As you might have noticed I like giving things “pet-terms” (it makes it easier for me to remember things within vast amount of esoterica I review each day) A while back I waxed on about the “Northwest Airlines Crazy Ivan ‘K’” airfares and thought now would be an interesting time to highlight American Airlines version of these I call “Oh-No” airfares. I call them “Oh-No” because a) These great deal airfares show up for a brief time and just as quickly “Oh-No” they’re gone b) They are booked in the limited seat inventory “O” class. If you are flexible traveler and want to learn more about the super cheap airfare deals on American Airlines read on …

I have really never figured out why airlines toss out some super low-ball airfares from time to time, with very limited seating on limited days– but they do — and you can benefit from these deals if you are relatively flexible and can act quickly.

The only way to really track these is to sign up for FareCompare.com free airfare email alerts — because you would literally have to stumble upon them by accident — which happens only because of the massive number of travel quotes that occur each day.

Let me provide some boiled down insider background before I get to some concrete examples:

Each airline flight has seat inventory codes (denoted by a single letter A thru Z) where first, business and coach seats are booked.

These inventory codes have a hierarchy from cheapest to most expensive and airfares are tied to these inventory codes when you book (sometimes called booking codes) — this allows an airline when they quote airline ticket prices to “close” for example the cheapest 2 inventory codes which in-turn makes the cheapest airfare the 3rd cheapest that you can buy on that particular flight (now you know why groupings of different prices occur on a plane).

The airline has in place multi-million dollar systems to decided which which seats to “open”/”close” on a particular flight, date and time based on both historical knowledge and how well things are currently selling (along with dozens of other variables).

This chart from the American Airlines website shows their “cheapness” hierarchy of inventory codes:

So back to the “Oh-No” “O-class” Airfares

• these airfares are the cheapest of inventory codes (as noted in the hierarchy above — usually the most restricted)
• these airfares are not last minute weekenders, they are usually good on Tuesdays and Wednesdays but at times I have seen them on all days of the week
• American Airlines (in this case) uses them to either match other airlines who are playing similar shenanigans or are trying to poke another airlines in the ribs
• these airfares tend to be fleeting in nature.

What all this mumbo-jumbo means for you is super deals if you can act quickly and are flexible on travel days, take for example these “Oh-No” airfares earlier today:

Chicago to St. Louis (Oh-No Airfare) $88+ roundtrip

Chicago to Baltimore (Oh-No) Airfare: $118+ roundtrip:

You’ll only say “OH-NO” if you miss out on one of these beauties…