graraps

Just booked a simple, straightforward AMS-MAN-AMS ticket. Since there is no way to avoid stupid booking fees and card surcharges for exAMS tickets purchased on the KLM website and since the site seems a bit erratic from here anyway, I tried third-party booking engines. No dice. Only sky-high fares available on KL.
I thought it may have been an error in the GDS interface or something, so I call KL here in HKG to see whether they can issue this tkt and at what price. They quote me a price of ca. 540 Euros, as opposed to the 300-odd that I'd seen on the website. X and K booking classes. I subsequently go back to the website and book the tkt for 300something. Booking classes Q and E.

What's that about?? We aren't talking web-specials here, just normal published fares....

Klm is Dead - Long Live KLM

I also have (been forced to have) booked on the klm site because there was availability there on lower booking class tickets than on third party sites.

gakke

I looked at wideroe.no for some dates at the end of September, and found prices at 240 EUR (1913 NOK) + €6.

As far as I can see, the booking class is V.

alanw

KL regularly discounts their own fares around 100€ on their web site. This is how they offer the best price guarantee.

beergut

Just looked at biz class BRS - SIN in January for the Chinese new year. KLM UK site wants just over £8,000.00 GBP for 2, Expedia want less then £6,000.00 for the same flights !

nomad1974

I often find that KL fares (including intra-Europe) on expedia.com are cheaper than even on klm.com.

ranskis

for the promo sales from Sweden, it was impossible to find V on most flights. Anywhere else (UK, US, FR market...) it was widely open. KL plays a lot with the "country of sales" parameter and makes sure that to book flights ex-ARN you are on klm.se and nowhere else => they make availability lower for flights ex ARN on the swedish market. The same for a flight ex-italy i had to buy at last minute... only X or so available on klm.it, V was available on the US market or on the NL market if booked on the phone +31xxxxxxxx.

Aviatrix

I would not call this a scam - not even a mini-scam.

There are published fares. And there are special fares that are only available through specific suppliers - either travel agents who have a special deal, or (as in the case of some KLM seat sale fares) the airline itself.

This is entirely normal and has been industry practice for as long as I can remember.

graraps

But the whole point of my post was that I bought PUBLISHED fares at the PUBLISHED rate. (Excluding the stupid NL surcharges,) I paid exactly what I would have paid when booking in Q and E through any other channel, and indeed (as already noted by gakke) these prices were available from third-party vendors for other date/flight combinations.

HB-IWC

The entire confusion is triggered by the fact that different points of sales may see different class availability for exactly the same flight. As such, an agent calling up a MAN AMS flight in HKG may see different availability from an agent querying the same flight from the Netherlands, and that one may again be different from the one Expedia is coming up with because Expedia accesses KLM inventory through the US based NW Worldspan system. It's all part of increasingly complex revenue management tools, which don't always make a lot of sense.

graraps

That must be it, particularly as, come to think of it, the HKG office gave me a different (higher!) price than what I was seeing on Opodo.