibility if needed. Just thought it strange as all other tickets I have purchased recently say "NONREF/PENALTY APPLIES."

Even on the DL website, on the My Trips page, underneath cabin type it is blank whereas it usually says "Non Refundable" on all of my other reservations.

If it matters, here are the fare classes:
ANC-SEA (W)
SEA-ICN (A)
ICN-BKK (H)
BKK-ICN (K)
ICN-SEA (G)
SEA-ANC (W)

MSPeconomist

DL generally hasn't been offering such fares previously, but other carriers have some refundable with a fee (refundable but not fully refundable) fares on certain routes.

I wonder whether this could partially be the result of the Wuhan virus, with demand tanking for Asian destinations and customers being concerned about what would happen if the situation makes them want to cancel future trips close to departure dates.

BTW, as the OP probably knows already, G is the lowest PS fare class while A is slightly higher but is still discount or even deep discount.

GagaPilot

Very good point... I hadn't really connected the Wuhan Virus with this booking as it is so far out in the future. I could see DL offering a partially refundable fare in order to entice people to book. And yes, I knew G was the lowest PS fare, but wasn't entirely sure where A stood in the pecking order. Sounds like it is still on the discounted end.

MSPeconomist

The PS fare hierarchy is G A P, same as the previous ordering of discounted domestic FC fares, where generally P included both refundable and nonrefundable on many routes. As a very general rule, these fares book into different domestic coach buckets for connecting flights which might well be reflected in the underlying coach fare basis (dual inventory) for your two W segments.

The intraAsia K and H fares are probably KE fare classes unless they're booked as DL codeshares. If you have KE flight numbers for these segments, I have no clue what H and K mean except I would guess that they're somewhere between full fare and deep discount. If you have DL marketed segments, H is above K (Y B L H Q K L U T X V), which would go with A being above G on a through TPAC PS fare.

I'm just guessing on the Wuh flu influencing fare rules, but generally to be competitive on routes, DL must offer fare conditions similar to what is offered by competitors, which in this case could include TG, VN, MU, CZ, CX, etc., some of which are obviously hurting now.

xliioper

Cheapest G and A fares are non-refundable. There are ones for a couple dollars more that are refundable with $350 cancellation fee. These are GLE0ZRPJ and ALE0ZRPJ fares. They were just filed on Jan 31, so could be virus related. Fare basis codes are in "Fare Details:" line in email receipts. The outgoing and return flights are all booked under a single fare in each direction. The reason for different classes on each flight is that only the TPAC flights have a PE cabin. Flights without a PE cabin will book into a different booking class (either coach or C+ for the DL flights).

findark

The general standard for most TPAC markets is refundable-minus-penalty, so it's not really surprising for DL to be matching the competition.

kenn0223

Delta has been offer refundable for a fee fares for their mid-tier fares TPAC for years. It’s pretty common for both US and Asian carriers.

If the OP posts the full fare details (the few lines of letters and numbers in all caps just above the “Checked Bag Allowance” heading on your email receipt) someone here can decode it for you and tell you exactly what fares you have.

The single letter codes are more related to inventory. There are usually a dozen or more fares in each single letter “fare family” and some fares pull from multiple inventory buckets making it look like there is more than one fare involved.

GagaPilot

Checked the Fare Details of my email receipt tonight and sure enough they are exactly as above ALE0ZRPJ and GLE0ZRPJ. That explains it then. I hadn't bothered to read the full fare rules at booking (did it on the app, not sure if that was even possible?) as I had just assumed it was the standard non-refundable. Anyway, happy to see I have bit more flexibility than expected should it be needed. Thanks!