Delta made some changes to its fare classes a few weeks ago. The changes were mostly around the names and branding, as nothing much changed in terms of functionality.
I did write a good amount about Delta’s end goal with these fare classes, which I expect will lead to the unbundling of the Delta One product eventually. That’s not even my annoyance with these changes though; it instead has to do with the booking process both on the app and website.
Let’s say I’m booking a flight to Seattle. I’m settled on booking a Main Cabin fare, and I’m comparing prices for each flight, based on the time of day.
Only when I select a flight I want is when I see the actual Main Cabin fare, as the Basic Economy fare is now the default listed price (I guess I have to start saying Delta Main and Delta Main Basic now?🥴). Ironically, the actual Delta Main fare is hidden within… Delta Main.
This makes it difficult to see all fares at a glance and compare prices from flight to flight, and it admittedly takes some time to get used to. American Airlines has been doing this for some time now, and unfortunately, Delta had to follow suit.
There really isn’t a benefit from a customer standpoint. The price just looks cheaper, and Delta basically slides in and says “Oh, you wanna select a seat? That’ll be $319 instead.”
I first noticed this back in mid-April when they seemed to be A/B testing, and I immediately expressed my displeasure. It was like I was booking on American.
This Reddit post from a few days ago touched on this same topic, which gave me a laugh:
There’s of course a way around this, which is to select Main Cabin as your minimum fare.
It’s just always something extra to keep in mind when booking. Again, there just isn’t a benefit from a customer’s point of view.
I wish they would give SkyMiles members a “booking preferences” option where we can select our default Main Cabin fare, but I imagine that’ll create some tech complexities at the same time. For now though, we’ll have to make our way around this by selecting our preferred minimum fare.
Why did you have to do this, Delta?
Featured image by the author.
