flyman182

Did a search and didn't find where this has been discussed before, but booking a Delta flight today and found that Basic Economy fare offered was priced higher than a regular coach fare. Has anybody else seen this happen, and why would a passenger ever purchase a more expensive Basic Economy fare?

Flight Search Info
9/17/15-9/19/15
ATL-DCA
Basic Economy (E): $252.20 (R/T)
Main Cabin (X): $176.20 (R/T)

Ben and Jerry

I'm sure Delta will have some sort of marketing spin for that.

KDCAflyer

I've also seen it before. Chalk it up to Delta's terrible IT.

SuperG1955

I posted this one a while back.

MSPeconomist

Today I was offered an "upgrade" to a flexible coach fare for fifty cents in each direction, although it was B IIRC with a segment in S rather than full Y.

xliioper

Hmm, not see this. The cheapest X fares I see are $196.20. For the same flights, there are cheaper $176.20 E fares. Comparing fares from different flights is not really valid. While there are higher priced E fares, if you look at the underlying fare filing, it is different. When comparing the exact same flights, I don't see any examples where there are alternatives non-E fares at a lower rate.

OnTheSlopes

This does not surprise me at all. Good news is anyone who has some stupid restrictive travel policy of 'cheapest' fare without question just got happier! I am not one of those people with such restrictions, fortunately!

xliioper

DL has different fare filings based on the time-of-day of the flights. Here's the rules for the XG14L4SA fares which are the $176.20 E fares.

FROM ATL -
PERMITTED 500AM TO 1000AM MON/TUE/WED/THU/SAT OR 700PM
TO MIDNIGHT MON/TUE/WED/THU/SAT.
TO ATL -
PERMITTED 600AM TO 900AM MON/TUE/WED/THU/SAT OR 600PM TO
MIDNIGHT MON/TUE/WED/THU/SAT.

There are more expensive E fares at different times, but I don't see a case where there is a cheaper X fare for the exact same flights. There is only T availability at a higher price. Again, comparing fares between different flights is really apples and oranges.

kmersh

I saw that recently and said hmm, must be some sort of error as Basic should be less expensive than say Regular.

So, I was passing through the airport and mentioned it to the SkyClub Agent who did some digging for me and said that it is based on demand and while he admitted it does seem strange, he was told by his help desk that if the demand was higher for basic economy than regular economy it could be more expensive.

He said which would probably cause passengers to buy something other than the Basic fare, he equated it to First Class sometimes pricing less than Coach, even though First Class is a better product, if there is a greater demand for Coach, First Class could indeed price less, which is why he always tells Family and Friends to check First Class after looking at Coach.

flyman182

Obviously, it's not fair to compare prices for different flights. When I posted this earlier the fares were for the same flights. I just rechecked the flights and Delta has corrected their pricing so that basic economy fares are now lower than coach fares (as they should be).

exwannabe

When I pulled up the OP's ITN it clearly had E greater than X for the exact same outgoing flight.

What I did not check, and I suspect is the issue, is the return flight.

It is very possible that the E fare returns on a "more expensive" flight than the cheaper X fare did.

xliioper

Maybe they made a new fare filing, but I don't see any $176.20 X fares. Just the XG14L4SA $196.20 X fare which has the same time-of-day restrictions as the E fare --

FROM ATL -
PERMITTED 500AM TO 1000AM MON/TUE/WED/THU/SAT OR 700PM
TO MIDNIGHT MON/TUE/WED/THU/SAT.
TO ATL -
PERMITTED 600AM TO 900AM MON/TUE/WED/THU/SAT OR 600PM TO
MIDNIGHT MON/TUE/WED/THU/SAT.

Did you select both outbound and return flights, or just look at the initial flight listing?

pbarnette

Cool. Someone found an example, among the multitude of fares, of where basic economy is more than regular economy. It is cool trivia and moderately amusing, but I'm not sure what it means to anyone from a practical perspective aside from "don't click basic economy reflexively and always check the prices".

injera

This is a first I suppose.....

I'm looking to book a flight NYC->MCO for February and was curious what costs are like right now (probably wont buy the actual tickets for another month or so).

The Delta app shows non-stop economy tixx in the $220-240 depending on time and if flying out of LGA vs JFK. Then it has an option for basic economy which was $5-10 MORE than the economy tixx. (there was no basic economy for flights out of JFK only LGA)

I get that sometimes F may be cheaper than Y if only the most expesnvie coach tixx and cheapest F tix are avalable but i assumed there was only 1 bucket/price point for basic economy tickets so was surprised to see this.

Then again, i wouldnt be surprised on such a leisure heavy route that most customers who would consider basic economy have already planned their vacations/booked their trip (i'm headed to a conference).

Anyone else see this before?

xliioper

Yes, there are already two or three existing threads on this topic. Although, are you comparing JFK-MCO pricing with LGA-MCO E fare pricing (this is not really the same as the examples other people found were the exact same flights). Although I think some of the cases may involve broken fares (outbound flight is the same, but the cheaper option involves a connection on the return on a broken fare). E fares are always non-stop.