beyounged

Hey fellow ITA fans, I have quite a few questions for my recent experiences with the scripts and a whole bunch of tangent questions too. If anyone can help me, that would be deeply appreciated.

I am a big supporter of the LA SEL-SCL-TYO fare, and tried it out earlier last month. It was an awesome experience. I later found out it can be done (at least on ITA) for much more, so I began experimenting. Took me 2 weeks to push it down to ~2cpm BIS, while taking me to some extraordinary places, so I began using the script to check tickets' viability. Most of the tickets I had with rather strange transfers could not manage to go through Priceline or CheapOair, which is rather expected. The easier (3 connections at most for each leg) ones mostly went through smoothly, but I wanted to maximize the mileage, running 3 of them could get me AS 75K, so I went to a TA trying to force a convoluted ticket out. TA had extreme difficulty and could not price multiple tickets I have searched. He said there is simply no space on N class on many flights, maybe LA controls them base on where the ticket is issued. Now I have so many questions.

1. So does LA indeed control how many N class seats are available base on where the ticket issuing agencies are? (so for the UK based TA I used, he cannot see N class on a flight, but another agent somewhere else can see it?)
2. If so, then does ITA search it base on the ticket originating city? (so for this case, South Korea) Or does it search ALL availabilities across the board?
3. Is there a way to see specific inventory is available for any point of sale? (so can I see where is N space available, and then go find a TA of that country?)
4. Is that why Priceline cannot price out some of them because they are base in the US? (at least when the powerscipt gets me to PL it is for US)

Or, maybe the TA does not know what is going on and made up a reason to get rid of me, so...

5. Anyone know what other reason can cause this kind of issue? Maybe the fare bucket availability never existed, and is just a phantom fare? (I highly doubt it, I have searched every fare bucket on LA's fares published on the route, even Y class cannot price it out)
6. Google Flights is riddled with phantom fares, but I have never experienced any one of them existing for days, or weeks. (this deal has been around for half a year) I have priced out quite a few simple tickets a few days back, so those are not 100% phantom at least.

Additionally, I think Priceline has updated something the past week. Usually when the script transfers me to Priceline it will try to search for a while and then either show the results or display "The flight you selected is not available". Now it will almost always instantly show it is unavailable, despite for flights that have been proven ok on Priceline just a few days back.I have checked, it does not seem to be scripts' problem. Hipmunk, GF also have this problem. Sometimes even the easiest and simplest one-ways or rountrips cannot be correctly transferred to Priceline, and the rate of success for OJ or multi-city is just non-existent.
7. Does everyone else have that kind of problem? Is there any fix? (Priceline is probably the only place I can remotely price this deal out)

Finally, I would love to book this trip as I want to secure the status before June, and there is almost nothing that can beat 200k RDM+exotic destinations for 3.5k USD. Anyone knows any powerful (and very patient) TA who may want to take a crack at it? I would be willing to pay more than what normally TA's charge for a multi-city. Anyone else who is interested in this (nearly impossible to get) ticket can also PM me, I have all the details of my research handy. All in all, I just want to travel to some extraordinary places while doing my runs, and hate to let the 30+ hours of work go to waste. Any suggestion/help is appreciated. If anyone else has been down this kind of rabbit hole, letting me know I am doing something that is impossible can also help, so I will know this is just all in all an impossible pipedream and promptly give up.
Thanks all! And great work for the creators and community here!

mihaid

Back in Nov., after trying six other OTAs without success, I was able to price out a (different) LA fare using expedia.com. Did you try it? And maybe even try Expedia’s variuos points of sale (they have a bunch of POSs in Europe, but also in the Asia-Pacific zone.

beyounged

never had any success with Expedia, especially Powerscript do not power it through. I need specific fare basis so general search cannot work...

thanks, PM ed you.

psbaj

1. I can't confirm that but as far as I know, you'll have different prices depending on the country you issued your tickets because the base fares change from country to country, not availability.

2. Yes, ITA search based on the origin. If you want it to search as a US based agent, you need to fill a US city (I usually fill NYC) at the last option of the form: Sales city.

3. There is a paid tool you can do that, it's called ExpertFlyer.

4. I don't think this is a problem, as I said in aswer number one. I think you have a phantom availability problem. It happens a lot in ITA Matrix.

5. If even Y fare can't price it out, it could be it doesn't fill all the base fare rules. Have you checked it?

6. I already saw phantom fares for weeks, not months.

7. When you have complex itineraries, it is very common that they would only work on a few OTAs, or even none of them.

I'm not an expert, just been using the tools for a while.. Other members, please correct me if I said something wrong.

Calchas

The marketing carrier determines the availability in each bucket. Some carriers vary by sales location, others don't.

It uses the city of origin as the sales office, unless you tell it otherwise. Open the Advanced Options link to see that box, right above Currency.

You can use ExpertFlyer, but it only has a few countries available to choose from. Also don't forget about married segments affecting availability.

Possibly. Some TAs base on the website address (e.g., if you login from expedia.ch, you get the Swiss version) others use origin city. Usually you can tell from the currency the ticket is sold in; i.e., if it's sold in CHF, you're buying out of Switzerland, but this is not 100 % reliable.

Also entirely possible.

I usually book directly with an airline, unless I think that it is an error fare. I don't always use the same airline who issued the fare, mind you. Probably wouldn't try anything complex if the fare is restricted to LA ticket stock though; life is too short to speak with LA customer service.

American Express travel is quite good if you have a platinum or centurion card.

You could also try Propeller Travel who are supposed to be quite good at complex fares. danielbk may be able to do it; if not at least he'll tell you why. https://propellertravel.com/pro-travel-enq/ [Disclaimer: I've never used them.]

Base fares can be varied by sales city, but this seems to be unusual.

Availability is often varied by sales city; if you look at the European carriers they love to do this. The same BA flight is often J9 C9 in AMS, J9 C1 in LON, and J1 C0 in NYC. Who knows why. Other carriers may not think it is worth doing.

beyounged

Thanks for the reply, and I will PM you for more detailed discussion.

1. I have tried inputting different sales cities. the following cities all generated the same price on ITA: SEL, TYO, LON, SFO, MEX, FRA. SCL was the only city I tried which does not give me the tickets.

3. I did not know ExpertFlyer has that function! I thought those C3, N8 etc listed are always for US only.

4. Availability is wide open on ITA and GF for months to no end, maybe it is just that the fare was never wiped from the system when it expired?

5. I have read all published fares between SEL and SCL, as well as SCL and TYO, namely from the lowest published X fare all the way up to Y, including V, N, M.

6. Thought ITA automatically checks if it is a phantom fare once a few hours or so (like all those EF that lingers for a while after the fare is gone), but I have never tried to verify this assumption.

7. But even TA's cannot do it, that is where my questions kick in. Also, now when I use ITA with scripts, even a simple LON-NYC rt would error out on PL.

beyounged

- The problem with the sales city baffles me to no end. I tried LON as a sales city on ITA and it works, but the TA based in LON could not see availability on a few flights. He is also checking flights precisely one by one, so married segments should be no issue, unless he is trying to do it segment by segment (then he must not be really competent) since I told him LA has the "good" habit of marrying segments.

- I am pretty sure this is an EF, just not an explosive one that all the blogs jumped on. The 345USD additional fees stated in the fare rules are omitted when you depart from SEL, and also this fare seems to have ridiculous MPM (18k miles each way approximately) and no HIP check, so that is why I can go crazy on the routing. The only thing limiting you is your imagination ;P . Not many people have realized that and it has been going for months. I do not think offering up a 2.1cpm itinerary with 20+ segments to an LA agent will end up very well...

- I was in contact with the propeller travel person, and he is very insistent that I have to finish all segments, part of this deal is that you can route through SEL on the way back and go back to back with it, throwing away the SEL-TYO. TYO-SEL can get very expensive, so I will only book with them when I have exhausted all my options, and eat up the cost on TYO-SEL segments. I do not have AMEX, since my savings are all blown for MR's and never got to get a card with them.

Calchas

PM me your flights and I'll take a look.

I don't think so. I could be wrong, but I have seen a lot of fares, and the price and the rules seem reasonable enough to me. Not every good deal is a mistake.

Miscalculation of the YR/YQ doesn't make it an error fare. (I suppose you could argue that the whole ticket is mispriced, although we have no idea how YQ/YR logic works since it is proprietary---but either way, that doesn't make the fare itself a mistake.)

SEL-SCL great circle is 11,403 miles. There's no direct LA flight from South America to Asia; you're flying via Australia or North America. So I think this is not unreasonable.

A lot of carriers stopped doing HIP checks. You're right, it is not mentioned in the rules I can see. But unusual for ITA to make such a fundamental mistake.

LA is limited to sixteen segments. This is in common with most other carriers. More segments will require paper coupons, and those are not generally accepted any more. You are also limited to three stopovers (if we are looking at the same fare) which for many travellers is a show-stopper.

I would imagine LA has little experience with mileage runners and gamification of their products is probably low on their list of concerns.

Propeller lost their BA ticketing authority for a while over a number of people dropping segments, that is why they are nervous. Are you sure you can't book SEL-SCL-SEL for a similar price?

If we are talking about the same fare, it doesn't appear to be stock-restricted. One of the other carriers on your journey may be willing to issue the ticket.

If we're talking about LA SELSCL IEXEV00Q, it is not scheduled to expire.

psbaj

Good to know.. it´s not common in South America to see changes in availability based on the sales city, only changes at the base fare (Avianca in Colombia, for example).

Btw, I believe the fare beyounged is refering to is NLXSP30V for SEL-SCL and XLELE00B for SCL-TYO

beyounged

Oh I think you mistook the Biz deal with the econ one. I think a 175USD base fare that allows 3 stopovers and MPM of 18k miles with no YQ or YR just sounds very glitch-esque for me. What makes this ticket attractive is the SEL-SCL outbound missing the 345USD YQ, and the SCL-TYO inbound to have 1 free stopover and very low base fare. When you combine these two, while routing through Europe, you get very low total fares. Another point that attracts me is that it includes very farflung places that I would love to visit for free. I think LA has little experience with this type of mileage runs, as when I did the simpler (but still <3cpm) run in Dec, the agent does not even know what is happening when she handed me my 4 boarding passes. As psbaj mentioned, I am looking at NLXSP30V outbound, and XLELE00B, VLELE00B, etc, (in N class a few similar fares are available) for the inbound, not in I or C class. However, during preliminary research a few months back, I could mix cabins for I class inbound on LA and CX metal for sub 2.2k USD, but I gave up on that thought quickly as I knew it would be impossible to book.

I have also PM'ed you with some findings.

ChocolateFactory

@beyounged Care to share some details about the fare via PM?

beyounged

PM'ed you with a sample. but do not get excited just yet, this ticket may as well be impossible to get

B0gdan

Hey FTers,

Sorry if this is a bit off topic but I'm trying to see if there's anyway to get a higher booking class for flights on the dates in the screenshot, eventually some classes that can be upgraded via Miles&More. I can be flexible on the airlines and dates, just want to make sure I can maximize earning/benefits on this route before buying.
https://imgur.com/a/06X8J

LacMajeur

Lufthansa's desk at the airport is able to force any available booking class.
Price including ticketing fees will be 35€ or 40€ above ITA price.

serfty

Maybe this can help: How to specify the booking code on ITA