Pricing differences

For one trip, I must go through a US travel agent (company policy). As discussed on another thread, I am considering doing something weird, i.e. adding a leg to fly the new B747-8. I therefore check the price on my own before asking the TA and got of USD 3’715 (lufthansa.com – checked yesterday and today and got the very same result). But the TA quoted me USD 5’825! Told them to check on lufthansa.com: they got a price over USD 7’000! And, yes, for the very same flights on the very same days.
In the past, IATA pricing was making this possible. But nowadays, I have to say I am quite astonished this is still possible!

The airlines seem to price business class fares bought in the US higher than those bought in Europe. You might ask the travel agent to call LH and explain they are buying the ticket for someone clearly not based in the US and see if that unlocks the lower fare. Regardless, I would have them call LH and ask why the fare is different. Good luck — I’m curious to hear the end result.

I think the term @Californian is referring to is Sales Inside Ticketing Inside (SITI). Many fares are restricted to only be sold within a territory and you need someone with market access to do this, like a local Travel Agent

Thanks, Senator.
Interestingly, the company’s policy forbids First class (it is a non for profit). So I have to have the ticket issued in business class before deciding on upgrading or not…
Routing would be:
GVA-FRA-IAD-ORD-ZRH-GVA

Thanks. This is what I was quoted for a one stop flight, not for the route above (2 stops on the outbound flight).

Peter,
I am not paying :-). They are. And we are talking about a non for profit having revenues over 200 mio dollars and assets, over 300 mio. This being said, not happy to see any form of overpayment on their back.

Some points are being missed here. Yield management/optimisation systems are extremely sophisticated and pricing for a journey is determined according to a number of continually changing parameters, above and beyond the obvious ‘supply and demand’. Very simplistically, and just looking at some of the parameters, the following factors apply. to the legacy/network carriers. LCCs operate somewhat differently.

The point of enquiry can be identified. This means that agent ‘A’ will see availability in a sub-class corresponding to the lowest fare, whereas agent ‘B’ won’t. Agents A and B might be in the same physical location. Therefore, making the same enquiry at the same time for the same itinerary can result in different fares.

If only one seat is available in a sub-class and the request is for >1, both seats will be sold in the higher sub-class, giving a higher fare per passenger than when the request is for one.

Fares for a journey AAA to BBB can be more than fares from AAA to BBB and on to CCC. Airlines will do this to promote a particular route.

The same agent making the same enquiry can get a different result just a few seconds apart due to the bid/offer process which is used to optimise yields.

Fares are calculated in NUCs (1NUC=1USD) and converted for local sale at fixed exchange rates. This can result in different selling fares where the origin/destination are reversed.

I think it was Willy Walsh who said ‘passengers are not meant to understand pricing, and if they do, we’ve got it wrong.’