Difficulty booking flights - but they're available
 

So work was trying to book flights from regional QLD - BNE - AKL. Get the 'error' message. When I look at the legs separately there's like 5 flights into BNE and another 2 TT. Messaged QF who said I can't book it all on one ticket. Not available. But I'm allowed to book the legs on separate tickets. I know QF will check bags the whole way through on 2 separate QF tickets so not too fussed and loads of time in BNE transit (unfortunately).

I don't understand why flights are available but I can't book them on same ticket. QF would lose out on $

Is it something to do with them thinking the flights will sell out at higher prices on the individual tickets instead? (22nd Dec flying so busy). J sold out TT.

Is there availability for booking QLD-AKL

Just becuase there is availability QLD-BNE and BNE-AKL separately does not mean that there is availabiliry for a through booking

what is the origin airport

MKY-AKL. Actual flights MKY-BNE-AKL have seats available. Contacted QF on twitter and they said not available but I don't know why they're not available to book MKY-AKL when clearly there are flights available MKY-BNE & BNE-AKL. Have to book separately.

Availability for A-C via B can be different to A-C and B-C separately

Looking at MKY-AKL via BNE

QF1771 -> QF125 shows Y0 B0 H0 K0 M0 L0 for QF1771 as does QF2513 and QF 1773 .

Booked as standalone flights, there is availability down to L class

As such, making 2 standalone bookings is quiote possible whilst for a through booking there is no availability

There is nothing that kids on twitter can do about that

This is what is known as "Married Segment" logic.

In this QF may prefer to sell seats* on the MKY-BNE flight to PAX travelling MKY-BNE than for those who want to travel MKY-AKL. It could be the same for the BNE-AKL flight as well.

*in specific fare buckets, moot if the fare buckets are zero.

The question is why?

Why does Qantas care?

Lots of airlines do it and reasons to care involve maximising revenue

excluding taxes, Qantas's listed cheapest fares MKY-AKL are


Q 155.00(AUD)
N 195.00(AUD)
S 235.00(AUD)
L 280.00(AUD)

whilst BNE-AKL fares are

Q 255.00(AUD)
N 295.00(AUD)
S 335.00(AUD)
L 380.00(AUD)

QF would rather sell fares for $380 for BNE-AKL than $280 for MKY-AKL via BNE , so limits those

Selling a Q class $97 fare plus a $380 L fare for $477 is better than selling a through L fare at $280

Also for regional cities QF has a commitment to provide certain number of seats "locally" and presumably international travel doesn't fall into that bucket. This has nothing to do with revenue maximization but with regional seat availabiltiy. Not sure it is a successful policy, but several countries do this kind of game which basically serves to funnel regional traffic into a local hub (BNE in this case). Very annoying as it limits availability of seats on RTW fares :) which is why I know all about it.

Is this married segments? I thought married segments were flights available in conjunction, but not separately. Here they are available separately. Although... it looks like they may not be available in the same fare bucket, therefore meaning the through fare is not available.

It can happen the other way round, too.

It can happen both ways, i.e. restricting through travel in this case.

Dave Noble cites one of the likely reasons for this to be occurring here.

I was reading this thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...-logic-me.html

# 6 seems to suggest this might be a case of local availability and flow availability rather than married segments (as these don't appear to be married). Confusing.

Yes, "Married Segments" are a way of enforcing local/flow availability.

So work was saying I needed to fly another carrier because it was all sold out which is why I looked into it and was like - those legs are available albeit separately. In practice I've found Qantas great at checking bags through on separate tickets. Although I wonder if the initial flight were delayed causing issues with 2nd flight how they would handle this. It would certainly put me off booking them on long haul international routes and risking separate ticket issues.

Secondly we're willing to pay but if it shows up as an error and people walk away and book the other carriers then Qantas are losing out on $ and December is a great month for airlines! I thought they would just show whatever fare class was available to get me home and we pay. Instead the error message effectively says 'hey go fly another airline!'

I've seen married segments mentioned in relation to award flights previously but never needed to look into it in any depth myself. When it comes to revenue I figure you just pay what the going rate is and if there's a seat then you can buy it. Happy to oblige but they gotta make it easier. Even the work travel agent walked away from the Qantas flights. No idea what portal they use.

Agree. And I agree there is some sort of revenue control going on here. Just difficulty understanding the concept of married segments in this specific context as the flights are not married in any way and the fare/availability is not dependent on two or more sectors being booked in conjunction with each other... which is the very definition of a married segment? That is, they don't exist in isolation, which they do here.