themicah

Looking at a EWR-MLI roundtrip 12/11 to 1/3.

Nwa.com wants to sell me $503 (Q-class "promo" fare both ways) tickets for those dates. Travelocity has some of the same flights for $263 + $5 fee.

Sometimes when I search repeatedly on nwa.com, however, it gives me the $263 (K outbound, T return) on one or two of the flights. Yet it still gives me $503 on most of the others that travelocity lists at $263+$5, and on some searches it shows all the flights at $503. I've never had this happen at nwa.com before.

Has anybody used the BFG successfully? If so, how long did it take for them to get back to you? If I book the $503 thing, and the fare bucket on a flight runs out before they review my claim (ITN is showing T1 on one of the flights), will NW refuse to give me the fare match? Should I only try it on flights that are showing T9K9 on ITN, just in case? Or will I have time to cancel the ticket altogether under Customer First in the event they refuse the price match?

Then again, it looks like I can get NW-metal CO codeshares to MLI on those dates for only a few dollars more than the net result of the BFG pricematch + the $50 ECV. The few extra dollars may be worth not messing with the hassles of the BFG.

Thoughts?

flyerCO

If you pick the flights by schedule NWA.com will price it out with the lower fare. If by price it comes back with the higher fare. I've had this problem a couple of times, recently. Looks like part of the problem is by price only wants to price out a one class fare. While by schedule gives you the ability to price it out into different classes for the return and outbound. (Q for all flights by price K out and T return for by schedule) As far as how to work the BFG with NW I've never had to do it so don't know how it work for them.

shedwannabe

Another Kevin Costner wannabe! Coming back to Iowa (or worse, western Illinois) for the holidays. You went to NYC to experience the big city university (?) and now you are seeking your roots? Don't flash your Gucci's here - the hogs won't be impressed!

..well, they were my thoughts upon reading your post......

themicah

Close, but not entirely correct. On 12/12 it was finding (some) $263 fares if I search by schedule (but none by price). But try 12/11 outbound, and even searching by schedule seems to pull up $503 on everything (at least sometimes). Meanwhile travelocity shows just about everything on that day for $263+$5.


Also close, but not entirely correct. The ticket is for my little sister, not me.

But you have me pretty well pegged. I love Iowa, and am definitely looking for ways to get back there eventually for more than a day or two at a time. Oh, to return to the land of nonpartisan districting, reasonably priced real estate, and short commutes! My mother grew up in Manhattan and survives just fine in Iowa. Now if I could just convince my fiancee...

But I digress.

themicah

I went ahead and did it.

Expedia and Travelocity both show $228.88 + $5 for 12/12-1/4, and those dates are cool with my sister. I couldn't get nwa.com to show it to me for less than $503 using search-by-price or search-by-price/schedule. So we booked it at $503 and submitted the BFG claim and we'll see what happens.

Right after we submitted the claim it sent us an automatic e-mail saying the claim would be reviewed and responded to within 24 hours. So if they reject the claim, I'll just cancel the itinerary under Customer First before midnight tomorrow night.

FlytheTail

I've encountered the same pricing problem today too. Yesterday, I could get flights from ORD/MDW to FLL for $190ish, and today the price has skyrocketed. Yet Expedia and Orbitz both continue to sell the same flights around $190.

I called NW and they said they are having a pricing problem when you choose search by price or search by price/schedule. If you pick the flights by schedule only, the "correct" fare, and the lower booking class, come up.

Note though that the flights that come up more expensive on nwa.com are booked in mixed fare buckets, some H, others Y. So, my guess is that the fare buckets for the flights that you booked on Expedia are not the same as the ones priced at nwa.com. If the fare codes don't match, then I don't think the Customer First policy applies.

flyerCO

On 12/11 I can price it out for $263 if going by schedule. By price still comes back with the ~$500 fare. I know the info I got last time I had this problem myself was that there reservations system was not showing the cheaper fare since it looked for one booking class. ie all Q,T,K,etc not K outbound and L return. Don't know if the is BS or not, but I was told they are looking into it.

broksonik

The only time I tried doing this, they got back to me within 90 minutes or so of me filing the claim. Unfotrunately, they rejected it, due to the fare class no longer being available on orbitz (it showed up in the search, but said it was filled when you actually clicked to book). I then cancelled the fare through Customers First, and re-booked to an alternative airport.

So your plan should work.

themicah

I don't think the buckets matter. From the BFG page: "Fares must be in the same cabin (First, World Business Class or Economy), and for the exact same flights that carry the same fare restrictions."

Y is fully refundable, so you can't pricematch a Y fare with a K fare, because the restrictions are different. But I don't think the Q fare nwa.com sold me has any different restrictions than the K/T fares it should have sold me (both are nonrefundable--nobody would choose to buy a Q fare rather than a K/T fare except maybe for some bucket-based promotion like milezilla or 123free).



A ha! I was searching by price/schedule, not plain ol' schedule. I never use plain ol' schedule now that the price/schedule option is there, but now that I look at it by schedule, it shows the correct price.

Well, it'll be interesting to see if they accept the price match or not. There's definitely still availability. The problem is apparently just some bug with their website. I guess worst-comes-to-worst I'll just have to cancel and rebook.

More to come...

dtremit

Hmm . . . if we started invoking the BFG on all fares like that, they'd probably fix the website fairly quickly!

themicah

I just checked My Info on nwa.com and the fare on the details page of the reservation is now $236.39. That's strange, since I asked for it to be price-matched at $228.88 (which was what travelocity, expedia, and later nwa.com search-by-schedule were all showing yesterday), and I still haven't gotten an e-mail responding to my BFG request.

Search-by-price now pulls up $236.39 (and travelocity is now $236+$5) so it looks like the fare went up since yesterday. I thought BFG was supposed to match same-day prices, not next-day prices.

Still waiting for that e-mail....

themicah

Just as I hit "submit reply" on my above post, the following arrived by e-mail:

Since they included the ECV, I think it may not be worth protesting the $7.51 fare increase from yesterday to today. Actually, it's almost definitely not worth my time.

So anyway, now we know the BFG can be used. If you're going to use it, however, I recommend (1) making sure that there's more than one seat available in your bucket so that it's still there when they review your claim, and (2) make the claim in the morning so they review it same-day and get the same fare (I think they got the $7.51 higher fare in this case because I submitted the request after 5pm and they didn't review it until this morning when the real fare had slightly increased).

Yaatri

That's not true at all. NWA.COM will routinely pick itineraries in which outbound and inbound are in different classes even when you select "by price". There is something else I have noticed. Sometimes nwa.com will show some itineraies in which the trip is oput togtehr by adding two fares. One leg in each dirction would be in a differnt class than the rest5 of them.

I susopect you can get cheaper fare on travelocity of expedia because they are using different inventory than NW.

Yaatri

How does one submiot the BFG claim? Did you send them a printout of travelocity itineraries?

themicah

In this case, it wasn't different inventory. nwa.com was just screwing up and pulling the wrong farecode on search-by-price and search-by-schedule/price. I think it has something to do with the fact that the Q fare it was pulling was a "promo" fare (designator PE500), which maybe tricked the search engine into thinking it was lower than the "regular" K/T fares.