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

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I mentioned yesterday that a number of readers had been in touch about various BA pricing irregularities in recent weeks. Yesterday I showed how Avios redemptions in Economy were cheaper for inactive members of British Airways Executive Club.

The issue I am highlighting today is more serious. The BA app, at least in the iPhone version, changes the price of some flights based on the cabin you originally search for.

This does not happen with desktop searches – only with the app. It only seems to apply to flights to the USA.

World Traveller Plus

Put more simply …. if you search for World Traveller Plus, you will pay less if you originally search for World Traveller and not World Traveller Plus.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look.

You can replicate this yourself if you have an iPhone. My example is based around London to Los Angeles from 23rd to 30th November.

BA pricing for World Traveller Plus when I search originally for World Traveller

If I search for an Economy / World Traveller ticket, this is what I am shown. As usual with British Airways, you are shown the cabin you requested (in this case, Economy) plus the next two higher cabins where available.

The total price is £797:

BA pricing for World Traveller Plus when I search originally for World Traveller Plus

Let’s look at what happens if I decide in advance that I intend to fly World Traveller Plus and search for that. Note that these are exactly the same flights on the same day.

The total price is £941.02:

The price difference is exactly £144.

Why is this happening?

No idea. However, with BA, it is always best to follow the maxim of “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence”.

Here are a few thoughts:

  • This is not something that magically appeared yesterday. I was originally emailed about this over well over a week ago.
  • If you look at the fare breakdown, both show the same taxes of £486.02. The difference is entirely due to base fare changes (£311 vs £455).
  • Both tickets book into ‘T’ class, so this is not the cause of the difference
  • It doesn’t work for Business Class – the same price comes up (£1,653) irrespective of whether you search for World Traveller Plus or Club World
  • You cannot replicate this on desktop. The desktop price is £797.02, which implies that it is the app which is incorrectly pricing the World Traveller Plus ticket if you search directly for that cabin.
  • It only seems to apply to flights to the USA. Other destinations, even in North America, seem to price correctly in the app.
  • The price difference can be a lot wider than £144. Look at the same dates to New York JFK, taking the first flight of the day – the price gap is a whopping £304 (£656.02 vs £960.02).

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Comments (49)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Mike says:

    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:

      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:

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

  • John says:

    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:

      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:

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

  • Alan says:

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

  • Ben says:

    An up sell tactic?

  • David Cohen says:

    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:

      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:

        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:

          “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:

            +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:

          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:

            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:

    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.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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