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Booking the cheap seats: A process of repeated punishment

Booking the cheap seats: A process of repeated punishment

Old Jan 11, 2003, 7:08 am
  #16  
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That's actually one thing I like about AA.com and the NetsAAver fares.

You click on the NetsAAver link, and a new page with only a limited range of dates appear, according to the fare rules of the sale. After you pick the dates, AA.com will tell you whether there are flights available or not, both inbound and outbound at the same time.
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Old Jan 11, 2003, 8:06 am
  #17  
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I've actually had good luck in the past calling the 800 res number, saying that I saw such-and-such a price advertised, and I'd like the closest availability to such-and-such a date.

I don't know if the agent has a better interface to find available seats by class, or if they're just doing the same trial and error that I would, but either way, it's a little less frustrating.
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Old Jan 11, 2003, 9:08 am
  #18  
 
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Travelocity starts out showing you a calendar of dates that the rules for your fare allow you to travel (blue). It doesn't show you what days the fare is not yet sold out. Not until you click on a date does it actually check to see if the fare class is available. Often times the fare is actually sold out for much if not all of the dates that are valid for the fare.

I think the reason why Travelocity doesn't just show you what days the fare is still actually available is because seat inventories are constantly changing, and it would take too much computer time on Travelocity's servers to check seat inventories for every flight of every day every single times someone pulls up a calendar. You can already see how slow it is for Travelocity to check one click (a 7 day period). Imagine how long it would take to do many months of flights.

The servers would slow to a crawl and travelocity would become unusable if they checked all the flights on all the days.

Having said this, I think that this can be fixed. Currently, it appears that Travelocity is querying the CRS (the airline's computers) every time somebody clicks on a date on the calendar. If travelocity could cache the fare inventory data on its own servers so that it can be re-used for subsequent queries, then the delay of sending the request to the CRS and waiting for it to respond could be eliminated. The cached data could expire in a matter of minutes so that the data does not become too out of date, because cached data can erroneously show a flight to be available when it is actually just sold out.

Just my thoughts...
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Old Jan 11, 2003, 12:31 pm
  #19  
 
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by free101girl:
On the AA site, I can choose to search by "fare" (same problem - only gives cheapest restricted fares that can't be upgraded) or "schedule," which is a total crapshoot as far as the fare rules it will produce.
...
Am I missing something? Asking too much?
</font>
Question: when are you getting non-upgradable fares on AA.com? I didn't know it was possible, since AA allows upgrades from any published fare, and webfares. Do you mean that you can't check upgrade availability online? That's a different story....


[This message has been edited by landspeed (edited 01-11-2003).]
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Old Jan 11, 2003, 1:49 pm
  #20  
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by free101girl:
On the AA site, I can choose to search by "fare" (same problem - only gives cheapest restricted fares that can't be upgraded) or "schedule," which is a total crapshoot as far as the fare rules it will produce.</font>
I agree with landspeed. This can't be right. There are no fares you can pull up on AA.com which are non-upgradeable. To do that, you would have to go to www.aavacations.com, where tour packages are sold.

All web fares and lowest available fares priced via AA.com is upgradeable - domestic and int'l.
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Old Jan 11, 2003, 2:39 pm
  #21  
 
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Plato90s:
...There are no fares you can pull up on AA.com which are non-upgradeable... All web fares and lowest available fares priced via AA.com is upgradeable - domestic and int'l.</font>
Well don't I feel stupid!

I noticed on the AA reward redemption chart that mileage upgrades are available "From Most Economy/
Business Class Fares" and assumed this was similar to Delta's "from selected fares." In the case of DL, as you may know, almost all of the cheap fares (L,U,T class) are excluded for mileage upgrades.

Wow, if any fare can be upgraded on AA, that is a significant difference between the two airlines. I'm going to switch to AA from now on, whenever possible. Between that and MRTC for those times when I don't upgrade, AA is sounding better and better.

Thanks for letting me know about this!
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Old Jan 11, 2003, 3:16 pm
  #22  
 
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Check out the BA website. They show you the lowest fares applicable for your rate for several days before and after the dates you've indicated as your preferred travel dates.

It's pretty close to what you describe as being desired, but I haven't seen anybody else doing that.
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Old Jan 11, 2003, 3:17 pm
  #23  
 
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lol, yeah I agree Factotum. It's always like "$350 to London with hotel stays!!!', and then by the time you enter in the exact dates they mention it is actually $650 or more
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Old Jan 11, 2003, 4:04 pm
  #24  
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by free101girl:
Well don't I feel stupid!

I noticed on the AA reward redemption chart that mileage upgrades are available "From Most Economy/
Business Class Fares" and assumed this was similar to Delta's "from selected fares." In the case of DL, as you may know, almost all of the cheap fares (L,U,T class) are excluded for mileage upgrades.

Wow, if any fare can be upgraded on AA, that is a significant difference between the two airlines. I'm going to switch to AA from now on, whenever possible. Between that and MRTC for those times when I don't upgrade, AA is sounding better and better.

Thanks for letting me know about this!
</font>
You're welcome. It got more confusing when AA decided to "clarify" the award charts.

Although I really do like the BA system of posting ticket prices for a few days in front and after the requested date. It's just unfortunate that their web site don't always pull out the best fares.
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Old Jan 11, 2003, 5:34 pm
  #25  
 
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by swag:
I've actually had good luck in the past calling the 800 res number, saying that I saw such-and-such a price advertised, and I'd like the closest availability to such-and-such a date.

I don't know if the agent has a better interface to find available seats by class, or if they're just doing the same trial and error that I would, but either way, it's a little less frustrating.
</font>
I've seen travel agents have the following ability and I'm sure reservation agents have it too: For any particular day and route, they can see what Fare Codes are availabe. so If you say Feb 14th EWR - LHR, they can pull up all flights for that day and see how many V class seats, Y class seats, etc. are available for each flight. So if they know a particular fare sales falls under a V class seat, it's easier for them just to go through a few days and see which days a V class is available and then go on and see the same for a return.... instead of what we have to do - plug in the departure and return date at the same time.

With regards to the paint analogy posted by the original poster, I've actually had a similiar situation with Budget Rent a Car. I had an expiring convertible rental certificate which I wanted to use. I was flexible enough to pick up the car from any location in 3 METRO AREAS (which probably had a hundred locations between them). Hoever I was told they didn't have the capability to see where a particular car type was available and I had to specify one location at a time. I told them "Look, I have a convertible certificate, I want to rent a convertible on ANY day in the next 3 weeks at ANY location. Please find me a location that has a convertible that I can get". Their reply, "Sorry, sir. you have to specify a location. We can only look up one location at a time".
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Old Jan 11, 2003, 5:42 pm
  #26  
 
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by arawal:
I've seen travel agents have the following ability and I'm sure reservation agents have it too: For any particular day and route, they can see what Fare Codes are availabe. so If you say Feb 14th EWR - LHR, they can pull up all flights for that day and see how many V class seats, Y class seats, etc. are available for each flight. So if they know a particular fare sales falls under a V class seat, it's easier for them just to go through a few days and see which days a V class is available and then go on and see the same for a return.... instead of what we have to do - plug in the departure and return date at the same time.</font>
It's an availability checker. There are several of them available on the web.

http://flyaow.com/classavailability.htm

http://www.aeroplan.de/ap_rb_galileo.htm

http://www.etour.co.jp/Solar/index.html


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Old Jan 11, 2003, 7:06 pm
  #27  
 
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by free101girl:
Wow, if any fare can be upgraded on AA, that is a significant difference between the two airlines. I'm going to switch to AA from now on, whenever possible. Between that and MRTC for those times when I don't upgrade, AA is sounding better and better.</font>
Look forward to seeing you on the AA board

AA.com doesn't show upgrade availiability and I wish it showed lower fare options even when you search by schedule- I think it used to before they switched.
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Old Jan 12, 2003, 1:07 am
  #28  
 
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I am trying expedia's fare calendar for the first time. Is this new or is this something I haven't seen before.

NW's cheapest mid-week fares right now from PDX to DFW are H fares. I selected the H fare from the calendar and selected my dates from the availability list that is pretty much a copy of travelocities.

Then after selecting my fare I get a list of alternative fares on the same dates that are lower. And each of these are mileage runs.

Here's a couple sample routings:

PDX-&gt;MSP-&gt;CMH-&gt;MEM-&gt;DFW for 3,062 miles each way

PDX-&gt;SEA-&gt;DTW-&gt;CMH-&gt;MSP-&gt;DFW for 4,396 one way

Plus the fares are about $130 cheaper round trip. Still expensive for a personal trip at $420, but this is a way cool feature on expedia.

I apologize if everyone has been using this and I've just missed it until now.

p.s.

As of this evening travelocity has NO NW fares in its system that I can find. Just a glitch?

------------------

doglover
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Old Jan 12, 2003, 5:10 pm
  #29  
 
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Doglover, thanks for your post. I wasn't aware of the Expedia Fare Calendar and I'm already finding it very useful. I like the fact that it lists the fare codes upfront, so I can just scan down to find DL fares that are upgradable, for instance.

Very helpful!
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Old Jan 16, 2003, 7:27 am
  #30  
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by free101girl:
Wow, if any fare can be upgraded on AA, that is a significant difference between the two airlines. I'm going to switch to AA from now on, whenever possible. Between that and MRTC for those times when I don't upgrade, AA is sounding better and better.</font>
Welcome to AA, free101girl!

That was a big part of why I switched from DL to AA a few years back. The cheapest AA fare plus purchased upgrades, if I didn't have enough free ones, was always less (for my trips; YMMV) than the cheapest upgradeable DL fares - and I didn't have to take a chance of throwing money away if an upgrade didn't come through.

I've upgraded Web specials several times. The only non-upgradeable AA fares are things you can't get through aa.com like consolidator fares, vacation packages (already mentioned), travel agent "familiarization" fares and so on.

The wording on the Web site is left over from a brief abortive attempt to restrict upgrades a couple of years ago. It never stuck, but nobody has fixed the fine print yet.

BTW, there are some fine FT'ers in San Diego - hope you get a chance to meet some before long!
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