Beware of booking two tickets on British Airways
 

I learned an expensive lesson last week. BA 's software will only book two tickets in the same class if you specify two passengers. That means if there is only one "deal" seat left and you try to book two seats, both seats will be booked in the more expensive fare class. Agents don't seem to be aware of this. Seems unfare to me and certainly doesn't meet the criteria of "best rates" on the BA site.

That's pretty much the deal with all legacy airlines ever since the beginning of GDSs. It's a failing of 50 year old software.

Same thing happens here at Air New Zealand, the trick is to book them seperately so at least one is at the cheap rate.

<<< That's pretty much the deal with all legacy airlines ever since the beginning of GDSs. It's a failing of 50 year old software. >>>

EVERY airline - including the low costs - does exactly the same, it's nothing to to with legacy airlines

I wasn't sure about the LCCs who have newer res systems than the legacies, so decided to CMA safely.

It's a good tip, regardless of the airline.

I often buy for 2, 3 or 4 pax, so this is good advice to check the price of a single ticket and see if 2 or more gets you the same price.

How can they claim that they're giving you their "best" fare? I had never encountered this before so I was surprised. The agent who I spoke to on the phone after I discovered my stupidity didn't know that was the policy.

It's really nothing to do with 'policy' - just the way the software works.

They are giving you the 'best fare' . . You are booking two seats on one reservation. The software looks for the best fare for 2 seats - and that is what you got.

Isn't a 'policy'.

The same would happen on every airline that I'm aware of - maybe not Southwest, not totally sure there.

To me, and probably to most travelers, "best fare" means the least amount of money to fly two people in a given class. It's a simple mathematical concept, having nothing to do with software. In the case of airline software the mathematical definition of smallest expenditure is not met since the smallest total expenditure for two people, if only one cheap fare remains, is to give one person the remaining available cheap fare and give the second person the next remaining cheapest fare. It appears that airline software is not designed to give minimum expenditure under these conditions. Looks like you define "best fare" not as minimum expenditure but as whatever airline software gives you.

"BA's software will only book two tickets in the same class if you specify two passengers."

I'm missing something here. Why would you book two tickets in the name of one passenger at all?

Jeff--sorry if I wasn't clear. Two of us are going on a trip so I bought two tickets in one transaction (different passenger names of course!). If you do online (or even phone booking) for two passengers in one transaction both tickets are forced to be in the same fare class, even if a cheaper fare class is available for one ticket.

"<i>If you do online . . . for two passengers in one transaction both tickets are forced to be in the same fare class, even if a cheaper fare class is available for one ticket.</i>"

yep - that's the way it works.

Look at it this way: if you were to book two passengers in the same record (transaction) with different prices, then they would most probably have different rules. And it is almost impossible to manage one record with two passengers where the rules are not the same for both.

Thus, different fares means different rules which means they cannot be booked together. The result is if you try to book more than one person in a record, all will be booked at the least common cost (think like a least common denominator).

So as you learned, always test fewer passengers in a record first. Or, easier, use something like Expert Flyer or Seat Counter to see how many seats may be available at the lowest fares and then proceed accordingly.

...or KVS, too, in that last sentence.

Least common denominator? Think maximum.

Least COMMON cost.

Marija: It's been explained every which way - you simply think BA cheated you and nothing we post will likely change your mind.

But they didn't - really

You got the 'best rate' for two booked together on one record. If you had booked each separately, the total may or may not have been different. But no way to know since you didn't do it that way.

Relax. I was unaware of this ticketing practice which may be disadvantageous to the customer. I thought I'd mention it in case it might help others when booking multiple tickets. The first response to the thread said "It's a failing of 50 year old software." That's what it is and airlines have no incentive to modify the software since the result is always to their advantage. Imagine going into a grocery store and being told that the price for two items is more than the price of the items individually and that the total cost is the "best price" because that's how the cash register works. Airlines rule.