The BA app is (accidentally?) overcharging for World Traveller Plus to the US

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• Mike says:

  12 Mar12 March 06:12

  This ‘quirk’ on the app has been there for years – to be honest I assumed it was deliberate and am more surprised that it’s not present on the website!

  • Mikeact says:

    12 Mar12 March 08:34

    I think you’re right. When I was looking last year ,on the Android app, using both my tablet and phone at the same time as a cross reference…I came up with this difference on the ATL route. I did nothing about, assuming it was just a one off error or booking class issue.

• NigelthePensioner says:

  12 Mar12 March 06:14

  Apple users are used to being ripped off aren’t they?? :- )))

• John says:

  12 Mar12 March 06:34

  Interesting. Don’t know why people would use the app to book flights. You can’t see enough information on a small screen.

  I have used the app to book flights twice – once on the tube at Hatton Cross when it was clear I would not make it to T5 in 5 minutes, and once at LCY when I missed a flight by one minute before getting on the trains to Heathrow, because it was too hard to get my laptop out.

  Normally I only use the app to look at prices when in bed. But I have noticed the price sometimes “drops” when I replicate the search on my computer.

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    12 Mar12 March 06:44

    Sounds like those two situations/ use cases are exactly the right ones for BA to get away with this to me! You’re booking, quickly and you already know the class you’re booking into if you select WTP (default is always WT so is a conscious effort to search first for WTP)

    Assuming most all bookings are on the hoof therefore no reason not to try it? And if you are searching economy, then revert to usual prices and look for the upsell

• Cheshire Pete says:

  12 Mar12 March 06:41

  From Manchester the difference is even Bigger! £593 versus £1070. Mmmmm, only £12 more than London base fare.

• Alan says:

  12 Mar12 March 06:55

  They know Apple users like things to be ‘reassuringly expensive’? 😉😂

• Ben says:

  12 Mar12 March 06:56

  An up sell tactic?

• David Cohen says:

  12 Mar12 March 07:06

  I suspect this could be DIF.

  The app when searching for WT gives you a WT+ fare, which is a DIF (basically the fare is made of WT and a supplement).

  When searching for WT+ it’s looking for a T fare basis, rather than the lowest in the WT+ cabin.

  I’m guessing there’s some poorly hard coded incorrect logic.

  • AJA says:

    12 Mar12 March 09:16

    I see what you’re saying, basically it’s an upselling technique. But isn’t T fare the lowest in WT+? Rob says both quotes are booking into T class.

    • David Cohen says:

      12 Mar12 March 09:22

      So replying to my own comment, you can see the same behaviour from Club World to First on the JFK route.

      When you book a DIF (Dual Inventory Fare), it checks for availability in two fare buckets. So a WT+ DIF fare will look for let’s say ‘N’ (economy) and ‘T’ (premium).

      The First DIF will look for availability in ‘I’ (business) and ‘A’ (first).

      I suspect the app is coded badly that it doesn’t do a best buy, it just looks for the cheapest T, E or W (or A, F) fares, rather than looking for the DIFs.

      For example, the fare OLX8C1P4 is actually a PE fare, despite having an ‘O’ fare designator, but still books into T.

      • Bagoly says:

        12 Mar12 March 09:36

        “For example, the fare OLX8C1P4 is actually a PE fare, despite having an ‘O’ fare designator, but still books into T.”
        I definitely get the impression that David Cohen knows what he is talking about, but I have not really understood it – particularly that there seem to be two fields called fare designator and booking class which are not the same but usually have the same values.

        Could we have a separate article explaining this?

        • Alex Sm says:

          12 Mar12 March 20:53

          +1 perhaps Rob & Rhys could do an “HfP university” article or a series for a quieter period like Easter to explain the basics of airline pricing, fare buckets and class letters, various inventories, GDSs, restrictions and sweet spots etc. Would be very useful reading which can be also recycled in the future. How does this sound?

      • Londonerr says:

        12 Mar12 March 10:05

        I booked one of these fares (during a BA sale – are they more likely to occur during a sale?) and then upgraded to Club using a GUF1. Fast forward to my return leg from Boston last year, when I tried to change it to come home earlier (owing to Covid!), the BA agent insisted I had an underlying economy fare (vs. WTP+) and said he could not rebook me into Club AND demanded a fare difference to rebook me. (a few calls to the GGL line ultimately resolved it).

        • Sam G says:

          12 Mar12 March 11:59

          These fares are a bit of a hack and do cause problems down the line – like we’re seeing here. They also don’t work with the “book and upgrade with Avios” tool on the website – you get a much more expensive offer (proper T or E or W fare). So you need to book a cash fare (on the website sounds like!) and then call in to upgrade.

          In the beginning it was then seemingly very painful for them to upgrade these fares but didn’t have a problem last couple of times.

• Ross Parker says:

  12 Mar12 March 07:07

  I wrote a piece on this practice (price discrimination by search type). It is fairly common. People who search economy are more price sensitive.

  It happens on hotel websites too. If you ask for a list to sort by price high to low, each individual price is sometimes higher than sorting low to high.

  Another implementation is on massive sites like Amazon: a gadget might appear at a higher price on a general page (all electronics), but if you view multiple options (say all fridges) you may find the same item for less – the logic being that you are investing more time in the search, thus you care more about price than speed, thus your time is worth less, this you need a better deal.

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