I am currently interested in an open-jaw flight IAD to Prague and return from Paris. One of the best fares and times I like is a KLM flight going/Air France returning. I know they are some partners now. However, on Expedia, there is a radically different price for the exact same flight if it is booked as a NWA flight, not KLM (the return is AF both times). I mean a difference between $1300 for NWA/AF versus KLM/AF at $1518. They are the exact same flights.

I see the same thing on an alternate flight that is RT on Air France with Delta codeshares both ways. Booked entirely under Air France's name it is $1433 and booked under Delta it is only $1293. I checked the AF price on both Expedia and airfrance.com and it is really that much higher. Again, these are the exact same flights (time and date) and are really AF flights.

IN the past, I always booked AF and they were usually a little cheaper than Delta, but not much (maybe $10-20). I prefer to book by the actual carrier whose flight it is, in case of problems, and I have an AF frequent flyer account. I also know NWA has had some financial/labor problems, and I think Delta is still in bankruptcy, also.

Can anyone explain how the price can be about $150-200 cheaper for the exact same flights when booked under the US airline's name? I just wonder how that is possible, and if there would be any perceived risk for booking the flight under NWA (or Delta) rather than the real airline. These are for July flights.

I don't keep up with airline business news to know if there is any possibility of either NWA or Delta ceasing operations by this August or not. If they did, would I lose the value of the ticket booked that way, but have no problem if booked by KLM/AF? I think they don't let you book KLM if you are in the US, though.

Thanks for any thoughts, I've just never seen this kind of huge price difference for the same flights.

First, both NW and DL will be flying in August. Unions of both airline have agreed to cuts in wages, and no other immediate threats.

As for price difference on the same flight but booking via different airlines - actually, its <b>extremely</b> common with most codeshares. But since NWA handles KLM's N. American reservations, prices on NW and KL are <b>usually</b>, but not necessarily, the same. But this time it's just not. So, prices being different is basically the rule, not the exception.

It all depends on fare codes on each airline. I don't know exactly how NW and KL's agreement works, but usually, Airline A will buy blocks of seats on Airline B and then resell them with its own flight number. Airline A and B should compete on the fares on this flight.

Actually, come to think of it, NW &amp; KL's fares are usually the same exactly because they have gotten very generous anti-trust excemption from US and the EU to &quot;fix their prices&quot;. The other codeshare partnerships in the world simply cannot do that.

And for your NW/KL situation, the benefits of booking under the two airline is not always entirely equal. For example, a KL flight number on KL metal will always earn 100% EQM on Continental's Onepass program. But a NW flight number on KL metal may not.

Certainly this isn't a definitive answer, but one reason I've encountered is that people may want frequent flyer benefits that are increased by booking under one carrier while flying on another's planes. For instance, American codeshares on Turkish flights from the US to Istanbul. If I book under the AA flight no., I get full credit (elite-qualifying) on my AA account. If I book under the TK flight no., I get less benefit. The AA price is higher. Assuming only AA FFers would voluntarily book under that no., I assume the premium price is due to the &quot;enhanced&quot; cost to AA of providing the benefits to me.

Also, codeshare airlines are allocated blocks of inventory on the actual carrier's planes, and when the cheapest of those seats is sold, what's left are the more expensive ones; while meanwhile the physical carrier's inventory may still have the cheaper seats available, so you'd see a higher price for the codeshare seat.

Or it just could be those d@mn monkeys with their typewriters (some of whom work for Alitalia, BTW - another Skyteam &quot;partner.&quot

I have FF with NW. When I fly to Italy I fly on a KLM plane.

According to USAToday there are potential problems with NW and the Unions etc. Go to www.usatoday.com/travel for today's news.

I noted a large difference in fares when I searched flying from PHL to Italy on Expedia. Depended whether the return was booked with Lufthansa or Air Dolomiti, even though it was the same plane (Lufthansa Cityline).

Anyone not familiar with the system would be bewildered.

Thanks for the comments, I wasn't aware of how the codeshare thing worked, exactly. I didn't realize one partner would be buying seats from the other for re-selling, I thought they both had access to the entire plane and same seats.

I don't care about the FF miles possibility, so it is really down to the price. That is a huge price difference ($218) and if you all think there is no danger of NWA not being a partner of KLM anymore or that ticket not being honored in July, guess I'll give it a try. I do like their schedule better than my alternative, and changing through AMS rather than CDG.

The odd thing is that in this case, it is the NWA which has the cheaper price, not KLM. So, if they have limited seats on that KLM flight, that surprises me. I thought it might have something to do with both Delta and NWA needing a large infusion of cash, and they were desperately trying to get it. Who knows -- I could check again, and the prices change, but if not, I guess I'll go with NWA.

Loveitaly, I was interested in reading that article, but that link just goes to the USAToday travel page and I couldn't see any particular article about NWA (nor did one turn up in a search). What was the date of the article? Maybe I'm just looking at it and missing it, but I don't see it.

So help me understand this a little more.

If American buys 30 seats on each Qantas flight and sells them for $2,000 and Qantas sells them for $1,600, and one month before the flight the American seats haven't sold, can American sell them back to Qantas, or do they reduce the price and sell them?

Is this kinda how it works? I'm just curious. How many seats do they usually buy?

I just found an article online by some business journal, I guess, on NWA's labor problems, etc. and it's dated just two days ago.

This article sure doesn't make it sound like everything is settled for now and everything has been agreed upon by the unions. In fact, it says the opposite, that there is something going on in court right this week and that there is some labor vote due and that baggage handlers rejected some offers.

oh, FYI this is the article

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...s/3868179.html

It says there is a current trial on the ability of NWA to violate its contracts, and the closing arguments are tomorrow, if I read it correctly.

Christina - The fact that you're flying on a KLM metal and not a NW one means you're extremely safe. Even if some NW employees go on strike and disrupt NW's operation, NWA is in no danger of totally collapsing (i.e. Chapter 7 bankruptcy), at least not that soon.

KL/AF is pretty strong financially, so the flights will go out.

oh, good, I'm glad you said that. I don't know about these things, and knew it was a KLM flight, but thought if NWA has some labor problems maybe that would affect me. So, you read my mind about my main worry. I didn't think they could cease to operate by August.

I think that price may have been bogus, though, as I can't reproduce it -- it was on itasoftware.com, I think, but I still like that schedule better so will keep trying.

One really weird thing I don't understand is why you can't book KLM flights on Air France's web site and vice versa. Like when I search for such flights on either website, they won't list the other name, even though I thought these companies had merged and are the same owners (more than a codeshare).

<b>wally</b>,

the partner airline does not actually buy the seats. It does have access to number of seats at agreed to price, but if the operating airline needs more seats it will pull the seats from the codeshare inventory. So unless the partner airline sells the seats before that happens, the seats are always available to the operating airline.

While AF and KL belongs the same company, they are still being run as seperate airlines. For the regular traveler, there's little change from before except for the merging of the FF programs to form Flying Blue.

NW/KL's anti-trust excemption also does not extend to AF. So, NW and AF are no closer now than before the merger.

well, as the ending of this story -- I never could reproduce those cheap fares very well I found on itasoftware.com. I found a very cheap fare on orbitz.com as an alternative, even including my middle flight I was going to book separately (Krakow to Paris), for only about $1350, which was United to Brussels, then Czech air to Prague and United from Paris. As usual, when trying to book it, Orbitz comes back and says ... oh, that isn't the real price, it's really $1500. What is it with Orbitz, what a scam.

The good news is I did book the flight I wanted, even with KLM and not NWA, for about the $1300, but on Expedia.

These online travel agencies are kind of strange, I don't understand them. I checked Travelocity which I have always used, and they won't even list either the NWA codeshare or the real KLM flight from IAD to PRG. They claim no such flight exists, both when I tried it as one flight (IAD-PRG, show all options) and when I checked it as two separate segments. I wonder if Travelocity won't list KLM/NWA flights or something.

I'll admit I have gotten real disenchanted with Travelocity since they revamped their website a year or two ago and haven't used them since. I even complained to them once in a similar situation when they refused to show flights that I knew existed and could book elsewhere. The claimed there was nothing wrong with their website and gave me some hoohah about how maybe I hit it at the one second it was reloading stuff or something. I know that's not the case as I've tried several times over the last day or two and it won't list that NWA/KLM flight under any number as a possibility. The flight even had about one-third empty seats. Well, I've never used Expedia before but imagine they are about the same quality.