$1 base fare???
 

I just booked an international trip for next summer (fingers crossed!).

The receipt shows the base fare as $1, with $500+ falling under "carrier-imposed international surcharge (YR)." Taxes and other fees imposed by the US and the destination country are disclosed and not unusual.

Can someone please explain the logic behind this pricing methodology? At first glance, it makes no sense to me, but what do I know.

Thanks!

Mistake? Or a sale due to low demand? DL still gets the $500 "fuel surcharge" fee.

Where to? I may be interested in this!

I believe it has to do somewhat with perception - the airlines know most passengers don’t know/care-look at which fees are govt imposed versus which ones are imposed by the airline and which go to the airlines’ pockets. It makes it look like you got a great deal but your ticket was still $500 due to factors (costs) outside of the airline’s control (which isn’t entirely true since that surcharge is imposed by and pocketed by the airline).

It is a really good fare, but I'm not sure it falls into mistake territory - the total price isn't off normal pricing by an order of magnitude or anything. I just don't understand why the airline is playing around with the fare buckets like that. Is there some cancellation rule that might let the airline get away with refusing to refund fees and surcharges?

JFK-TLV, late July-late August.

Not sure how this is "playing around with the fare buckets". I've booked numerous fares over the years with a base in the 10's of dollars. DL currently has $1 base fares on JFK-LHR and $50 base on JFK-CDG. These are not mistake fares. YR surcharge sets a base (things like corporate discounts don't apply to them), so the airlines are still getting some money from them which is why they offer such fares from time to time when demand is particularly low or competition is high.

It's so that if you book this as an award ticket, DL can "justify" charging you hundreds of dollars in addition to the miles by claiming it's a fee they charge on every ticket instead of the base fare. To be fair, DL is far from alone in this shady practice.

Ah - if corporate discounts don't apply to the surcharges, then that does make sense. Thanks!

They are only somewhat tangentially related. There's no award surcharges on awards ex-US (either one-way or roundtrip). YR surcharges are charged regardless of origin. YR surcharges also differs from the amount charged on award tickets.

$1 base fares (or 2 x $0.50 for a r/t ticket) are pretty common for TATL flights Europe-US (in basic economy, lowest booking class). YR/YQ will generally still be a few hundred dollars.

How airlines spread the ticket price between base fare and the fantasy surcharges YR/YQ is anybody's guess. I suppose the YR/YQ gives some sort of internal consistency, as you'll have to pay it even on award tickets (of course, the customer pays no base fare for awards).

As mentioned above, it's all about corporate contracts. Some corporate contracts specify a negotiated discount off the fare, but not the "fuel surcharge", so....

Having said that, $692 R/T is a very, very, good fare for the DL non-stops.

I flew this lovely (public) fare last year from BOS to LHR. Not $1, but $8 base fare.

BOS-LHR (VS) -> LHR-AMS (KL) -> AMS-BOS (DL) on 074 (KL) stock. Also got DL miles on all segments, even though I wasn't supposed to :p

Wait, what?? $255 for a transatlantic round-trip with a European segment as well??? How did that happen??? I'm jealous.

Which is all why I could care less what the breakdown is. Bottom line is what does it cost for me to get a boarding pass? How and why tha number is broken down is less than relevant.