This makes me wondering how the 'Extra' fares are selling. I can't imagine that many/anyone is actually paying the massive upsell for 'Extra' over normal, especially when you can select C+ for less than main extra.

Not sure that is necessarily going to be the case, since we aren't seeing evidence that Comfort Basic is going to be cheaper than what regular Comfort was yesterday. If anything, the additional uncharge to avoid a middle seat might make buying up to Comfort less appealing.

Well, I just did a test booking on the route mentioned by a poster above - and in this case it was clear that it was actually cheaper.

In fact, the pricing positioning was.. interesting. DCA-MIA round trip December 9 to December 16th (by order of price):

* Main Basic - $137
* Comfort Basic - $197
* Main Classic - $207
* Comfort Classic - $267
* Main Extra - $375
* Comfort Extra - $447
* First Classic - $1253
* First Extra - $1613

Comfort Basic was actually priced less than Main Classic. It wouldn't surprise me if Delta is actually trying to convince people to buy up from Basic Economy rather than buy up from Main Classic. I'm sure it will be route and supply/demand specific, but Delta probably views the middle C+ seats as "slack revenue" right now - outside of business traveler edge cases (packed plane, only middle seats available anyways).

The mileage earning and ineligible upgrades is interesting - psychologically I think they are trying to get elites to keep buying Main Extra (although giving MQDs eats into that slightly). If they can get even a few Basic Economy passengers to upgrade to Basic Comfort, they are coming out on top. In my experience, on full flights with a lot of Basic Economy passengers, a lot of Basic Economy passengers get upgraded into middle C+ seats anyways.

At a minimum, this is consumer psychology crap to try to extract additional revenue. They get to advertise a reasonable looking C+ price to get people to look at the offering, and then anchor people to try to buy the middle option because it looks "reasonable" in terms of what you get versus the opposite ends (Basic and Extra). Even if it only gets average revenue up 1 or 2%, that goes straight to the bottom line.

Personally as a consumer the complexity is getting too much for me. Not seeing the actual prices (regular Main Cabin / Comfort+) on the buying screen annoys me to no end. At this point with what will end up being 9 total sales options (Basic/Classic/Extra for each tier, even if the Extra doesn't really ever count as one - it is again just used as price anchoring) is ridiculous. At that point you're basically just in ULCC carrier pricing models except with a menu of 9 bundle options rather than 7-8 al a carte add-ons. Absolutely ridiculous.

With MC Basic Economy I cannot use SC with my Reserve card. How about if I buy Comfort Basic?

Yes you do (a Reserve card is considered "eligible membership"):

It's answered in the FAQs at link at the top of the thread. The Comfort Basic fares are still Sky Club access eligible.

I think this would be a good seller for routes that are on regional jets since you are not going to end up in a middle.

An interesting consequence, be it unintended or not, will be frustrations for PMs and DMs who may well see open C+ seats on a seatmap but won't be able to select them via their complimentary C+ access benefit because C+ will actually be sold out with those empty seats being held for assignment at check-in or at the gate for those who bought C+ Basic. I wonder if DL will account for this and just grey out C+ seats if C+ becomes sold out so as not to create a false impression of available seats.

I'm sure it will be priced accordingly. No value will be left to the customer's benefits. Although in fairness if you are a higher medallion you're probably giving up your decent chance for an upgrade given the high ratio of F to Y seats.

More �basic� nonsense�. Ugh. Just a money grab and a way to make the �classic/normal� fares higher while detracting from customer experience and adding confusion along the way.

I�m waiting for the first carrier out there to finally say enough is enough with the confusing tiers. Simple straightforward pricing if you want coach, premium economy, or first/business. Consumers are getting tired of having a multitude of options to choose from and having to select a high tier just to get what was once the norm.

I look at someone like my father, who was once all over basic when it first came out to save a few bucks. He�s been burned on middle seats and essentially no flexibility so he�s done with it. Lesson learned. He started booking C+ or F to avoid any possibility of selecting basic in Main (he�s not very airline fare literate). I�ll need to warn him of this new �enhancement.�

90+% of the people who book this fare will do so by mistake.
Doubt the phone and CS agents are going to like the feedback they get from people who don't read what they are buying.

Since the �extra� fares rolled out I�ve purchased two of them: the first was an international D1 ticket that had a fair amount of uncertainty, and extra was only $500 more to make things fully refundable. I did that so as to not have a massive e-credit should I need to cancel. The second was also an international fare, though in PS where the extra gave me F on the domestic segments for only about $400 more (I honestly didn�t know that was a new perk of the extra fare for PS, as in the past it was super annoying it only booked into C+). Anyway a small sample size, and only for some personal international leisure travel. Definitely not booking them for my standard domestic tickets whether in F, C+, or Y when I can just take a credit if needed without giving DL a massive loan.

Now I understand why they added all these extra rows..

Tall people will pay for extra leg room.

I think, the motive behind Comfort Basic: Delta loses too many C+ seats to upgrades for Platinums and Diamonds who clear those seats right after ticketing. If a few more are sold the revenue impact is significant, because in addition it forces some of the top medallion customers pay for F seats in the absence of C+ ones

Yes. The domestic leg in F would have been same price as the extra - regular fare difference for international PS with the domestic in C+ for me so I�ll take the extra miles and refund ability for free.
January flight booked 8 months in advance. Was able to re-fare three times to a lower price (2 fare class improvements on one leg and 1 on the other) for refunds instead of credits.
Fun fact � when PS debuted in 2017 on the new A350 all domestic legs were in F and SkyClub was included. How things change.