deelmakur

Death in the family. Had to go from Florida to Buffalo on a one day turn. No available seats northbound. Agent reminds me CP always gets a seat, but quotes nearly a thousand bucks, and says all F seat gone on most legs (I'm 24 hours out at this point). I call Delta. They offer me RT for under 500 bucks, and upgrade all segments (I'm Gold over there). If USAirways' business is so much better than Delta, how come Delta is in better (relatively) shape?

geo1005

Did you call back to see if US would match?

I was recently scheduled to attend a conference in Toronto (now cancelled due to SARS). Air Canada was offering a fare about $150 less than what US had on the web or thru the CP desk. I asked the CP agent if they could match the fare and bingo, they did. Perhaps in your case, the flights you wanted really were very full???

deelmakur

Sure did. No go. The originating segment out of Florida was heavy on all options. They said they were doing me a favor as a CP, by honoring the "we'll always have a seat for you" promise. That's true.They just don't mention that it is at top dollar, which by the way, is their right.
With Delta offering matching flight times at 600 bucks less (including the GM upgrade via "A" fare), the decision wasn't tough. The return flights I wanted on US were very lightly booked.Their apparent fixation with getting the money out of that first segment seemed to drive the transaction. As a practical matter, they'll have a no show or two, and could have taken me. Meantime, they probably won't get replacement revenue for the return seats. My few dollars will hardly dent their coffers, but if you project the philosophy across the whole system, they could be leaving a bunch of revenue on the table.Very often I find that a ticket price goes out of whack over one segment. In any other business, you would probably see some attention paid to overall impact on the total sale. Even Delta appears to do that. This outfit's pretty rigid.

shinbal

On a slight but related tangent: I also had a death in the family. Needed BWI-RSW, but was booking Monday for Thursday travel. The outbound flights were fine for a bereavement fare; the returns were not. Everything APF-TPA-DCA/BWI, or any other kakameme connection, was toast. RSW-CLT/PIT/PHL/DCA same story. OK, try the other coast. FLL was toast. One flight out of MIA had two seats, but we had to fly out of BWI and back into DCA because the CLT-BWI flight was gone.

We did the MIA itin, and my CTO forced the return seats to BWI, all at the bereavement fare of $478 vs. $850 3 day advance.

When we arrived at MIA Sat morning, the 737-400, already oversold, had been downgraded to a 300 (MIA-CLT) The FC agent told me they were even oversold in First and were looking for volunteers. The flight was oversold by 28 people.

We volunteered, but weren't needed. There
were 30 no-shows for the flight. The gate agent was incredulous. He thought for sure he'd need our seats in First as well as many from Y. Two seats remained open in Y as the doors closed.

BizJet

Delta is matching AirTran business class fares. These get ticketed in Delta's A bucket for discount First Class. Since you said you were ticketed by Delta into A, it sounds like you are taking advantage of their AirTran business class match.

deelmakur

You're probably right on the AirTran match, since they are in both markets, but when I ran Biz Class on AirTran, just to compare, it still priced 200 bucks over what I paid DL. "Shinster", your observaton on loads squares with what I have been seeing. The only thing I can think of (since the yield management sytem they have is pretty good) is that some of these seats are out to bulk sellers, who are returning them at the last minute. With all these re-fares and change fees out there, you just wouldn't have that many people no showing.