maclover

Dear Ft'ers,
Merry Xmas and happy holidays to everybody!

Here is my question.
My parents have an upcoming flight tomorrow, MUC-JFK. Because I wanted to join them, I did some searches some days ago and the coach class seemed fully booked and only few Y seats were given as available, bringing fares to high prices...

Today, I had a look at the Carlson Wagonlit Travel ITN tool, and every single fare class seems to be fully available! Even the lowest W class has 7 (or more) available seats!

What's up with it? I did understand that some classes may be available as soon as someone decide to move is flight, but I Wonder why a flight is declared full and then suddendly the dau before departure evry single class seems to be available!

Here is the info about the flight:

Lufthansa German Flight: 410
Departs Munich (MUC)
December 26 3:15 pm
Arrives New York (JFK)
December 26 6:25 pm

Cabin class: F4 A4 C9 D9 Z9 Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q9 V9 W9 S9

Quite strange, don't you think? isn't it supposed to be a peak season time??? The plane hasn't been changed so I wonder if this ITN tool is to trust....
But on LH site it seems possible to book at the lowest fare available...

I endended up booking an AZ flight MXP-JFK on december 31, and the very same thing happened.
I was supposed to have booked the very last H fare last week, and checking this monday showed 0 availability in any single class and the flight wasn't bookable at all at the Alitalia website.
Today inventory freed up:

Alitalia Airlines Flight: 604
Departs Milan (MXP)
December 31 10:30 am
Arrives New York (JFK)
December 31 1:20 pm

Cabin class: J5 D3 I0 Y7 B7 M7 H7 K2 V0 T0 N0 S0 L0 O0 W0

Am I m issing something???
Thank you for your help and excuse me for my bas english but I'm not a native speaker

maclover

dmfriedman

This really isn't about a mileage run, so I'm going to move it over to TravelBuzz for a more general discussion on the topic of fare classes and how they're allocated.

Thanks,

Dave, a.k.a. dmfriedman
Moderator, Mileage Run

JerryFF

Many of the fare classes you list have restrictions, such as advance purchase requirements. Inventory management controls the number of seats in the lower fare classes until the advance purchase restrictions have passed. They then often release whatever available seats there are on the aircraft into all of these classes so that people who have purchased tickets previously and need to make changes can do so without paying an enormous upgrade charge.

If you try to book one of these less expensive classes a day or two before departure, you will often find you cannot do it because of these restrictions.