4 ms·

The difference is a lot more, I usually see >100. But even for a cheap flight that was 138 jet blue basic, it's 60 for the middle tier and 110 extra for the ref

The difference is a lot more, I usually see >100. But even for a cheap flight that was 138 jet blue basic, it's 60 for the middle tier and 110 extra for the refundable.

scarface74 4y ago
The middle tier is the real price in my opinion. The only reason the basic tier is there is as upsell opportunity and meant to be punishing. I read somewhere that only 5% of seats sold on Delta are basic. I get it. It’s meant for people who are price sensitive. But aren’t those the ones who can least afford to lose money if something happens?
- jsjohnst 4y ago
  > I read somewhere that only 5% of seats sold on Delta are basic. I get it. It’s meant for people who are price sensitive. Anecdata, but I believe most “basic” tickets on the big US airlines were paid for by someone other than the flyer. If an individual themselves were price sensitive, they’d fly a budget airline like say Spirit more than likely.
- danaris 4y ago
  It's expensive to be poor—the good old "Vimes Boots Theory of economic unfairness".[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Also see: I always suggest young people with limited but stable income to buy newer cars with warranties. They can least afford unexpected repairs.
- smcin 4y ago
  Exactly. Basic Economy fares were created by airlines to artificially prevent them losing rankings against competitors (esp. LCCs) in the results box for OTEs like Google Flights, Kayak/Booking Holdings, Skyscanner/Trip.com. I've had a customer rep openly admit to me that they don't expect that anyone should ever actually fly this fare, and strongly discourage them for "satisfaction reasons". Yet another weaselly practice I found out the hard way recently was that some airlines rules (e.g. JetBlue) intentionally restrict it so that if one leg on a return ticket is Basic Economy, the other one must be too (even if it's priced $$ higher than plain Economy, as was in my case. It tooks me 2hrs of searches mysteriously failing when I tried to checkout ("Rule XXX does not allow this itinerary" and then it invalidates your entire flight search incl. seat assignments). Like the booking process couldn't simply tell you upfront. I called the support number and offered to show them a screenshot of the price difference and they didn't care. It was intentionally impossible to find the cheapest roundtrip price for my itinerary on their own website for any economy search, because their internal search engine typically shows the "cheapest economy fare" which will invariably tend to be basic economy for one segment; and of course this result is garbage if you have bags, which their engine doesn't even allow you specify. So you use a third-party OTE search engine.) It's amazing the number of opaque anti-consumer practices the US airline industry gets away with. The only legit use-case for a Basic Economy fare is a price-sensitive last-minute passenger who's 100% sure of their travel date(s)/one-way and has no luggage, or is willing to do without. Essentially what standby (or compassionate fares) used to be back in the 1990s, before the industry quietly killed those off.

The difference is a lot more, I usually see >100. But even for a cheap flight that was 138 jet blue basic, it's 60 for the middle tier and 110 extra for the refundable.

scarface74 4y ago

The middle tier is the real price in my opinion. The only reason the basic tier is there is as upsell opportunity and meant to be punishing. I read somewhere that only 5% of seats sold on Delta are basic. I get it. It’s meant for people who are price sensitive. But aren’t those the ones who can least afford to lose money if something happens?

jsjohnst 4y ago
> I read somewhere that only 5% of seats sold on Delta are basic. I get it. It’s meant for people who are price sensitive. Anecdata, but I believe most “basic” tickets on the big US airlines were paid for by someone other than the flyer. If an individual themselves were price sensitive, they’d fly a budget airline like say Spirit more than likely.
danaris 4y ago
It's expensive to be poor—the good old "Vimes Boots Theory of economic unfairness".[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
- scarface74 4y ago
  Also see: I always suggest young people with limited but stable income to buy newer cars with warranties. They can least afford unexpected repairs.
smcin 4y ago
Exactly. Basic Economy fares were created by airlines to artificially prevent them losing rankings against competitors (esp. LCCs) in the results box for OTEs like Google Flights, Kayak/Booking Holdings, Skyscanner/Trip.com. I've had a customer rep openly admit to me that they don't expect that anyone should ever actually fly this fare, and strongly discourage them for "satisfaction reasons". Yet another weaselly practice I found out the hard way recently was that some airlines rules (e.g. JetBlue) intentionally restrict it so that if one leg on a return ticket is Basic Economy, the other one must be too (even if it's priced $$ higher than plain Economy, as was in my case. It tooks me 2hrs of searches mysteriously failing when I tried to checkout ("Rule XXX does not allow this itinerary" and then it invalidates your entire flight search incl. seat assignments). Like the booking process couldn't simply tell you upfront. I called the support number and offered to show them a screenshot of the price difference and they didn't care. It was intentionally impossible to find the cheapest roundtrip price for my itinerary on their own website for any economy search, because their internal search engine typically shows the "cheapest economy fare" which will invariably tend to be basic economy for one segment; and of course this result is garbage if you have bags, which their engine doesn't even allow you specify. So you use a third-party OTE search engine.) It's amazing the number of opaque anti-consumer practices the US airline industry gets away with. The only legit use-case for a Basic Economy fare is a price-sensitive last-minute passenger who's 100% sure of their travel date(s)/one-way and has no luggage, or is willing to do without. Essentially what standby (or compassionate fares) used to be back in the 1990s, before the industry quietly killed those off.