findark

IMO with no status on either carrier (and no willingness to pay beyond Main Cabin), I think WN is a superior passenger experience. Obviously, many will rip me to shreds.. but I have never understood the visceral WN hate. They are a great airline I only stopped flying because I started buying F.

ethernal

Agreed. The only thing I would asterisk is that WN's reliability is not as good as Delta's - especially cancellation rates. Delta mainline domestic pretty much never cancels outside of major, major WX. Southwest.. tends to be a little less reliable. Even on a clear, beautiful day you can walk past the departure board at a WN hub and always see a few cancelled flights.

ND76

Please refresh my recollection about BE rules:

1. If I buy a BE ticket with a Delta AMEX card, do I get a free checked bag? (I think I don't get a free checked bag despite my status).
2. Do I get full MQMs with a BE ticket?

I've noticed spreads between BE and Main Coach on routes I fly of between $85 and $100 RT. Since I'm probably not going to get an upgrade anymore, flying really cheap coach is once again appealing to me.

MCO Flyer

1) Yes, you still get your normal checked bag allowance on BE fares (either based on status or CC) as well as priority boarding.

2) Yes you will get full Millage earnings and 100% MQMs. DL is the only US3 carrier to allow this with BE as I believe AA and UA only let you earn 50%.

xliioper

UA no longer counts miles. However, BE fares do not count as a Premier Qualifying Flight for status (they count the spend towards Premier Qualifying Points).

Watchful

Saw great round trip fares for near future Roanoke to LAX - round trip for like $198 in basic, but it was $338 in main.

It was always annoying to see the difference in round trip fares being like $50-60 but $140 is a real pain, especially when you have Medallion status that you are essentially forfeiting. (I did fly a basic fare on a competing airline once, and it was not that big a hit flying single on an airline on which I had no status.) Hope this is not a trend, but just a thing during these odd times.

PS - Looking at July the difference is back down to $70 between basic fare and regular main cabin fare - still a pain, but I guess this big gap was only because of promotional fares during the current unpleasantness.

GrayAnderson

Basically what's going on, if I had to guess, is that "Main" is still operating under "normal" rules while "Basic" has basically had advanced booking requirements ripped up. It's basically a distortion in the system brought about by the current mess; airlines dealing with crises often end up with rather...distorted...fare situations or with odd rules applying as they try to wrestle with computers that aren't set up for said crisis. For example, back during Irma DL basically handled the "full flex" fare rules to/from Florida by just kicking all tickets out as "full fare" tickets.

(What's even stranger is that those Basic fares are showing up even though they've chucked the cancellation rules and it isn't like seat assignment really matters unless you're still trying to get out of MCO.)

xliioper

Relax. Before freaking out, you need to look at the fare rules. That $198 price is a broken fare. Sometimes it happens that broken fares end up cheaper than through fares. You are getting separate fares for ROA-ATL, ATL-LAX, LAX-ATL, ATL-ROA. The ATL-LAX segments are $20.47 base (yes, it's that cheap), and the ATL-ROA segments are $50.23 base. Add in the taxes and you get $198.40 roundtrip. Since each segment is on a separate fare, the $35 upcharge on each adds up $140 total. This has all been observed before. There have been a few routes where Delta has been playing with significant differentials like ATL-SFO/SJC (but only with one-way fares, not roundtrip fares), but this is not one of those routes. There's another thread around about that. AA and UA have been known to do this fairly frequently on ULCC competitive routes. DL does have a $45 upcharge on fares to some of the smaller towns in the mountain west.

Note that in the past, DL would frequently only allow A-B-A routing on BE fare combinations which would prohibit combinations like this on one ticket. However, these BE fares don't have that restriction.