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The difference between "Sold out" and "Unavailable"?

The difference between "Sold out" and "Unavailable"?

Old May 17, 2016, 11:35 pm
  #1  
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The difference between "Sold out" and "Unavailable"?

I often see some tickets are unavailable even for far away dates. What's the difference between "Sold out" and "Unavailable"?
John Wang is offline  
Old May 18, 2016, 6:00 am
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I've always believed "sold out" = the plane (and its overbooking component) is physically ticketed while "unavailable" = we don't feel like selling you a ticket at the price you want, buy AT or BS instead.
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Old May 18, 2016, 10:56 am
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WGA fares sometimes have cut of dates or capacity availability...at which time the fare is "unavailable". Term also applies to flight that are not bookable past or close to the departure time.

Sold out is just that...no more seats on the plane. I do not think they use they term "sold out" on say WGA fares when Anytime and BS fares are still available.
PAX62 is offline  
Old May 18, 2016, 11:44 am
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Originally Posted by PAX62
WGA fares sometimes have cut of dates or capacity availability...at which time the fare is "unavailable". Term also applies to flight that are not bookable past or close to the departure time.

Sold out is just that...no more seats on the plane. I do not think they use they term "sold out" on say WGA fares when Anytime and BS fares are still available.
I just looked at a few dates. I found some flights with "Sold Out" across all fares. Some with "Unavailable" across all fares. Some with "Unavailiable" for WGA only. I found a few with WGA "Sold Out" and AT AND BS fares posted and one with BS "Sold Out", WGA "Unavailible" but AT fates available.

Someone posted a while ago that "Unavailible" may mean that some seats are being with held for Southwest Vacations and it was sometimes possible to purchase them through Southwest Vacations.
rsteinmetz70112 is offline  
Old May 19, 2016, 5:11 pm
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There are a lot of reasons why they might not want to sell you a particular ticket on a particular flight at this moment. It seems like all of those possibilities are lumped together under "unavailable" except the case where the flight is physically at capacity, which is shown as "sold out".
wetrat0 is offline  
Old May 21, 2016, 11:45 pm
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Originally Posted by rsteinmetz70112
I just looked at a few dates. I found some flights with "Sold Out" across all fares. Some with "Unavailable" across all fares. Some with "Unavailiable" for WGA only. I found a few with WGA "Sold Out" and AT AND BS fares posted and one with BS "Sold Out", WGA "Unavailible" but AT fates available.

Someone posted a while ago that "Unavailible" may mean that some seats are being with held for Southwest Vacations and it was sometimes possible to purchase them through Southwest Vacations.
Or through a third party like Apple or Funjet? Could even be smaller local travel agency that has blocked a bunch of seats for a tour that might be returned at short notice.
traveller001 is offline  

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