BigFlyer

I was looking online at some international itineraries on delta.com and it appears that it is not possible to book basic economy in one direction and main cabin in the other.

Can that be overridden by an agent, or is it just not possible to book a mixture like that?

Mr. Tickets

Since the most restricted fare governs the entire ticket (unless you book two one ways), if you could do it, the entire ticket would go by the basic economy rules, so there would be no point.

jrl767

nope; Basic can’t be combined with any other cabin (Main, C+, PS, F, D1) … you would have to book separate one-way tix

MSPeconomist

Isn't it true that BE fares require a RT purchase and can only be combined with other BE fares? I've never bought one, but this is my understanding of the rules.

SUPERTRAVEL

No, Delta sells one way BE fares.

findark

No, you cannot combine a Basic Economy fare with a non-Basic fare. It's in the fare rules.

Basic Economy does not need to be round-trip. However, yes, you must combine only BE fares.

xliioper

To be clear, there are certain routes where the cheapest BE fares require a roundtrip purchase (and, as noted, there are also generally, but not always, BE fares with no roundtrip purchase requirements). On routes where cheapest BE fares require a roundtrip purchase, it may be cheaper to simply purchase roundtrip Main Cabin fares on one ticket instead separate tickets with BE one-way and Main one-way if you just want BE in one direction. For example, DTW-MSY is available for $278 in Main Cabin roundtrip when booking roundtrip fares. While booking cheapest one-way BE and one-way Main fares would be $159 + $189 = $348.

An example of a route where there are roundtrip BE fares, but no one-way BE fares is DTW-CHS. The cheapest one-way fares on DTW-CHS are $219 and are in Main Cabin (T basis). While there are BE fares on this route from $318 roundtrip (Main Cabin roundtrip fares start at $373 roundtrip).

spongenotbob

It is possible but you will need to use an actual human travel agent (not Delta) to accomplish this. I’ve seen it done.

xliioper

It is definitely not permitted by fare combination rules. "Unbundled" fares here is fare rule speak for Basic Economy fares.



In some cases, one-way BE fares can only be combined in a roundtrip A-B-A routing basis and can't be booked with an A-B-C multi-city routing. These only apply when attempting to combine fares on a single ticket. You can book fares on separate tickets to get around these rules.

BigFlyer

I know United is not Delta - but as a reference point, the United website allows BE in one direction and regular coach in the other direction (also allows one to buy seat selection at time of booking and any time thereafter.

findark

This is not accurate. United will not sell a mixed-Basic ticket. You may be ignoring this warning when you make such a selection, and also ignoring that the price of the "mixed" selection involved retroactively repricing the other segment. To avoid customer confusion, it's standard practice never to mix Basic fares with non-Basic fares.

xliioper

UA has same fare combination restrictions on BE fares as DL BE fares. They go further than DL and say they can't even be combined when purchased on separate tickets. Although I doubt they would ever go after anyone for such combinations on separate tickets (other than potentially agents who do it repeatedly).